A personal Assessment of 2019

If you have to look back at 2019 and take stock of your greatest achievement or loss what would that look like? To know which will make its ways on the top in terms of all your greatest achievement can be a difficult exercise, and for some very personal too. The challenge to do an analysis like this is that for every individual the parameters and how they define their achievements and losses are sometimes relative and varied.

Generally, people count their ‘havings’ and ‘possessions’ as greatest achievements. Anything that has a monetary value gives people a temporary sense of satisfaction. In human standards people find meaning in life in what they possess. The more stuff they have, they more it possesses them. Young people consider the year to be successful and a year of fun by the amount of time they were able to hang around with friends, partying and making some money in the course of time.

Usually the understanding of achievements is confined to abundance. Abundance in things and material. Little do all know that what disorients people is not the scarcity but abundance. Nicholoas Taleb American essayist and scholar puts it beautifully “Abundance is harder for us to handle than scarcity.”. If you look around at the madness created in our nation, it is not from the people of the middle class or below poverty line, but from people who are tycoons and the famous making a mess in the country with their atrocities and deception. What does that say?

Leonard Woolf, the great British man of letters, husband of Virginia Woolf, the essayist, says, “It seems like I’ve done perfectly useless work for the last five to seven years.”. “Meaning is found in something you create, experience or change.” Or, “Meaning is found in something you do, someone you love, and something you hope for.”.

Relationship with God, I mean the personal relationship, is the greatest achievements because that transforms us to be a better person God intended us to be. May God help you to unfold the purpose of God in our lives. The Bible says “What does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet lose his life?”. Make your life worthy of living and spread kindness and humaneness everywhere and that can happen when you accept not His teaching alone but consider building a meaningful relationship. Wishing you a great year ahead.

You can follow us on Twitter

loneliness & Restlessness!

As human being we all happen to be lonely at some point of time. Especially, when our loved ones go far away from us, or in some cases when they leave the earth permanently. The other areas can include loss of job, broken friendship, broken marriage, altercations, comparing ourselves with someone who is materialistically sound and feeling miserable. This is particularly common among children and young people. Also, among the old in some cases.

History and other field of science go with the Biblical model of creation due to its compatibility. If you follow the story on the creation of the first man Adam it is recorded that God found man to be lonely and therefore, He found the need to create Eve. The woman was designed for companionship and to be a helper to man. God established family, put all of us in setting of a community in order keep us intact with each other. We are not created to operate from ourselves, and live within ourselves.

Today instead of Eve, the woman, man is finding "Steve", a man for himself and trying to replace woman. Does it give him a long-lasting happiness? Some may agree, yes it does, but do they truly know the reality? Happiness is not in finding something new and different. Man has continually tried to invent and find something new and glory on it.  And then, very soon the excitement extinguishes, he finds himself back to loneliness again. "Steve" has not made a difference in his life.

Materialism and temporary pleasures don't give permanent happiness. It does for a very very short time and then people start hunting for something else. The law of pleasure tells that each time one goes to find the illegitimate pleasure in wrong places he may have to go much deeper, but it is less satisfying. And then the aftermath effect is even more devastating because you become the victim of guilt and loneliness. 

Today most of the people are suffering with some serious guilt and feeling lonely and restless. And to get rid of the same they entangle themselves with wrong things as part of fun activities doing things publicly and most of the time privately.

The problem is personal and to do with person hood. Therefore, you and I need a personal God. Well I am not pointing to a season of Christmas or Santa Claus because that cannot save us from our loneliness too. Religion and festivals have less lasting effect on human being. It cannot deliver us and give us peace and internal happiness.

We need a savior and Christmas is all about relationship, forgiveness, humaneness, love and care. Would you consider finding lasting happiness for your soul and live a fulfilled life? The Bible records by saying, "I came that they may have life and life in abundance." God bless you and have a fulfilled life.

https://knowgod.com/en/fourlaws

You can follow us on Twitter

Handling Crucial communication!

When it is comes to communication, the biggest challenge for all of us is to know how we handle an important conversation with grace and maintain a cordial relationship. Sometimes we witness a conversation becoming shrewd, aggressive, deceptive and we wish if they were honest in what they just said. Most of the time we think the content of the message should be good, Not true completely. “Intent precedes content”, meaning when your intentions are right and mutually benefiting then for sure your conversation becomes pleasing.

How do we typically handle crucial conversation?

We can avoid them,

We can face and handle them poorly,

We can face them and handle them well.

Have you noticed when it matters most, we do our worst, that is because our emotions don’t exactly prepare us to converse effectively? We are our worst enemies—and we don’t realize it.

First focus on what we really want?

Anytime a conversation turns to be selfish then for sure the disagreement level gets higher resulting to contempt. “When we are not prepared for a healthy communication we move to a silence or violence mode"

What do we mean?

Silence

Masking: consists of understanding or selectively showing our true opinions. Example Sarcasm and couching

Avoiding:  involves steering completely away from sensitive subjects.

Withdrawing: means pulling out of a conversation altogether

Violence

Controlling: where we use all power to control the conversation and turn it to our favor.

Labeling: when we label a person with a negative remark in order to show us superior or turn things to our favor.

Attacking: When all effort is taken to attack with words in order to win the situation and get the person out of the track.

The quality of your communication depends upon the state of your heart and that again depends upon your relationship with God and with people. Thomas Merton puts it beautifully, “We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God”. Let us be conscious to be graceful yet assertive.”. Bring positivity and healing through your communication

You can follow us on Twitter

True Freedom

Some people think freedom is the right to do whatever they want. They have the right to say whatever they think, do whatever they feel like doing, mutilate their bodies however they desire, allow into their minds whatever they find entertaining, and go wherever they think they will have a good time. The news of shocking rapes, murder, embezzlement is continuously making the headlines in our nation and worldwide. It is sad to know how the freedom is misused and misinterpreted.

Freedom means something different. It is the ability to say 'no' when 'yes' is easier and more convenient. If you do not have the power to say 'no' and to follow through with the corresponding action, you are not free but bound. Being able to say 'no' to wrong and inappropriate things means you can say 'yes' to right and appropriate things. This is freedom. People who are bound are stuck doing the wrong things when they want to do right.

Let’s not forget that we have a soul and a spirit governed by spiritual laws and not natural ones. If you cannot say 'no' to an emotion, relationship, behavior, or the like, you are not free but bound. The Bible talks about the struggle of mankind in this way, “For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. . . . For I know that nothing good dwells in me . . . for the willing [to live right] is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.”.

Anyone who has been trapped in a cycle of unwanted behavior can identify with this passage. We dismiss our errant tendencies by saying, “I’m only human,” as if being human means we cannot overcome our weaknesses. You are created in the image and likeness of God. He did not create you to go through life flawed but fabulous. Ask God for help to give you the freedom to say “no” to evil and influence people to do good.

You can follow us on Twitter

Making a living or making a life?

Do you know you are richer than 93% of people? Not in money but in time. Now study shows that 108 billion people have lived throughout history. 93% of them are dead. You have what every king and queen, every pharaoh and ruler every CEO and celebrity of the past would give all their wealth for: Today

The question is how you wish to spend your time today? How are you planning to build your life today? Winston Churchill puts this in his words, “We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give.”. In other words, are you willing to consciously influence people whom you would meet and leave a positive impression? Or you are among the group who confess, “I am too busy for myself and I don’t intend to think in those lines". Actually, this is not true completely. We all leave either a positive or negative influence consciously or unconsciously.

“Sociologist, Tim Elmore tell us, that even the most introverted individual will influence 10,000 people in his/her life time”.  Since this is a proven fact, don’t you think it will be better if we try to leave a positive impression consciously than leaving a negative impression in abundance. You cannot be selective in your operation. The effect of impact we create or leave with others outside would have an effect in our homes too. Gandhiji rightly said, “One man cannot do right in one department of life, whilst he is doing wrong in any other department. Life is indivisible whole.”.

The Bible records the words of Jesus, and it goes like this, “A good tree can’t produce bad fruit; neither can a bad tree produce good fruit.”. To bear good fruit you need to be rooted in the source of a good God who is not only right when you are right but right even when you are wrong, and more importantly He has the capacity to transform you to be a good person who spreads the goodness to others at large. Connect with this divine source and be transformed to be a person who gives life to others.

You can follow us on Twitter

Soften your heart!

John Ruskin, Philosopher and Author pens down these lines beautifully, “He is only advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, his blood warmer, his brain quicker and his spirit entering into living peace”. If you had to check with people who are in sales and in management field to know what they would value the most, and they will tell you it is none other than ‘Relationship’ that's on top of their list.

Undoubtedly "Relationship" is the game changer. Therefore, even if people have to fake it, they still want to consciously try building relationship because they know, without the same they are going to be left behind. And mind, to have a better relationship your heart needs to be softened and it demands to be caring and loving in nature. Now, let me emphasize on this, these words are not used to add flavor and paint a rosy picture. Definitely not!

Let me come back to the salesman I pointed out earlier as an example. He continuously thinks in terms of his relationship with the other person in order to make his survival better. And this is what he would ideally think:

How can I make it better?

How can I serve them?

How can I show my commitment to them?

How can I make them happier?

Let me point this, these are not just emotions pertaining to a particular religion. We all make a better family, better team, better organization only when we believe and practice to be softer, be gentle and be a better human. In the Bible the core value is “Love” and it says “God is love”. Only when you connect to a loving God you will be able to connect to people lovingly, build better relationships not only to make a good business but to make a good family, community and society.

Family is not a business but yet we tend to be kinder, softer and use relationship as a key. These emotions are ingrained in our heart because these are the key emotions that fetches you peace and tranquility. We may definitely not find such in our positions nor in the accumulation of what we try to hoard in our homes. Some of the final words of Jesus recorded in Bible was, “Peace I leave, my peace I give unto you, not as the world gives unto you.”.

You can follow us on Twitter

Where Human strength ends, God’s supernatural grace begins.

Grace is the ability given by God to do what we cannot do, and be what we cannot be with our own limited strengths. We fail to admit most of the time that as human beings we are limited in our strength and in our capacity. Does this mean God has forced limitation in mankind in order to force you to worship him and show his praise? Definitely not!

Why should He, if he is God? In fact, we need supernatural grace at all times. But sadly, we use God like the airman having a parachute but wishes that he will never use it. If you think you can do everything on your own that you have wisdom and the skills, then you will never receive the supernatural grace. It only comes when you humble yourself and recognize that you can’t move mountains that rise before you.

When we act without the grace of God, we are operating under natural laws, trying to do things by relying on your own strengths, and consequently doing evil. Looking for God’s strength is not confined to rites and rituals. It depends on seeking the true God and asking Him to transform us and lead us.

If we recall our school days prayers and one of it was “Our father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done..”. As it continues it has lines seeking for His help by articulating, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from all evil”. A deliberate seeking of God for divine help to keep us from doing wrong and helping us to become “human” in true sense. You need God not to survive but to become a good human being and then build a relationship with God. May God help you to become a person who will be congenial in his relationship and stay blessed.

You can follow us on Twitter

Human Significance!

We are all aware of the fact that every thing we come in contact with, serves a purpose. Newer things are created and designed each day probably to increase the efficiency and benefit us to the maximum. The same is true when it comes to human lives. We train ourselves in a particular skill and competency to perform a specific job that may help us in our survival. But then, what are we known for as a person?

It is a known fact that the Lion, the king of the jungle is known for never feeding on a dead carcass. It is only known to hunt a live animal and tear the flesh with its fangs. The eagle too is known for soaring 10, 000 feet above sea level. And the eagle (especially bald eagle) is known to mate and remain with that same partner all its life.

What are you known for? What are your convictions? What are your beliefs? What are you known for that will determine your impact in life? And that has a larger impact on your belief system on God.

This example is stated by Paul Enenche, MD, which makes so much of sense. “When you are flying in an airplane and you look down from the window you will see the river crooked. Do you know why? It is because it wants to take the path of least resistance. So, it gives this way and that; always shifting direction. If you are not a person of conviction, your life will be crooked.”. Your conviction is primarily sourced from a God who adds value to mankind and impacts harmony and peace and not confusion at all cost.

A man with a strong conviction makes up his mind on what to do, and once he is convinced that it is the right thing to do, he does not change his mind about it, even if he gets hurt doing it. The Bible poses a question in a passage this way, “Who shall dwell with God? “He that walketh uprightly, and practices righteousness, speaking the truth from sincere heart, who keeps his word whatever the cost.”.

May we be known for living a just life, impact love, influence peace and promote brotherhood.

You can follow us on Twitter

Dealing with emotions!

Your mood is not your life. Your mood is a feeling. It can be temporary and fleeting. It can be birthed by mind picture, a conversation, a person or a momentary fault. Conversation activates memories and memories birth feelings. Emotions are supposed to be the indicators of reality not fabricated or framework of reality.

Greeks translate the human personality as Intellect, Emotions and Will. Emotions is key in coming to God, Feeling and fact has to go together. You cannot worship God without Emotions. The Bible cites a passage on emotional connectivity about Love. It goes like this, “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”.

It is very deceiving to confuse your present mood swing with the actual quality of life. Sometimes a temporary fleeting moment may look to be a very good thing creating an escape from the drudgery, distress or disastrous circumstances in marriage or life, but may actually be in utter contradiction to the expectations and standards of God. These moments are glimpses of possibility but may not be the actual reality itself. If your life is miserable and you experience a fleeting moment of joy and happiness, examine it and find out the possibilities to make it better, provided the options are confined to a moral and ethical boundary.

Let me exhort you to approach God who is able to transform you and deliver true peace and joy beyond your feeling level. The Bible says, ‘Come all those who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.’. We all need rest, peace and joy at all times and it can really make sense if that comes without violating the rights of others and God.

You can follow us on Twitter

Self confidence or God confidence

Self-confidence comes with the definition of being self-assured in our own personal judgment, ability, power and qualities. Sure, self-confidence is something that every individual needs it, and it allows us to interact within communities. But sometimes, we can be relying on our self too much. I challenge you to look at your daily thoughts and emotions. When you find yourself getting frustrated, look at why you are feeling that way. Is it because you are thinking only about yourself?

If we recollect, during the childhood phase we depend on our parents for almost everything and learn to comply and adjust to the family framework. Of course, the sense of belongingness is high in this phase. But if we remember, there were times as children we stretched a bit more for our personal privileges and self-gratification.

Well! How do we take this, if our children want to use us the same way? Don’t we feel violated and sabotaged? Let us not forget God has nothing to owe us, it is the other way around. And most importantly let us always be reminded that God has tied Purpose to our life and that comes with boundaries too.

The way of this world is to discover our own strength.  Self-confident people are praised as role models for others to follow.  Yes, God has created us with unique gifts, talents, abilities, interests and desires.  We have a uniqueness the world needs.  We need to discover our uniqueness and live boldly in who we are.

However, our true uniqueness as a created being can only be truly discovered in communion with our Creator. Our God-given strength can only be revealed in relationship with God, as we surrender our self to Him the Savior, our shift from depending on our own strength to His; our own wisdom to His; our own resources to His.

Therefore, let us not dare to challenge God? We will be disappointed. Let us cultivate confidence in God not merely for our personal advantage but because He is almighty and the creator of the world. He wishes to give that which will bring peace and abundant joy to us.

You can follow us on Twitter

Doing wrong is not wrong, but getting caught is- What's your view?

What do you think is the difference between a person behind bars and the one who lives free? It can just mean (most of the time) that the one who is free hasn't got caught yet. Someone defined ‘experience’ this way, ‘the act of doing things in a way that he or she does not get caught’. If you notice most of the hardcore criminals manage to walk free using power, money, religion, politics and so on.

Another interesting thing to observe is that some of these things may be perpetrated by the government itself to promote divide and rule policy. Still it cannot be justified. “Errors do not cease to be errors simply because they’re ratified into law.” ― E.A. Bucchianeri.

Today most of us hold on to this philosophy, ‘Doing wrong is not wrong, but getting caught is wrong’. Leo Tolstoy puts it this way, “Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”. The power of majority is another thing that is used for justifying the evil and atrocities. In the words of St Augustine, “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.”.

So, how do we differentiate what is wrong and right? Definitely not on the philosophy that says, it is just different so therefore it can’t be wrong. You cannot celebrate on a thing which is different when it is evil because one day it will turn around to bite you for sure. Such philosophies are impressive only if personally we and our children are not affected. But that does sounds selfish, doesn’t it?

In Bible it says ‘the truth shall set you free’ and it helps us to reach to Him to experience the freedom from evil and things that are wrong. This is only possible when you experience His grace and mercy to live a life that can add value and blessing to the family and to the community. Today, some religions give rights to people to make war and obliterate life. How do we convince ourselves to justify such wrongs? The Supreme power is love, and therefore the Bible keeps talking about love all through its scriptures. If you hold on to the love of God, you would automatically let hold of the grasp to do or support things that are wrong. 

You can follow us on Twitter

Greater Love!

If you were in pain, which friend (or friends) would you want by your side? Why?

Which friend would you definitely not want around when you’re in pain? Why?

I thought this is so important and talks about the importance of having someone whom we can trust upon and count upon. We live in a world where every other thing we do confines and falls under a business transactions bracket, which includes our relationships too. We want ROI (Return of investment) for all that we do. There is always a selfish hidden unsaid agenda that keeps running in our minds.

Shiv Khera in his book “You can win” states that there are these two types of friendship.

1.    Friendship of pleasure 2. Friendship of convenience.

In Friendship of Pleasure we choose friends who can engage with us for fun, having a good time together, sometimes regularly or sometimes at fixed intervals. Again, this is conditioned on how each person is willing to spend the money. But when we notice the other persons spending capacity is going bad we don’t want to keep him/her close anymore.

The second type, ‘Friendship of convenience’ is conditioned to these three factors, ‘Proximity’: We want friends who are convenient to socialize, even for that matter our helping them in time of crisis is sometimes affected by proximity. And then the second category is ‘Usefulness’. We do not want to lose friends who are resourceful and well-connected. As long as we are benefited, we have a great attitude about them but the moment same friends are not much useful we don’t want them anymore. We have all the demands and we want our friends to comply and still keep helping us in spite of all our changing moods. Sadly, this applies to majority. Basically, selfishness and self-centeredness rule our heart. The third category is ‘Common enemy’. We come to know a particular friend, though you don’t like him/her but the same person does not like the person you don't like, we tend to patch up and become friends.

How true it is, isn’t it? The Bible always talks about the message of love. Love your God with all heart and love others as yourself. And it defines friend by these words, ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friend’. Jesus demonstrated his love and expects that we demonstrate too for each other and spread love and harmony to build a remarkable community.

You can follow us on Twitter

Is "More" the "New" life mantra?

We are in this mad urge of getting rich. We are oblivious to the fact that we are already rich the way God has created us. The truth is we are rich no matter where we stand on the economy scale. That’s not the case everywhere. And it certainly hasn’t been the case throughout history. What’s more, there are households of three, four, or more people where there is a single earning member. And with that one person’s earnings, the entire family can amass sufficient money for food and shelter for the entire family throughout the month. In many cultures, that’s inconceivable and for most people it's a luxury. In another side of the world majority of the family members, which sometimes includes children, are also forced to work, yet lack basic needs.

When you’re hungry and thirsty, "more" simply means food and water. That’s certainly understandable. But once you are to fed and hydrated, more graduates to basic safety and security. Let me emphasize “There are some things money can’t buy.” It can neither buy the priceless things in life nor can it buy hope. There’s no amount of money that can guarantee you hope in any or all circumstances.

 And that tells us that God has designed the creation model this way so that we all understand that materials and commodities cannot replace the needs of our heart. The wisest king Solomon goes on to paint a rather grim picture of what can happen when our hope migrates. In fact, the writer concludes that he would rather not be rich so as to avoid this threat. He says, “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord God?’.

Money in almost all the countries are losing its value and worth. Banks are no more a safe option.  How are we going to face a situation like this? It's a clarion call for us to humbly acknowledge that God who is the creator does not become powerless because of the mess we humans have created. We can still reach out to Him and be sheltered under His divine protection. God in the Bible states, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.".

You can follow us on Twitter

when words are pitifully assassinated!

Finally, we are in the age where the choice of words is replaced by choice of symbols and smileys. We don’t find the necessity to respect each other with words and with proper, apt communication. The wise king Solomon in the book of proverbs beautifully portrays the art of communication this way - “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”. Can you for a moment imagine the decorum he paints when he talks about the choice of words spoken aptly? Apples of gold in silver plate - That is so impressive.

Let me take you to the creation story. You will hear the creation story in various versions. The popular ones are Darwin's theory, Big Bang theory and the mythologies. All fields of science, archaeology, quantum physics and other important branches of study have made enough research and found to be compatible with the story of the Bible which says, God created the heaven and the earth by His wisdom, power and most importantly with His words, and therefore in the Bible it says, “In the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God.”.

Sadly, in our times, we devalue words with hideous symbols and smileys. You write a big paragraph respecting the person and extending your support and adding value to the task and then you get a ‘thumps up’ or ‘clap symbol’, etc. Do people even think that it dishonors the art of communication and diminishes the courtesy code? People have developed the technique to evade people with such symbols and smileys. Moreover, who cares what others think about them. All they assume about is their existence on this earth by some means and the nearest philosophy they want to identify themselves with is, “survival of the fittest.”.

There is a dire need to once again teach adults the civility code, like using ‘thank you’, ‘sorry’, etc. Let us learn to communicate with respect and use words as an art of communication. Mind, the words themselves have not died whereas it is our values, ethics and morality that are assassinated each day in our hands.
Humorous Video

You can follow us on Twitter

How isolate are we today?

Do you realize people are so isolated from one another? Each person desires to develop his own greatest potential. This can be seen in all areas of life. Technology separates people rather than bringing them together. Our status, creed, religion and position not only separate us, but increases the animosity and gives the reason to look down at each other. Never before like this few years people are becoming more and more victim of hate speech, crime against religion and religious institutions.

The message of peace, solidarity and harmony are spurious because of the political driven motives behind it. People are dictated as to what to think what to believe and how to express their freedom of religion and speech. We just want to live together at our terms and get isolated when we just want to leave. Self-centeredness takes the lead. The world's way is to treat others the way they deserve to be treated. It's familiarly expressed as "Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours!" and "Mess with me and you've got another thing coming!" If we live our lives treating people the way they deserve to be treated, we'll be a mess!

The Bible exhorts us with these words to promote harmony and love among each other. Follow this, "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another” because we are forgiven by the most high God." Follow how Max Stirner puts these sentences. “My dealing with the world what is the purpose? I want to enjoy the world ; therefore it must be mine. All I want is to have the power over the world. I want to make it my property; that is, I want to be able to enjoy it. I take advantage of the world and the people in it. My enjoyment and my happiness consist in refreshing myself at the cost of their happiness and their enjoyment. But as for me, I never sacrifice myself. I remain an egoist and relish it! I am not one ego among others: I am the sole ego. I am unique” How true!

You can follow us on Twitter

Who Created God?

Human beings are a little sophisticated today than people who lived two decades ago. The capacity to comprehend things and define the same is extremely fascinating. Even a little child has a good amount of knowledge in almost anything and equally has the ability to understand things easily than people who lived before us. But what is worrying is that we advance in knowledge, but regress in morality, brotherhood and most importantly in the understanding of the divine being.

Many believe that because of the immense knowledge and exposure we have, we can make a God in the way we want and customize God to our imagination and specification. Do you think it is justifiable to create a God within your sphere of influence and put him in a box? Unfortunately, today we do so, confining God purely based on our imagination and skills and master over it.

If God is divine and holy in nature, then we who worship and offer our prayers to that divine God should also be reflecting the same divine nature of God and become like Him. The famous proverb by Vladmir Lenin that says, “Show me who your friends are, and I will tell you what you are.”. Just imagine, if we have to apply the same principle to people’s relationship with God. Sometimes we bring reproach to God by acting weirdly. It says in Bible, “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to God in heaven”. Be a good model in this universe. We hear and see so often this quote everywhere, “God is love”, which means the followers, in other words, we the created beings should display the Love of God.

You can follow us on Twitter

Hoarder or Bestow-er- Find your purpose

Matt Paxton a cleaning expert says, “Most of us accumulate things because we think they’ll make us happier. While they might, it’s a short time buzz.”. The real question is how do we find real happiness that sustains peace and serenity in our hearts. We try different stuffs hoping it will give lasting happiness. Yea, it might be temporary but definitely not lasting. You would hear celebrities and young people go for a buying spree when they feel bored. Can it be a matrix that can be used by all? Definitely not possible.

Now, one may rationalize how does it matter if it is lasting or temporary? Just keep trying one after another and keep going. Sounds good but if we really are to do some good study, we would find that people just want more and hoard things to beat loneliness. Paxton in his research says “All my hoarders -they are good people ….They’re looking for their happiness and self-worth in stuff.”. As a result people are living with more objects than they need.

The real happiness primarily comes from finding the purpose for our life and the reason for our existence. Trying to build a relationship with God and a healthy relationship with people. Understanding that there are people out there who still struggle to have their basic needs met and if by any means we can extend a helping hand.

Harvard study says that the people who gave to the poor feel more satisfied and contended. Even companies and corporate organizations have this fund called CSR (Corporate social responsibility) allocating a percentage of their annual revenue for social upliftment and for a noble cause. Hoarding things is not a solution my friend. Try giving especially to those who are struggling. The Bible in one of the passage says, ‘Sell your possession and give to the poor’. Let us be open to giving and not just hoarding.

You can follow us on Twitter

Do you think evil is overpowering the good?

I was reading an article that talked about a man named Bruce Streather a successful lawyer but an atheist remarked, “In my work as a lawyer, I have seen so much evil. I have always believed in the power of evil.”. I guess handling innumerable cases with various shades of crime possibly showed up at its best to eliminate the goodness and make it look like evil is winning all the time. This had a serious effect in his entire belief system. It was difficult for him to have faith in God and to believe that there is something called "good".  

His family with three teenage daughters would go to church regularly. Once, as a result of considerable persuasion from his wife and his daughters, he visited a program that dragged him into a discussion on God and the power of goodness and at the end Bruce comes to cognizance that there is definitely a God and remarks, “if there is a power of evil it makes sense to believe that there is also a power of good.”.

We struggle with the global evils of terrorism, the rise of various terrorist groups around the world, the tragic plight of refugees, the newer computer virus that can steal all our personal information and leave us on the streets, starvation, poverty, the destruction of the environment, corrupt governments and countless other domestic, local and international issues. 

We also face struggles against evil in our own lives – temptation, sin and addiction. Recently in India and abroad there are news in the film industry how people with power misused the opportunity by abusing and humiliating female workers. In some cases, people apologize and in other retaliate using the power once again to subdue the truth and make evil look triumphant.

The tightening of systems, laws are still unable to curb the vices and restore peace, it is only increasing unimaginably. God wants to set people free both from the literal bondage and oppression experienced by modern day slaves, and from our slavery to sin and addictions (such as a reliance on excess of alcohol, drugs violence or pornography). Do you wish to be delivered?

You can be good and radiate the power of goodness among your family, society and in your country by asking God in prayer to transform you. It is said in the Bible “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make your free”. Let's be free and liberate our society and our nation from all evil.

You can follow us on Twitter

Which is overpowering? Secular or Sacred?

Life is so compartmentalized today, that we bring demarcation in every facets of life. Our goodness and virtues are limited to place, situation and context. We sometimes, believe we need to put different masks and portray images to make our survival better. I can understand, our roles can be different based on our responsibilities, but why do our goodness and virtues need to bend to vices with our position?

Dr. R. Richard puts it beautifully, “To separate the sacred from the secular, to remove religious belief from social discourse and public intercourse is to arbitrarily divide sacred and secular, private and public. Human life, individual and corporate, grounds the connection. Distinguish but don't divide unless you want to devalue life!

This life is not conditioned and a result of physical union alone. Medical Science & human intelligence does not have the ability to create a new life, it is only striving to find what is available and see how best it can sustain life, even that too for a temporary period. I heard an atheist stating that “death is a technical error”. Oh really, do you think so? We are limited and finite compared to the infinite.

The grandeur design of God, the universe is a display of divine goodness and we are His Masterpiece. God expects us to be who we are and integrate life, and not devalue it by separating Sacred from secular. Conflict of roles, character and position can have a serious effect on our children too. Let your time with the sacred transform you as a person in order to make this world a better place not use the name of the sacred to revolt, terrorize and make the life of the vulnerable and poor miserable.

It is worth pondering these lines by G. K Chesterton, “We shall soon be in a world in which a man may be howled down for saying that two and two make four, in which people will persecute the heresy of calling a triangle a three-sided figure, and hang a man for maddening a mob with the news that grass is green.”.

You can follow us on Twitter