How to get Help?

"For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear;  I will help you." -Isaiah 41:13

‘Help’ is a beautiful word, studying its definition can give us some really good insights.

• Providing you with resources, strength and the means to accomplish the task.
• Rescue you when you are failing. 
•  To facilitate you to achieve easier.
•  To make things work for your advantage.

When I’m working on my pc, I get stuck in a problem, I ping my nerdy colleague on instant communicator, he asks me to share my desktop screen, give him control, and BAM he fixes it and says ‘done..Feels Relieved!

I talk to a friend, a well wisher, someone been in the same place before me, they hear, and they say, “Don’t be anxious, it’ll all be alright”. Feels Positive!

At the end of a day before unwinding to bed, I’m complaining, lamenting and articulating my fears to my husband. He listens to it all, and takes me in his reassuring arms. Feels Comforting!

While I am really grateful to each person who adds so much peace and happiness to my life, there are moments in life when I’m desperate for something More.

I need more than relief, positivity and comfort. I need specific help, I need varied help, I need physical help, I need emotional help, I need intellectual help, and so much more that I can’t realize at this point.

I need more that just a magic wand to dispel my problems, rather, I need Someone who will Empower me, Encourage me and Embrace me to go to the next level. And that is why we have a God who promises to take hold of our right hand and help you. 

Only the Help of God can come to us in all dimensions, and is completely enough to take care of everything. 

It is interesting to note the background in which this verse was written. In order to release the Jews from Babylonian captivity, God raises an unnamed conqueror who would capture Babylon and help give freedom to the Jews. God worked in the international political scene to bring favor on His people. 

God shapes world events and directs human affairs to help you. Can we receive a higher form of help?

 

You are probably sitting at your workstation, afraid of the tasks in front of you, or maybe hoping that folks at your workplace will recognize your potential. Maybe you are all set on a new venture, you want to climb up the stairs, you don’t see the whole staircase, and you are trembling in fear to take the first step of faith.

So many things you are afraid of, frustrated about, confused and worried. Not because you don’t have faith, there is a tinge of faith amidst all the fears; but you can’t seem to control the overpowering emotions raging against your heart.

If you are this, God says to you, For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear;  I will help you. 

God could have just said, “I will help you”, but He goes on to say, “I will take hold of your right hand..I will help you”. By saying this, I believe that He means that He is going to work with you, as a partner, hand in hand, in an alliance. 

Holding your hand is a sign that He wants to make a connection to you, the Help that we receive from our God is not like the impersonal donations we make to the hungry children in Somalia, we just make a donation, we don’t make a connection. Rather, God’s help in our life is realized by personal contact with the Creator himself. He connects with us and He contributes to us. 

As I write this, I’m dealing with a minor crisis in my own life. I’m at cross roads in my career and I’m nervous about my future. I keep looking at the past and looking at those around me; consequently I become even more fearful. That is why I took to meditate on this verse. So, what I write here is definitely for me as well.  

To receive God’s help, you have to let Him hold your hand. God will help you by connecting to you. So it is important to work on the things that help a seamless connection.

Stand by Faith

One thing that amazes God is Faith; let your faith defy logic. Do not entertain grumble and complain. A catalyst to make Faith grow is a heart of gratitude. Fill your heart with thanks, and see your life glow with faith.

 Hear from the Scripture

Read Read and Read God’s Word. Re-read, Memorize, Meditate, Write, and just saturate your mind with God’s Word. He will speak to you. (Period) 

Communicate through Prayer 

Don’t Talk to God like you fell out of heaven, don’t resort to empty confessions, don’t ask people to pray on your behalf, don’t run around to prayer-prophesy meetings. Just Talk to God, as you would talk to someone looking at your face and listening intently to your words. If you can’t articulate words to express your need, let the tears fall, He knows what they mean. “When I kneel in prayer and with You my Lord, I commune as friend with friend”. Let this be your prayer mantra.

I think that’s all we need to make a connection. Let Him hold your Hand and you will experience His Help, Don’t be afraid.

Waiting for His Help,

Callie

It’s all about starting again

Almost 2 years since I updated My Master’s Voice. 

With marriage and motherhood, it was a break I expected, but didn’t imagine that it would take so long. When there were needs, I did manage to do some random writing; however, nothing means so much to me that writing my heart out at My Master’s Voice.

Though I get very excited when people read my work and say that it helped them, I primarily write here to become a better person, because everything here comes from a conversation with my Master. I feel accountable for my words; I write-pray-read the Word-study the Word, then write again, and at the end of a piece, I have an answer to take to my heart, an instruction to follow, and a word to encourage. 

I missed all of this. Though I always had many other things that made me feel blessed, I always missed My Master’s Voice. 

My vocabulary has rusted, my flair with words is blunt, fellowship with God has become a part of routine, and what I’m really concerned is that I’m steadily losing my sense of hearing my Master’s Voice, so it is time, I stop waiting for motivation, or for other things that I think will give me the time to write, it is time to 

“ Write my answer plainly on tablets,
so that a runner can carry the correct message to others.”  [Paraphrased from Habakkuk 2:2 ]

I start again…

Starting again,

Callie

But when you pray - First Note

[This is the first post on my series "But when you pray". To catch a glimpse of the background of this series please read When I didn't pray. ]

Today morning I left home angrily after losing a verbal spat with my mom. Quite obviously I forgot my umbrella and raincoat. As I reached the ground floor, I saw the gray clouds floating above;"The clouds are always fooling around, it won't really rain", I told myself.

After boarding the bus and traveling close to 10 kilometers, I heard the the sound of rain pelting hard. The sound which would have otherwise been music to my ears, now alarmed danger. I need to walk for 15 minutes from the bus stop to my office, "OHMYGOSH, It's raining so hard.. I would reach office dripping wet now!"

I sat there staring at the rain, observing the dimensions of every drop. I twisted my head sideways-upwards to catch a glimpse of the obscure skies through the rain splattered windows. My brain did some probability calculations trying to figure out when the rain would stop. For once, I really wished that the bus would slow down and reach the destination a little late.

I eyed every person with an umbrella or raincoat enviously. For me, right now, they were the happiest people in the world.

And then I started talking to God, "Oh please...I'll change....but stop the rain now". But the Master had another lesson in store.

It struck me that a praying life is quite often like an umbrella we carry.

An umbrella can't stop the rain, but it sure can cover you through the storm.

The providence of God in times of pain reaches us through prayer. We receive His promise, build our faith and stay rooted in steadfast hope through prayer. We can't control the flood or the storm by praying but we can weave a water tight basket for ourselves and others to stop us from sinking.

I am yet to experience a prayer life that can influence the will of God (if it can). But prayer for sure, helps us experience His cover of Grace and love through all difficult paths. Praying for others is like holding a bigger umbrella, covering many who are unprotected and trembling in cold. And that is the power of intercession. Going that extra mile, to enlarge our umbrella , strengthen it and extend our boundaries so that we can drawi many hurting people inside the cover of God's love.

The Bible rightly says, "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." Ephesians 6:18. I like how it says "all occasions", because you never know when its going to rain. Sometimes we get busy and leave prayer behind, and then wonder why we're drenched in anxiety.

Don't ask me how prayer works. That's for each one to find it for themselves. But one thing is for sure, it works.

Don't be like me.
Carry your umbrella today,
Before you can go
Just stop and PRAY.

Callie

P.S I'm excited about how the Master started off this series, and waiting anxiously for the rest of the lessons I'm gonna learn. It would be awesome to learn together and pray together..share your lessons too.

Image Courtesy
http://img3.visualizeus.com

When I didn't pray

I was tired of sitting silent in prayer. I had lots to talk to God, when it concerned me. But when it was about others, I was rambling a senseless string of words and very soon I was finished. People who know me, will agree that I am a person of many words. I know it sounds odd, but I kind of use different people as targets to aim my words at.

My amma gets my words of fury and nonsense, my younger sister has no choice but to endure my boring 'insights' about life and my friends have to face my bland and predictable humour. Though prayer is about talking to God, I painfully realize that in prayer, my many words mean nothing.

It is the heart, the persistence, the faith and the desperation that connects to the heart of God. It's that crushed and broken spirit that can knock the doors of heaven. Intelligent words and graceful oration can make our prayer sound great, but God makes no sense out of it. This truth kept hitting me a lot and I was pushed to the point of frustration, when I scribbled these words..

Time is running
But I am not.
Haven't turned a soul to You.
The things I've been denied
Never hurt at all..
But it pricks real hard
When I think of those that I am due.
I wonder if it's my guilt
or..
the devil...
WHAT'S PARALAYSING ME ?
That I cannot move forward and heal the pain.
I'm longing for a future
That I have no hope to see
I'm longing to transform that life
That I don't know how to reach
Help me Lord
I don't know how to pray..
I don't know what to ask...
But I won't give up..

I guess God heard this and opened my eyes to some opportunities at church to commit a certain hour of prayer for intercession. I heard him tell me, "Baby, you ain't gonna learn to pray without actually praying! just like you can't learn swimming from a book..." So I have decided to dive in..

I am writing a series of posts on praying, these posts are retold versions of several teachings from books, sermons and studies.

I've titled the lessons to resonate Matthew 6:6 "But when you pray"

I write these posts hoping that it would help me practise prayer the way it should be. Hope you find them useful in your prayer walk too.

Still learning,
Callie

My Jericho called Time Management

(I deleted this post earlier, because I thought it was irrelevant to "My Master's Voice", but then daddy thought it was good so here it is again!!!)

Exams round the corner.The worst time of the year. The only time of the year when I get to see the wee hours of the morning and I wont deny that, it is during these times, there is a lot of strain on my prayer life and Bible reading too.

With a lot of work piled up ahead of me and loads and loads of stuff that I have to stuff into my brain.I resort to fast food for my spiritual diet. A quick prayer for "wisdom", and skimming up a few verses, at the end of this season , my inner person reduces to zero size.

So how do I break free and give to God what belongs to Him and give to Caesar his share as well?

The key is......Time Management

I read in a book , "Time management is Life Management", and I think that, that is completely true. I've missed on many opportunities for serving God because of my bad time management, and sometimes I feel I've given God Cain's offering when I do things in a haphazard manner in the nick of time.

So I decided to do some serious thinking.

Grrr!!! why on earth do I not have enough time?????

I followed the 80/20 rule, 80% of my time was being spent by 20% of the trivial things,and therefore I did not have quality time for the remaining things that really mattered the most in my life.

Pro..Pro...cras..tin..a..tion

When I am going through a bad phase..my dad always says, "you've eaten the live frog now...nothing else can be worse than this". I need to apply this philosophy while I am juggling time as well. When a set of tasks are presented before me, I should pick up the toughest one, and the one I hate the most to start with. Because if I am going to delay that, I will never set my hands on it.

Practice...Practice...Practice...

Old habits die hard, and good habits are born hard.Beware!!! time management is not an art that I can afford to miss. It is an absolute essential like food or water. The quality of my life will improve only if I put my heart and soul to practice it.

I just hope and pray that I'd manage time properly this time so that I'd do my exams really well, and also not miss out on hearing my Master's Voice!!

A random thought..

(This post was supposed to be here on August, but I started typing it in an angry fit of emotions, so I decided not to post it...things have cooled down and now when I read it..I think it is ok for it to be here..It has got nothing to do with the Master's voice..just a random thought!!)

There's one thing that no one would ever say "No thank you", is genuine encouragement. This is something that is really hard to get, especially when you're in desperate need for it. Sometimes you really need someone to say, "Go for it","You can do it", "I trust you man". Unfortunately, we hardly get to hear them.

Sometimes people don't really discourage us with negative comments, but when we adore someone and expect a word of encouragement from them and nothing comes from their mouth, that is very discouraging by itself.

Criticism is not discouragement and I beg to differ with anyone who thinks so, I love it when people criticize me, that's because I know that such people have taken the effort and gone the extra mile to analyse my work. My criticizers are those who know my potential and are not satisfied with all my achievements until I reach my limit.

I thank God for my father, my greatest critic. If my dad says it good, then I don't look for a second opinion. He's never really patted my back and said, "You're really good at this, wonderful work!!". Instead he says, "Its no surprise for me, but you still have a long way to go". This keeps me going. I remember the times I really messed up my life, my critic father was at that time the greatest motivator. He asked me to learn and move forward.

My sister on the other hand is a great encourager, many years younger to me but she sometimes she talks like a sage. I would have missed many opportunities  if she was not there by my side to tell me, "Stop thinking and just GO FOR IT"!!

What I want to convey through this post is this; there are some who don't say anything at all. Those in the 'silence ministry'. If there's anyone who've discouraged me, it was those who belong to this category.They really don't speak out and you spend half you're life wondering what they're thinking.Maybe I'm not matured enough to understand what their intentions are, but as of now I just feel that such people are the lazy ones. 

They are the ones who cannot inspire other lives either by their work, or their words. They don't really help build lives.They just linger around, snooping at others' work and wonder why they are not doing anything. 

I believe that an encourager builds others as well as fishes opportunities to edify himself. Just encourage a person around you, and the next time when you look at the person he'll show that big smile on his face that will make your day.You'll also become the confidant of the person. 

I don't know about you, but if someone trusts me and says that out, that's my greatest compliment.

My Promise

When I begin to write this post, I am as expectant as you, because I have no clue about what I am going to write.I don't intend to write a whiny post but forgive me if it turns into one.

I never really understood the influence my sinful nature had on my life until recently."I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate."[Romans 7:15]

I considered myself to be a born-again, Christian who reads the bible and prays fairly regularly, and tries hard to obey my Master voice in every situation. I always thought that my life was only influenced by the ways of the Master.

But recently when I was confronted with a few situations I realized how hard it was for me to actually obey the Master. I loved God and and all that but the unfortunate truth was that my sinful nature still had a dominion over me in certain areas of my life."For sin shall not be your master..."[Romans 6:13].This illumination made me really depressed and discouraged.

Everything I thought and did felt like hypocrisy, so I decided that I would abstain from writing and focus on other work until these things got sorted out.But the problem was that I couldn't concentrate on anything else until I wrote something. I was badly stuck!!

I am reading the book of Jeremiah, and there was something in here that I felt spoke of my concerns very well. "Perhaps he will be persuaded and deceived; then we will prevail against him, and we will get our revenge on him.[Jeremiah 20:10]"

This was exactly what I felt the devil was mocking at me.He wasn't trying any strong arm tactics, but there he was trying to deceive me into falling for his wooing persuasion."And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering."[Romans 8:23]

I thank my Master for giving me the insight to understand the schemes of the devil. But, now that I have realized the control that the flesh still has over my life, it has become a very shameful realization. After all these years of pure unconditional love from my Master, here I am struggling to overcome my flesh.

I am reading the book of Jeremiah now and this book truly communicates the Heart of my Master.God calls His children "the first fruits of His harvest","My children","My people","My minister","My house","My heritage","the dearly beloved of My life","My vineyard","My portion","My pleasant portion".

When I read each of these words, my heart aches within me. My Master, He is God of awesome power and highest honor, but there He is with His arms open wide with nothing but love. Can I ever love Him back with the love He loves me with?

Maybe I started this post on a whiny note, but I choose to not end it with one.Because...

"But the Lord is with me as a mighty and terrible One; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not overcome [me]. They will be utterly put to shame, for they will not deal wisely or prosper [in their schemes]; their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten." [Jeremiah 20:11]

But this whole episode will serve as a constant reminder though I am His child and have His love, my flesh is constantly at work in my life, and that I need to be cautious stand up and fight so that I can secure my love towards Him. I will overcome because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.Not only that... I have divine genes in me. Because He is holy, I will work towards becoming Holy and He will help me."Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loved us."[Romans 8:37]

I will not let my Lord down, because He never gave up on me. I will stand up for Him and resist every scheme of the evil one.

I will be His beloved daughter with whom He can share His heart..........Forever.

This is a promise I make to you Master because of the faith I have in your Grace!!

The Disobedient teacher

I'm in one of those particular bad-mood day today, for one reason things did not happen as I planned or the other could be some weird hormonal imbalance. I wanted to start writing ths entry without making this proclamation but my creative juice refuses to flow without blurting out the truth.I'm kinda famous for getting into mood swings, When I'm in one of those I care a least about what others think and I just misbehave like a spoilt kid.

While I retrospect my previous experiences I remember one very particular time where my Master taught me a valuable lesson.

I was heading to Scripture Class from my home, my sister and I usually walk our way to church which would take us about 10 minutes. We start by 10:50 so that we can reach by 11:00 which is when the second service of our church gets over. After this, scripture class begins.I happen to teach Grade 5 children and there are 10 children in my class.

This particular day, I started kinda late from home (i.e. around 11:00) which was purely my fault. My sister started walking with me, she had a bad cold that day and was walking really slowly. I am a kind who walks really really fast, my sister is a snail, to top that she had a bad cold that day, she was dead slow. The more she sneezed the more I got angry, I screamed at her for being disobedient and sneaking into the kitchen for chocolates from the fridge when others were asleep. I can tell you that she has a great appetite for chcolates, she can finish 5 bars of chocolates at a time.

I stopped at the middle of the road and shouted, "Just start walking back home, I don't want a fussy running nose to church".Well aware of her sister's unpredictable moods, she stayed silent and said, "I'll come, you walk ahead". But seeing that she was really slow behind me, I kept grumbling about her even more. That was when I heard the little voice of my Master in my heart "Callie.. you are just about to teach little children about Me, about My gentleness, about My patience, with this kind of temper, you cannot carry my Word to them, control your temper."

I argued with my Master, ignoring His gentle stir, and continued scolding my sister, when she could bear it no longer, she started crying and started walking fast irritatedly. My Master had to resort to Plan B.I walked a few steps and phew!! I hit a little rock and my slipper's strap ripped off!!! Bang!!, this time I felt the hand of my Master spanking me, my crying sister was many metres ahead me. I was dragging myself with the torn slipper really very slowly and crawled my way to the church. I was late by 5 minutes.

Throughout my ordeal under the scorching sun while I was inching my way to church, I didn't hear a voice from my Master instead I was telling Him, "Thank-you God for this lesson!! You love your little ones in Scripture Class very much, so you would'nt allow a disobedient teacher teaching them"."Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty."[Job 5:17]

After the opening prayer, this was the first story I narrated to them before I could tell them how Jesus healed the sick woman, and the daughter of Jairus.

I walked back home with a group of laughing children and a surprised sneezing sister, only that she was kind enough not to leave me behind as I could in no way walk in conformance with her speed now.