Talk Point – Church Talk

By Mekha John

Do we ask this question when good things happen to us? Rarely…
But we do not hesitate to wonder when plans go awry. Those of us who do not ask the question out loud, are surely asking it in our minds.
My husband & I lost our first baby 10 days before Christmas 2008. Why me? I asked that question a thousand times over to God & myself. I lost the baby about 12 hours after I saw her on the ultrasound scan kicking & tumbling about inside me. It was tougher to accept the situation when the pathology lab results came back confirming that the baby was perfectly normal. The doctors do not know what went wrong. Why me?
Then the Lord spoke to my heart, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised!” [Job 1:21].
Before I came to accept the Lord’s simple answer I held myself responsible for the baby’s loss. I tortured myself wondering what I could have done better to have ensured a full-term pregnancy. I completely forgot that God is not only our Creator but also a Loving & Forgiving Father. I wondered whether I was being punished for something I had forgotten to be repentant about.
We exhaust ourselves trying to explain all the unexplained in our lives and forget in the midst of all this scurrying that we have a Heavenly Father Who knows exactly what happened & why it happened. The Lord has brought me a long way these past 3 months. Though I still grieve the loss of my baby I don’t have any turmoil in my heart.
As Christians we hold fast to the hope that one day when we finally face the Lord in eternity we will understand it all. It’s like the verse that says, “For now we see as through a glass darkly;but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.” [1 Corinthians 13:12]. Though it talks about partial & complete understanding of the mysteries of the Lord & the Holy Trinity, I also believe it talks about EVERYTHING that concerns us. He sees our pain & anguish. He sees every teardrop that falls. The Word of God says that He numbers our wanderings, put our tears in His bottle and they are in His book.[Psalm 56:8]
I pray for every one of you who have had grievous & unexplained losses in your own lives. And I thank God for every one out there who is upholding my husband & me in prayer.

March 13th, 2009 | Category: General | Leave a comment

By Sabrina Immaraju

“He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, Out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps” [Psalm 40:2] Amen!!!

I was weak but now am strong. I did not have hope, but He filled me with hope. I had no reason to live, but He gave my life purpose. I was in darkness and He filled me with His light and love. Yes, Jesus presented me with true hope, love and joy in Him.

I was born in India (Guntakal district, Andhra Pradesh state) as a second child to my parents. My dad works for the Indian Railways and my mom is a homemaker. During my childhood days my family attended a local CSI (Church of South India) church in the city of Secunderabad. I didn’t know much about the true essence of Christian living since we used to attend church only on Good Friday, Easter & Christmas days. I associated Christmas with my mom making delicacies, buying us new clothes, cleaning out the whole house and carol singers. Good Friday & Easter meant remembering the crucifixion & resurrection of Jesus Christ, but I had no idea what this meant to me until I turned 18.

When I was a 6 year old, every Friday my mother used to send my sister & myself to a children’s prayer meeting. It was conducted by a school teacher , Swarna, who had dedicated her life to the Lord’s ministry. Over 3 years I learnt sweet Sunday School songs and started reading the New Testament part of the Bible. I greatly enjoyed this prayer meeting. However after we moved to another area, I was unable to attend it anymore, and I didnt have any spiritual mentors.
I began drifting into the worldly ways. I used to watch and sing movie songs, play cards with friends, check out the daily horoscopes in newspapers and lived a carefree life.

As I grew older, I began to understand the realities of life, financial struggles in the family and started becoming angry, rebellious and disobedient. I wasn’t doing all that well at college either and was constantly under pressure to perform well. I was quite confused and lost till I attended a revival meeting while I was still in college. At the end of the meeting, the preacher gave an altar call to all those who wanted to surrender their lives to Christ, and I responded. It was a great experience for me but it was short-lived. I soon went back to my old ways till I came to a point in my life where I experienced severe loneliness, rejection and guilt. I knew that the world offered only temporary happiness and that no matter what we have, it cannot give lasting joy to the heart.

One summer afternoon in 2003 as I sat deeply depressed, an elderly aunt of mine took me to a prayer meeting. I sat reluctantly in the prayer meeting as if I did not care what the preacher had to say and yet something in me forced me to listen intently to what God had to offer me in my pathetic state. By the time the meeting was over, I sat sobbing, crying out of control . The words of God’s love and forgiveness broke my stubborn heart. I gave my life to Christ that day and felt delivered from anger, guilt and loneliness. I experienced a fresh flow of life in me and I had a strong determination to start my life anew. This was not a short-lived experience.

I started attending church regularly and continued to grow in Christ. God blessed me with a good job in a software company in 2005 and helped me at my work for the next 3 years. I met several people at the workplace with whom I could share my faith in Christ and the eternal hope that is waiting for anyone who receives Christ.

God blessed me with a good Christian husband in the year 2008 and we moved to the US the same year. We are continuing to enjoy the presence of God, good Christian fellowship and church. I thank God for the wonderful way in which He molded my life with His hands.

October 6th, 2008 | Category: How I Met Jesus | Comments (1)

By Manoj Ramachandran

In India it’s accepted as part of the culture to live as a joint-family, to share the living space full-time with your own parents or with the in-laws. However, this is my first experience at living with my in-laws for a relatively long period of time under the same roof. Having been by myself in the United States for 10 long years, I find it extremely difficult to adjust to being constantly corrected & advised.

Let me make it clear that this post is not about what the Bible teaches us about living with our parents or in-laws, rather it’s about love & human relations.

Here’s what the Lord taught me through this situation. I seem to lack love and respect for those whom it is due. The Bible teaches, “Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due” [Rom. 13:7].

My in-laws are here with us in the US to help us out in our role as new parents. We had our first baby, Jonathan, just a couple of months back. There have been some good days & some not-so-good days. My in-laws have taken the lion’s share in all the responsibilities such as cooking, laundry,cleaning up the house and above all showing us the love & encouragement we need during this challenging time. They are just a great blessing. Without them, our immigrant family would definitely have been at a loss.

God is trying to teach us an important lesson. He can polish us to a shine, only by smoothing out our rough edges. I am sure that we are going to come out of this experience better people.

One thing, though not surprising, stands nudging my spirit. Why it is so easy to hate but so difficult to love when we have a God of love?

After days of struggling through, I knelt down before the Almightly and asked Him to forgive me and asked me to fill my heart with love. And He did.

May God help us to be more like Christ.

October 3rd, 2008 | Category: Reflections, Wisdom from Others | Leave a comment

It has been said that a city is only as good as the foundations it is built on (don’t ask me who said that) and it has also been said that one must build one’s home on a strong foundation like a rock—I’ll talk more about the Person who said this later. Why am I babbling about cities, homes, houses and foundations? No, this is not a preamble for a new church building at East End—at least I don’t think we need one—it is merely a few words I’m stringing together about the people that make up East End’s weekly assortment of visitors, regulars and members.

You might be asking who am I and what qualifies me to make this assessment of East End’s attenders—Microsoft Word tells me that the correct word is attendees but not being an expert of the English language, I guess I’ll have to take their word for it. I digress. Who I am is of little importance. The more important issue here is: who are these people who visit 430 South Evaline at least once a week and why should anyone care? Let’s start with the latter question or maybe the former…are you still with me? Alright let’s go. A smile is a fairly common thing to see as one walks the streets. Unfortunately some are made of plastic others are somewhat ambiguous. It isn’t Math class I shouldn’t have to guess what the curve of the mouth means. Fortunately at East End I don’t think I have to. It is refreshing to walk through the doors of a church where the people welcome you with the sincerity of the kid who, knowing you’re the new kid on the block, offers to share her (or his)lunch with you and introduce you to her friends. Definitely no plastic here.

So now I’m through the doors what next? Sitting in the back pew so that I can escape doesn’t occur to us because the sincere face I met through the door makes me forget the visitor’s urge to plot an escape before the service has even started. We’re still a little shy though but that’s natural—we think. A few people are trickling in and friends welcome each other—without the plastic smile—and ask if they could sit by us. Sit by us? The strangers. This is getting interesting. I seem to recall something I read in the parched pages of the maroon-bound Book I carried to church about that. I can’t recall what exactly and where exactly. Anyway, the point is I have company and its my first day.

A house built on a rock? This church seems to be following some of the instructions of The Rock. (No not the wrestler) So if The Rock guides them it might worthwhile sticking around to see what happens…

Author – Anonymous

September 27th, 2008 | Category: General, Reflections | Leave a comment

By Manoj Ramachandran

Summer ‘08 has been the most challenging one in my life.
We had our son Jonathan in July. With responsibilities increasing everyday I felt challenged in our spiritual life. Though I’d heard from others that a new baby meant a huge change, I must admit I was not fully prepared for this sort of additional responsibility.

Around the same time along came a longtime friend and said some things that hurt us real bad. I understand now that he may not have fully understood our new challenging situation and that we were starved for some spiritual encouragement. This episode strained our relationship for a short period. But we apologized to one another, agreed to forgive each other and move on. But I realised that was much easier said than done. I continued to struggle. The words that were spoken played back in my mind over & over again & they tormented me (yes, words are that powerful!). I asked God to help me forgive that person completely and finally this one verse came to my mind that is still helping me break free of the prison of my unforgiving attitude:

“Father,forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34)

It is Christ’s example that challenges me. Christ pleaded with His Heavenly Father for His enemies setting an example for us to do the same. He has asked us to love our brothers & sisters. I asked God to fill my heart with that same love and remove the hate. As I prayed with all my heart, I could feel the burden being lifted and being replaced by joy and strength. I realised that by not forgiving my friend completely I was holding on to something that was hurting me, & I was hurting myself instead of letting it go.

May His children be filled with spirit of forgiveness.

September 21st, 2008 | Category: Reflections | Comments (2)

Remember Cain & Abel? When I was young I always wondered why God was so disappointed with Cain though he brought an offerening to the Lord. But I understand now.

The Old Testament instructs us to give back to the Lord one-tenth of the best of everything we have. But as “Christians” we believe we have been liberated from the Law of the word by the blood of Jesus. Does that mean we don’t need to tithe??? That’d be like saying, “Christ died & paid for all my sins so now I can sin all I want since it’s all been paid for anyway.”

Wealth & material possessions are worn-out subjects when it comes to tithing. I’d rather choose the subject of time since we have all equally & non-partially been given a definite 24 hours of it each day.

Simple math. Had we been living in the OT times where the 1/10th rule had to be observed, would we have been able to give up 2.4 hours of our favourite time of the day to worship God & meditate upon His word, or speaking to someone about Him? How about one-tenth of 7 days? That’s 16.8 hours a week. How about 3 full days in a month?

Are we robbing Him of what He rightfully owns? Do we really deserve His mercy & His blessings?
Thankfully our Lord knows us enough to have made a provision of grace so that even the most undeserving of us could have an equal chance at redemption with the rest of the people. [Romans 6:1] But let that not keep us from giving back to God what He rightfully deserves.

We can do that by sharing our blessings with others around us, all to the glory of God. It maybe our time, our energy, our skills & talents, our material wealth & possessions or even our loved ones.

To tithe is every Christian’s calling. [Matthew 25:40] Every opportunity we get – within our families, our friends’ circle, our social circle, our Christian brothers & sisters, our colleagues / acquaintances and as well as with complete strangers who seek our help.

It is my prayer that the Lord gives me the discernment & wisdom to tithe from the best that I have, like Abel did. I know I cannot do it on my own because I have tried, but it doesn’t work that way. I need to give Him what He wants from me.

September 8th, 2008 | Category: Reflections | Leave a comment

Armed with a credit card & a car I went out & did our monthly grocery shopping today all on my own for the very first time.
I got my driver’s license just 3 months ago. I’ve taken the car out only a handful of times since then. But am so thankful to the Lord for having given me the courage to do so. So far it’s been incident-free & I pray that I never take safe-driving for granted. I’ve never driven a car before in my life! The past one year, ever since I reached the US, my husband’s been encouraging me to practise driving with him. He’s been very patient with me & am so thankful for that. But I also suspect that his patience was the result of fear of what I’d do behind the wheel if he were to yell at me.. he’s seen me do some rash driving when am flustered and he’s learnt his lesson. Am sure this praise report is reflective of his heart too … because he escapes all the grocery shopping now.
This goes out to all those wives who rarely trouble their husbands to go shopping with them. And more so, kudos to the husbands who take their wives shopping without ever complaining! Praise God for that very unique & rare breed.

September 3rd, 2008 | Category: Praise & Thanksgiving | Leave a comment

As I sat trying to spend some “quiet time” with the Lord today I caught my mind wandering a lot. Not unusual. I find that when I sit down for prayer I suddenly remember the list of things that need to be done during the day. Then more things that need to be added to the list come to my mind. At the end of the “quiet time” I realise that of the 1 hour spent, there was hardly 10 minutes of sincere prayer involved!! Tragic!!

I find that if I don’t start my prayer time with thanksgiving & praise [Psalm 100:4] it’s difficult to stay focused on the Lord. No wonder Jesus taught His disciples to begin praying “Our Father who art in heaven, Holy be Thy Name, Thy kingdom come…” [Matthew 6:9, Luke 11:2].

Who taught us to pray by listing all our material needs anyway? Surely, we don’t see it in the Bible. Infact when the Lord taught His disciples to pray we see that the physical need is only mentioned once. “Give us this day our daily bread.” And even that could be translated on a spiritual level to mean, “Father give us a fresh revelation of Your Word that will guide us today”. The rest of the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ mentions the spiritual battle fought in the mind (temptation), in the flesh (evil) & the soul (Your will be done). We see the Lord is concerned primarily with our heart & soul. Why? Because that’s where everything [Proverbs 4:23, Matthew 12:34] begins!

I need a lot of grace & fresh revelation of His word to pray according to His will [1 John 5:14]. We all do. Not seeking to satisfy our own desires [James 4:3], but to pray in a way that pleases God.

God is waiting for us to realise that even before we have formed our prayer on the lips He has seen our needs [Matthew 6:8]. Therefore we needn’t spend most of our time praying about our needs. Instead it would infinitely please His heart if we realised we’re well taken care of, and moved on to pray for those who do not yet know how to pray.

September 3rd, 2008 | Category: Reflections | Leave a comment

Some days you’re spiritually so full that you can feel a tangible presence of God & His glory shines through you to touch other people.

Then there are days when you don’t want anyone to see you because you’re feeling depressed, dry & you feel like everyone else is having a better time than you are. You just want to go through the day, doing your thing, without drawing too much attention to yourself.

I’ve been there & am pretty sure am not alone. I wish I wouldn’t “oscillate” so much. No matter how many times I’ve heard about the victory the Lord has over my situation, when it comes right down to it, there are only a handful of times that I’ve remembered to speak a Word over my situation. Other times I’ve chosen the easy road – sulking, whining & giving in to my natural feelings of anger / frustration / self-pity until it drains me… sounds familiar? I bet it does!

But what grabs me is that at the end of this “oscillation” I can come back to my Father & tell Him that am terribly terribly sorry for being such a miserable witness for Him, and I can hear His voice in my heart say, “It’s alright. I understand.”

Nothing in this world compares with the relief that sweeps over my heart when I hear the forgiving, understanding voice of my Father. It’s like a cool hand on a feverish forehead…

David succeeded where Saul failed (Acts 13:22). David learnt the Father was not interested in a Master-servant relationship nor a King-subject relationship. He did not require sacrifice but obedience (1 Samuel 15:22, 23). The Father required a heart that was unashamed to admit it was imperfect, a heart that realised that the relationship did not depend upon perfection but it depended upon love. (1 John 4:19).

My dear friends, none of us are perfect, and yet we expect so much of ourselves & of others too. It’s no wonder we’re tired & dried out. But we have a Father in Heaven that we can go back to at the end of the day to hear Him say, “It’s alright. I understand.” If you’ve understood that about the Heavenly Father, trust me, life becomes so much easier!

August 22nd, 2008 | Category: The Father's Heart | Comments (1)