Poem : Friends

I fear it’s very wrong of me,
And yet I must admit,
When someone offers friendship
I want the whole of it.
I don’t want everybody else
To share my friends with me.
At least, I want one special one,
Who indisputably,

Likes me much more than all the rest,
Who’s always on my side,
Who never cares what others say,
Who lets me come and hide
Within his shadow, in his house —
It doesn’t matter where —
Who lets me simply be myself,
Who’s always, always there.

– By Elizabeth Jennings

Change of Heart

Globally right now everyone is celebrating PRIDE month. As a Christian, I don’t support it, but I try to put some helpful articles on my blog or on social media. I hope that someone would read/watch/listen and would come to saving faith in Christ.

“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” Romans 10:14

You can read Becket Cook’s story of how God saved him from his sin and gave him a new identity in Christ. He used to be “gay” but now he is a child of God. In this video, he is talking to his sister-in-law who prayed for him for many years, that one day he would repent of his sin and come to Christ. I hope you are encouraged to see that it is only God who can remove the heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh.

She Prayed Me into the Kingdom: Kim Cook Interview – The Becket Cook Show Ep. 79

Agape

I am usually on the lookout for new music and I came across Bears Den. If you like folk rock, you may like their style. This is one of my favorite songs 🙂

Agape

Agape
Please don’t dissipate
I know that I have got it all wrong
I’m reaching out
To touch your voice
But baby, I’m clutching at straws
Even though
Your words hurt the most

I still wanna hear them, every day
You say let it go
But I can’t let it go
I won’t leave, every word that you say

For I’m so scared of losing you
And I don’t know what I can do about it
About it
So tell me how long, love, before you go
And leave me here on my own
I know that I don’t wanna know
Who I am without you

Oh agape
Please don’t dissipate
Yeah I know I’ve got it all wrong
I’m reaching out
To touch your voice
But baby I’m clutching at straws

For I’m so scared of losing you
And I don’t know what I can do about it
About it
So tell me how long, love, before you go
And leave me here on my own
I know that, I don’t wanna know
Who I am without you

I don’t wanna know
I don’t wanna know
I don’t wanna know

For I’m so scared of losing you
And I don’t know what I can do about it
About it
So tell me how long, love, before you go
And leave me here on my own
I know that
I know that
Tell me how long, love, before you go
And leave me here on my own
I know that
I don’t wanna know who I am without you
I don’t wanna know who I am without you

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Andrew Donald John Davie / Johannes Egenberg Refsdal / Kevin Jones

Agape lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

A Good Week!

This week started

and ended well:)

Update

It has been a while I have written here. It has been a crazy couple of months. Wrapping up the busiest quarter at work, coming down with a bad version of COVID (that took weeks to come out of- and still recovering from long-term COVID), packing and moving homes for my parents and now another round of moving for me. The months have just been planning, cleaning, organizing, coordinating and I have barely had the time to sit down and relax. Work has slowed down a bit and I am grateful for some respite. Catching up with friends outside has been a joy. I am always thankful for the good ones that stick long term 😀

I still continue to work from home, which honestly is working for me right now. I have started going to the office and plan to keep a balance of work from home and office so that I don’t go completely insane in isolation lol. It is good to have some sort of normalcy in my city. I am hoping that it would last longer even as I read the news about the hundredth COVID wave that will hit India.

Getting back to in-person church has been a huge blessing. There is only so much “zoom fellowship” you can do. Meeting together and singing unto the Lord with the body of Christ, is an absolute joy! Life otherwise has been pretty much routine – no complaints there 😉 Anything with less drama is always a win-win situation. I hope all of you are keeping well and taking one day at a time, enjoying every moment, and remembering that life is a gift from God 🙂

Happy Valentine’s Day

The Lover Writes a One-Word Poem
by Gavin Ewart

This one-word love poem chosen for Valentine’s Day arguably expresses the lover’s overwhelming adoration of his partner better than many much wordier verses. (From the book – A poet for every day of the year)

Repost: Enough for Today

Give us each day our daily bread.Luke 11:3

If bread has represented anything throughout history, it’s daily sustenance. Other foods are certainly pleasant additions to our existence, but when we think of bread, most of us think of one of life’s most basic needs being fulfilled. 

This kind of thinking is consistent with God’s unique provision for His people. In the Old Testament, the Israelites’ experience of wandering in the wilderness required their total dependence on God to meet their daily needs. One of the most tangible ways they learned this lesson was through God’s provision of manna from heaven. 

God made it clear to His people that, each day, He would supply enough manna for one day and one day only. They were not to leave any of it over until the morning (Exodus 16:19). His purpose in supplying one day’s worth of bread at a time was to teach His people to trust His provision. Sadly, some Israelites doubted that He would do what He had promised and disobeyed Him, keeping some manna for the next day (for doubting God’s promises always leads to disobeying God’s commands). They awoke in the morning to be confronted by a stinking, worm-infested mass of leftover manna (v 20). God was teaching them to rely on Him to provide for them. It was a lesson that they would take a long time to learn. 

When we take this Old Testament example and consider the words “Give us each day our daily bread,” we realize that, in this line of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus is underscoring a timeless reality: in every age, God teaches His people to trust not in the provision itself, which leaves us longing for more, but in the Provider, who satisfies our every need. 

God desires for us to wake up and discover afresh His daily provision. This is why He instructed the Israelites to keep a small measure of manna for posterity, saying, “Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness” (Exodus 16:32). In following this instruction, one generation could speak to the next concerning the reality and wonder of His ongoing, daily provision.

The Father, whom we come to know through Jesus, cares about our personal, practical, and material needs. Perhaps you awoke this morning beleaguered by and feeling anxious about ongoing problems or upcoming events in your life. Remember this: you are God’s personal concern, and you may approach Him in confidence, asking Him to give you all that is necessary for today. And then you can trust Him to give you exactly what you need today, and then tomorrow, and ever onwards. You can throw the whole weight of your anxieties upon Him, because He cares for you and provides for you (1 Peter 5:7).

From Alistair Begg’s Devotional

Only A Lifetime

How do you know
If you’ve done everything right?
Is it the love you have at hand
Or the cash you kiss at night?

How do you know
If it was worth it in the end?
Did every second really count
Or were there some you shouldn’t spend
On anything but anyone you love?
Was this the life that you were dreaming of?
A movie night, a yellow light
You’re slowing down and days are adding up

So don’t waste the time you have waiting for time to pass
It’s only a lifetime
That’s only a while
It’s not worth the anger you felt as a child
Don’t waste the time you have waiting for time to pass
It’s only a lifetime
That’s not long enough
You’re not gonna like it without any love
So don’t waste it

I’m unimpressed
By the people preaching pain
For the sake of some small gain
In the sake of someone’s name. I’m unprepared
For my loved ones to be gone
Call ’em way too often now
Worry way too much about mom

Don’t waste the time you have waiting for time to pass
It’s only a lifetime
That’s only a while
It’s not worth the anger you felt as a child
Don’t waste the time you have waiting for time to pass
It’s only a lifetime
That’s not long enough
You’re not gonna like it without any love
So don’t waste it

It’s family and friends, and that’s the truth
The fountain doesn’t give you back your youth
It’s staying up too late at night and laughing under kitchen lights
So hard you start to cry

Don’t waste the time you have waiting for time to pass
It’s only a lifetime
That’s not long enough
You’re not gonna like it without any love
So don’t waste it

Link to the Video

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Finneas O’Connell

Daily Meditations

In recent years, I have seen the benefit of going through a good devotional. I usually study one book of the bible in my morning prayer time and then read a devotional. I have experienced the blessing of delving deep into the word using a study bible and some additional resources. But those who have been Christians long enough know that your time in God’s word does not look the same every day.

One of the spiritual disciplines I wanted to be steady at, was being in God’s word daily. Whether it meant reading an entire chapter, a section, or even a couple of verses. I know there will be some days when you are unwell or going through a difficult trial, or you may just be physically exhausted. In these times having a devotional is quite beneficial, as there is someone to help you guide your thoughts in the right direction.

This year as I was looking out for one and I came across Alistair Begg’s “Truth for Life” 365 daily devotional. I appreciate him stating in the preface that his goal for putting together this book was that it would encourage the reader to read more of the bible. Each day has a verse at the start, and then he goes to explain it and a larger chunk of scripture to read at the end.

On the days I am not able to do my own study, or like today when I am down with the flu, these books are a blessing. I am thankful for solid Christian writers who put together these meditations to help us draw closer to the Lord. Even as I end this post, I would like to share a small portion that encouraged me this week. Have a blessed Lord’s day!

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“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ” Philippians 1:27

The way we dress, the way we smile, the way we scowl, the way we carry ourselves, the tone and content of our speech… every day, we are making statements to those around us about what really matters and what life truly consists of.

So Paul (apostle & author of the letter to the Phillippians) called them to close the gap between the beliefs and their behavior – between the creed they professed and the conduct they displayed. Christ’s call to us is no different. Even so, however mature we are in our faith and however much we close the gap, there always remains more to do.

When we close the gap between belief and behavior, others will get a foretaste of heaven through their interactions with us. So what kind of statements should our interactions make? Simply this: the gospel of Christ is the gospel of love. We see this in the book of 1 John 4:10-11 “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.“

So pause to think how you will dress today, when you will smile and when you will scowl today, how you will carry yourself today, and the tone and content of your speech today. What kind of statements are you making to the world? Let them be ones that are worthy of the gospel of love.

Truth for Life 365 daily Devotional by Alistair Begg

Happy 2022

I don’t read a lot of poems. It could be because the ones I came across when I was younger had archaic language and I could not relate to them. Recently I had the privilege of reading some of my friend’s poems and I enjoyed them thoroughly.

So as I talked about it to my sister, she was sweet enough to gift me a book which is a compilation of poems – one for each day of the year 😃. I am excited to go through all of them in 2022.

Here is one for 1st Jan

Each morn is New Year’s morn come true,

Morn of a festival to keep.

All nights are sacred nights to make,

Confession and resolve and prayer;

All days are sacred days to wake

New gladness in the sunny air.

Only a night from old to new;

Only a sleep from night to morn.

The new is but the old come true;

Each sunrise sees a new year born.

by Helen Hunt Jackson