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

Work Done list

It's one thing to say, "God, I will do this, I will surrender, I will leave this, I will give this away.." and it's another thing to say to "God, I have done this, I surrendered this, I left this, and I have given this away."

There was someone who prayed this kind of prayer. Any guesses ??? When this thought first came to me, I said.."Yes I know! It's the Pharisee, he was the one who went around saying, I fast, I give.. blah blah.." (Luke 18). And I was waiting for a lesson from God on those lines.

But that was not the lesson and the person was not the Pharisee, it was Jesus. And Jesus said this to God. (John 17:4,6,8)

"I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.

"I have revealed you to those whom you gave me."

"I gave them the words you gave me."

When the world for which we work and slog for, expects measurable results,  Why can't the All powerful God expect the same too? God expects results from my life. That's the lesson I had to learn. 

We can't be fooling around with our good intentions alone. When it's all been said and done, we would have to give God the specifics. Well, that's what Jesus did. Are we working towards that too?

Somethings are easier said than done. It's our first big problem in trying to figure what we have to do, let alone trying to produce results. But I guess that's where relationship plays a role. A sense of purpose, and a clarity of destination does not happen from intelligence, experience or wisdom. It births from a thriving relationship with God. That's what Jesus had, and that's why He produced results. 

I'm not saying that God too looks at us based on our 'performance', NO, that's not true. God's love for us is unconditional and it's by Grace we have access to Him. Nevertheless, God prunes all His children, as a garderener prunes a vine. Watering and pruning till it grows into the sunshine. And he longs to see fruit in you and me. 

Have we given enough thought to this? Well, I haven't and I hope to seek God in this direction. To get closer to Him and produce results. So that I too can give a 'work done list' to God.

When my beat is about to stop, and when there's just few more moments to pass, I wish I can breathe these words to Him "I surrendered all, I surrendered all, All to Him, my precious Savior, I surrendered all."

Learning to produce,

Callie

Image Courtesy

http://www.trybpo.com/5-creative-ways-to-put-your-virtual-assistant-to-work/100834-134/

Why I CAN'T BELIEVE?

 
As I write this post, I'm surrounded with several friends. They're my only company in the nights. Just that, when they're around I need to rub my feet against each other, or clap or slap my hands from time to time. And yeah...I'm talking about mosquitoes.

I'm tired with the manual confrontation, so I resort to technology. I reach out to take the mosquito repellent and plug it to the socket. Flashing a small LED, it starts working and keeps the mosquitoes away. 

Summer has set in already, and it's beginning to get hot. Grabbing the AC remote, I switch it on.

The mosquito repellent needs just 5 watts of power, and the air conditioner requires almost close to 1000 watts of power. However, both of them are connected to the same power source. 

If the current supply gets cut off, both of them are not going to work. 

Our lives are quite the same too. But somethings makes us think that we need to be empowered by God only for the so called 'big' things in our life.  For the rest, we assume we can take care by ourselves. Little do we realize that small or big, we can do all things only by God who strengthens us.

We all face 'big' challenges in life, and at such times, we say …"Hey! NO way, I can't do that." If you're saying that, then ask yourself, "Was it really me, who did the other stuff in my life?" 

I have a chronic problem of faith-deficiency, and in each of those cross roads I remember this verse, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:13

This time, the word ‘everything’ spoke to me. 

Though I was working on having faith for the ‘big’ things in life, I failed to realize that the strength for every ‘small’ thing I do is also from Him. It’s the same Source.  The same power supply. My real problem was not my lack of faith, but my inability to be grateful.

If I had realized that the ‘so far’ in my life is God’s hand, and not my plan, it would be easy for me to believe Him for the 'hard' things. But somewhere in my heart I tend to think, that it’s all been because of me. It’s my effort, my brain, my work,  and my resources. Therefore, I define what is 'easy' and I define what is 'impossible to achieve'.

There are these really beautiful verses in Psalm 44.

“It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm bring them victory; it was your right hand, your arm and the light of your face. For you loved them.” - 3

And the poet goes on write

“I put no trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory; but you give us victory over our enemies, you put our adversaries to shame. In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever.” 6-8

When we boast of God for the small things, we can be sure He'd let us see the BIG things as well. But we boast of ourselves in the small things, and struggle to have faith to see destiny come to pass.

It'll be easy to trust God in big things, when we remember that the small things we do is also because of Him. 

When Thanks comes first, Faith comes easy.

Learning to be grateful,

Callie

Image Courtesy 
http://www.comicrelated.com/news/3230/dc-for-december-09

What the Spider taught me..

It's hard for me to romanticize the rain, see beauty in the beetle, be charmed by flowers, or be taken captive by the moon. But, I like catching cockroaches and pulling their legs off. Also, when I smash mosquitoes, I take a moment to see its tiny body covered in its own blood - or mine. If all this counts..then I'm a nature-admirer too.. :)

There was this big cobweb in the elevator with a fat spider enthroned right at the center of the web, waiting to catch it’s prey. Now, the spider web was really large. It was almost the size of both my palms placed beside each other. Right above my head, hung this really complex construction.

I don't know how a spider weaves a web, but I'm sure that it definitely is a tough piece of work. However, for the all powerful me (who knows nothing about spiders or weaving webs) it would only take a minute to dust away that intricate and complex structure.

Absorbed in the pleasure of its own work, I bet the spider never realized my power to destroy its weak and delicate web.

Studying, working, earning, saving, getting accepted, building houses, castles, dreams, getting married, raising kids..Whew! our life is complicated too, and just like the spider, we sit on the throne we've built for ourselves assuming that we are in full control. Our webs are intricately complex and exceedingly beautiful. But quite often we forget that our web which looks strong enough to hold us, is actually flimsy and temporal.

It seems like we’re in control of everything, until our life comes crashing down on us. That’s when we realize that we were NOT in control. No wonder people seek God when all is gone.

It’s true that we were created to work, labor, relate and build our lives. But, we shouldn’t forget that there is a God, all powerful, all knowing, and all seeing God who holds the real control. Whatever we do is subject to Him.

Whenever I go through a rough patch, I say to myself, “Hey…Don’t worry, God is in control.” But when I started to get increasingly obsessed about planning and building the details of my own life, the spider taught me. “Slow down.. Be careful..Do you remember that God is in Control? And NOT you.”

I don’t believe in a punishing, unjust or unfair God. Yet, there are times, when I realize that I better be careful that I don’t overindulge in self-love, overstep His commands, ignore His direction, or get too busy to spend time with Him. Thanks to Mr. Spider who reminded me this.

"There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the LORD. Proverbs 21:30"

Be thoughtful, Be Grateful. Remember He is in Control.

Learning to let go,

Callie

But when I pray - The Model - Part II

[Please click here to read the first part of this entry]

All our worlds are filled with many people who have several needs. A friend sinking in secret sin, a family in debt, a dysfunctional home, a threatening disease, an abusive spouse, unruly children. And the list is endless...

The voice of my friend still rings in my ear, she called up to chat about college, and with time she started opening up, "My dad has a severe heart condition, but he just won’t quit smoking and drinking, my mom and me are tired of crying and begging him to change. But he just won’t give it up. He blames my mom for his disappointments and says that alcohol makes him forget his bitter failures." She said this, and she began crying. "How can I change my father??"

Each one of us must have faced times such as this. When someone knocked our door for help, and we were helpless ourselves. Despite our incapacity, just like the guy in the story, we need to be determined to help. Times like this call for our knocking at Heaven's door. Rest assured that there is no lack there.

It is necessary that we look deeper inside the story to understand the point that Jesus was trying to make. It is not about God’s insensitivity to need, it is not that He is reluctant to help. But he desires to delay, in order to help us overcome our uncaring attitude. He longs to see us function in love. We won’t be persistent about something that we don’t care about. Our shameless pleading is an indication of our deep love for the other and unshakable confidence in His power. I believe that this is what God wants to achieve in our lives.

Intercession is not a ritual; it is not to help you score points with God. Rather, it is a spiritual exercise designed by God, to enlarge our love tank and our faith tank.

I have often thought that Christ’s death for me was the display of the highest form of love….until I found this verse.

Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Romans 8:34 (NIV)

Isn’t it amazing that Christ Jesus who suffered the worst form of humiliation on the cross, still persistently pleads for our cause?

When Jesus talks about shameless persistence, He expects us to imitate Him. Our perfect model for intercession…

Let us learn to love, before we learn to pray.

Callie

But when I pray - The Model - Part I

When I first heard the word intercession, it sounded like INTERMISSION. So I thought it's like having a break in the middle of a prayer. :)

Way back in college, I had a friend called Gayathri. She was our spokesperson. When we wanted to postpone tests and assignment submission deadlines; she was the one, bold enough to talk on our behalf to our staff (who were always ready to devour us!!!) ....Awesome girl!!

Intercession is just like that, talking to God on behalf of others.

Jesus tells us an interesting parable ^a relating to intercession, that goes like this.

There was a guy who was disturbed in the middle of a night by a hungry stranger. In Jewish culture, hospitality was very important. It was mandatory that the host must feed the traveler who has come to his house to spend the night. Unfortunately, he had no leftover food and nothing to offer this hungry traveler.

Nevertheless, determined to feed his guest; this guy went to his other friend in the village and knocked his door . "Don't bother me man", replied his friend. "It is really very late and I've locked the doors. I don't want to make a noise and wake my kids up. I'm sorry, I can't get up and give you anything."

But this guy is just so persistent. He is not ready to give up. He kept knocking shamelessly. Jesus wanted us to learn this guy's persistence. When we go to God on behalf of others, Jesus asks us to imitate this kind of unswerving attitude.

Catch up with the continuation... to get a hang of what this parable has got to do with intercession.

Scripture Reference
a Luke 11:5-8

Image Courtesy
http://www.siouxcityfirst.com/templates/System/details.asp?id=28062&PID=364397

The Friend of a Kind

Friendship is the least complicated relationship, a few hi's, a few lunchs together, a few conversations, answering a few "hey, can you help me out on this" calls and bang! you get a friend. With social networking today, I can be a friend to a friend's intersesting friend. All I have to do is to click a button.

Friendship comes with no strings attached, and makes you feel accepted outside your home. Good friends help us discover who we are and propel us into our destiny. But, the other kind of friends manipulate us and make us lose our identity.

Staying away from bad company is a lesson we've been hearing a lot. That's a choice; we can choose whom we wish to have as friends. But the other part of the lesson is not about a choice, but a challenge. A challenge --- to be a good friend.

Your friendship started off in a great note, probably you studied together, shopped together, helped at an orphanage, prayed and had fun together. All of a sudden, things are changing color in your friend's life. You are God fearing and so is your friend. Now, things are a little different, your friend begins to do things you don't appove of. You're not really sure, but very uncomfortable, what do you do ?

"A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends,.."

The interesting part of this verse follows..

"..even though he forsakes the fear of the Almighty." - Job 6:14

Now, that's a tough lesson. I interpret this Scripture as God illuminates it to me. Write to me, if you have your concerns.

Friendship calls for fierce loyalty. Maybe that's why Jesus called his disciples friends. And it is also striking that it was actually Job's friends who showed up to see Job at his point of distress. Of the many reasons existing, I think God was pretty mad at Job's friends, because they tried to enforce a 'spiritual opinion' on Job instead of genuinely trying to help him in his crisis.

We do that sometimes too. In our misdirected zeal, we sometimes say things that are of no use. We rebuke our friend by blowing our own trumpet of self righteousness. In moments like this, I think God wants us to work together with Him to help our friend out. Anyone can sympathize with someone in a difficult situation, but it takes a good friend to empathize. Others would write off our friend as someone in a hopeless situation, only we can go the extra mile and put ourself in the shoes of our hurting friend and help him or her out.

When people are in wrong, or in some kind of internal conflict, it is natural for them to get defensive. They generally get over-sensitive and tend to mistake even a casual remark, as something that is directed towards them. In this process, we could find them saying something mean and hurtful at us. But remember, you are a friend and not just good company. Right at the moment, you are her/his only confidant. If you're going to turn hostile, you're leaving behind your friend who is in desperate need of you (but ofcourse she will deny that she needs you).

Jesus said that the greatest love a person can show is to die for his friends. That's why He died for his friends when they were yet rebelling against Him. Similarly, genuine friendship sometimes calls for death of self respect. But that's the only way to show real love. The real test of friendship is not in the good times when we're doing stuff together, but when our minds are miles apart. The story of Jesus does not end with his death but in a glorious resurrection, because of the depth of his love. Even today, Jesus is able to win the hearts of many rebels (including me), because of that enduring love.

Never judge your friend, you have no idea what he/she is going through. Love your friend for who she/he is and not for what you want her/him to be. The journey would be long, you may sometimes feel lonely. But no relationship goes anywhere without effort to help each other in times of pain.

C'mon she needs you. Show her your devotion to your friendship and work with God in helping her walk in the light.

With love,
Callie...

Are you losing it right ?

One king never stood for God, the other king was blameless in his ways and followed God's ways that he even dedicated all the gold and silver vessels to the temple of God. Yet both had to face losses.

One king was looted and the other king suffered loss because he had to pay a huge bribe.

King Rehoboam had an idolatrous life and kingdom.In the fifth year of his reign all the huge treasures in his box was looted away by the Egyptian king Shishak.Rehoboam lost all the wealth of his treasury and assigned bronze shields to replace the stolen gold shields. He never really accomplished anything.His was a fruitless, empty reign.

1 Kings 14:26-27

²⁶ He carried off the treasures of the temple of the LORD and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made. ²⁷ So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace

King Asa' s life was very different.He put away the male cult prostitutes, removed the idols made by his predecessors Solomon, Rehoboam and Abijam.He even removed Maacah(his mother) from being the queen mother because she had an image made for the goddess Asherah.Asa's heart was blameless and followed the ways of the Lord.

But he too had to part away with all the wealth of his treasuries.He was put in a position where he had to give away all his gold and silver as a bribe to the king of Syria to lure him to severe ties with Asa's persistent troublemaker - king Baasha who captured the city of Ramah in Judah and deployed his troops there.Having received these expensive gifts,the king of Syria makes a treaty with Asa.Baasha seeing the threat posed by the armies of Syria, withdrew his forces from Ramah.

1 Kings 15:18,21-22

¹⁸ Asa then took all the silver and gold that was left in the treasuries of the LORD's temple and of his own palace. He entrusted it to his officials and sent them to Ben-Hadad son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, the king of Aram, who was ruling in Damascus.

²¹ When Baasha heard this, he stopped building Ramah and withdrew to Tirzah. ²² Then King Asa issued an order to all Judah—no one was exempt—and they carried away from Ramah the stones and timber Baasha had been using there. With them King Asa built up Geba in Benjamin, and also Mizpah.

King Asa reigned securely for 41 years and built the towns of Geba and Mizpah.

Children of God are sometimes led through losses. Financial losses, loss of relationships, loss of honor,loss of health,loss of dreams and sometimes you could even lose very dear and precious things to your heart that you once dedicated to God.

There are times that strike like it did for king Asa where we have to lose and let go of our prized possessions.

But if we are like Asa, passionate about God's commandments, following His ways never compromising with the world,and holding firm to God's Word then even things which seem like a huge loss would result as a blessing in disguise.God uses our losses to weaken our enemy and strengthen our hands to build higher grounds and scale higher peaks.

But there is a question that we need to ask ourselves and an evaluation that we need to make.

Have we placed God as our priority and given Him the rightful place in our lives that we can be 100% sure that He will compensate our loses ?

or like Rehoboam, we in our own compromising lives,have made many 'functional gods' for ourselves and allowed the devil to steal, kill and destroy and eat up our potential ?

And are we now living in a false sense of honor by making bronze shields for ourselves and living out of the nourishment of our own egos and arrogance?

Being a child of God does not guarantee you a no loss life.Sometimes you may see the same losses as everybody else,and sometimes even more.

I don't understand how God works but I do know that He works for good. Just remember if you are hidden in Christ, He has already covered up for you. He is a God of compensation.

But before we claim His promise we need to ask the Holy Spirit to confirm our condition. We need to make sure that we only have God in our altar and nobody or nothing else. We should allow the High Priest to evaluate our status and surrender to His voice when He convicts us.

We can then be sure that the Christ our Lord would lead us not just to build Geba and Mizpah but the Kingdom of God itself.

Are you losing it right ?