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He'll test your strength,
To make you strong.
For what's not used
Grows weak
And strip you of
What pulls you from
The highest goal you seek.
He'll show you that
Where faith is placed,
A harvest
Soon is grown.
And what you'll learn
Is that in time
You reap what you
Have sown.
For all that's His
Belongs to you
To do with
As you will,
But when you give
It back to HIM,
He does your dreams fulfil...
I am often amazed at how lightly, even carelessly, too many people experience life. They know about the tsunamis and hurricanes with their devastation. They have seen the reports of the Pakistani earthquake. And, of course, they are aware of the many other natural disasters that have taken countless lives.
But the people remain unmoved. Their minds know about life, but their hearts are not moved at all. Very little emotional response is seen in them. They show no deeper understanding of life as God sees all of life!
The Apostle Paul was constantly urging the believers in his day to live out their lives with all seriousness. In Ephesians 5:15-17 he pleads: “See that you walk carefully, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore be not unwise, but understand what the will of God is....” A fool walks (lives) carelessly. A wise person walks with great seriousness and a constant awareness of the times he lives in. He is also fully aware of the will of God in the midst of his world. He will experience or be fully aware of the tragedies in his day and discuss them with the wise counselors God has placed around him. He does not want to “love in word and tongue, but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:18).
How do you as a Christian respond to life’s great tragedies around those in your workplace? Do others see that you take all of life around you seriously as God directs you? Do you seek somehow to become involved personally? Do you respond with great personal passion and understanding? Do others, therefore, know with certainty that you care and that you will respond compassionately to what is happening in their lives?
Let it always be said of you that you live life fully aware to life around you just as Jesus did when he said: “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the hairs of your head are all numbered.” (Matthew 10:29-30). God is fully aware of all that goes on, and He cares! Should we not take what is going on around you? Reflect the care of your heavenly Father before a watching world. Let the world be convinced that you notice and are touched by all of life around you and them. This will glorify God!
Yesterday, I shared a "Moment" with my grandma...something I have learnt to do - to share more 'Perfect Moments' with the people I care about, the people I love...after reading the article about Eugene O'Kelley. And I hope that I will always live with my heart wide open to 'Perfect Moments' every single day of the rest of my life...
I came home from an interview with Ogilvy & Mathers around 9 sth after buying myself some dinner from one of the coffee shops in my neighbourhood. I greeted my grandmother as I walked into the kitchen for some drink of water. She was sitting in her usual comfort zone - a cushioned rattan chair right under the bellowing fan above her. She looked at me and let out a sigh...a sigh of attention, a sigh of loneliness, a sigh of calling out for love and help, a sigh...
I walked over...and asked what's wrong and waited for the answer we were so accustomed to hear from her...that she is not happy and can't understand why; that she feels that she is sick (but she is not)...So I listened and then something stirred in my heart...words of encouragement that I needed to hear as much as she does - "You're not happy because you do not TRULY believe that all things are beautiful, perfect, good - whether the good or the bad situations in life. They are all good...because they were all part of God's plan in our life. Each difficult, hurting, disappointing situation is as perfect and good as the joyous, surprising, exciting, happy moments in our life. They are all necessary and they are all blessedly good in God's hands." My grandma, for the first time, reacted not in her usual self derogatory and self pity manner. She "responded".
When all was said and done, I said, "Let's Pray."
She said she didn't know how to.
So I said, "After everything that I have shared, pray anything that is in your heart...ask for God to take hold of the unhappy memories and place them in Jesus' hands. Thank God for every good and bad thing in your life..."
And she started to pray and I started to tear...
My grandma started by thanking God that I had finally "come home". That after so many years of being away, I was finally home and she is so happy that she is able to just see more of me. (The tears kept flowing as I took in the 'moment' of love from my grandma and I knew that I loved her back with all my heart...We won't be where we are without her.) And she prayed for me to find a 'life partner'...I think she prays even more earnestly than I do. She prayed for a man who would love me and take care of me. (And my tears kept flowing...)
For the umpteenth time this last month, I was glad to be home...I was glad to be back in the embrace of my family and to just appreciate the mundane-day-to-day life we were sharing...just having breakfast together, sharing a laugh, sharing moments that would be edged in our memories forever...
This is what I call a "Love Moment"...
I am overcome with a deep sense of love..."Whatever we treasure, there our heart will be also." And for now, at this point of my life, my heart if right here - at home.
....
Excerpts from Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life
Eugene O'Kelly (1952 - 2005)
Eugene O'Kelly was one of America's most powerful businessmen. In May last year, he was told he had brain cancer. In a moving memoir, Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life, he describes what his preparations for death taught him about his life.
His life was no different from many of us, who forego many things in the pursuit of our jobs and dreams. Any one of us could have been and could be O'Kelley. But would all of us be as positive and optimistic as he was in the final few months of his life?? I've learnt much from it and I hope it will remind you of the deeper things in life as well....
ONE day not long ago, I sat atop the world.
From this perch, I had an overview that was relatively rare in business, a perspective that allowed me access to the inner workings of many of the world's finest, most successful companies and the extraordinary minds that run them.
At times, I felt like a great eagle on a mountain top. Overnight, I found myself sitting in a very different perch: a hard metal chair, looking across a desk at a doctor whose expression was way too full of empathy for my liking.
His eyes told me I would die soon. It was late spring. I had seen my last autumn in New York.
The verdict I received in the last week of May 2005 - that it was unlikely I'd make it to September - turned out to be a gift.
Honestly. Because I was forced - at the age of 53 - to think seriously about my own death; which meant I was forced to think more deeply about my life than I'd ever done.
As CEO and Chairman of KPMG, the US$4 billion, 20-000 employee, century-plus-old partnership, one of America's Big Four Accounting firms, I was not a man given to hypotheticals - but just for a moment, suppose there had been no death sentence.
Wouldn't it be nice still to be planning, building and leading for years to come? Yes and no.
Yes, because of course, I'd like to have been around to see my daughter, Gina, graduate and marry and have children; to spend next Christmas Eve, the day before my older daughter Marianne's birthday, eating and talking and laughing the way we did every year; to travel and play golf with my wife of 27 years, Corinne, and to share with her the retirement in Arizona we'd planned for so long.
But, I also say no.
No, because, thanks to my situation, I'd attained a new level of awareness, one I didn't possess in the first 53 years of my life.
In my past life, a perfect day was a couple of face-to-face client meetings; meeting with at least one member of my inner team; speaking on the phone with partners; and completing the items listed in my electronic calendar.
I loved my firm. But the job of CEO, while, of course, incredibly previleged, was relentless.
My diary was perpetually extended over the next 18 months. I worked weekends and late into many nights. I missed virtually every school function of my younger daughter.
For the first 10 years of my marriage, when I was climbing the ladder at KPMG, Corinne and I rarely went on vacation. Over the course of my last decade with the firm, I did manage to squeeze in workday lunches with my wife. Twice.
As long as I could handle such a high-pressure position, I wanted it.
As profound as my devotion to and love for my family was, I could not have settled for a job just because it guaranteed that I could make PTA meetings.
People don't walk into the top spot. They are driven.
When Corinne and I showed up at the neurologist's office on Tuesday, May 24, we were both convinced that the drooping of muscle in my cheek and at the corner of my mouth was caused my something stress-related, probably Bell's palsy.
A week later, halfway through the biopsy, the surgeon came out to tell Corinne that the first tissue sample he'd removed from my brain was "necrotic" - dead. There was no cure, he said. "This is terminal."
My days as a man at the top of his game, vigorous and productive, were done, just like that.
The whole of my life, I had expected people to operate at a high standard.
In the business world, our index for evaluating people was competency. It had to be.
If someone said something that was carelessly conceived, I was not above telling him or her that it was "a stupid thing to say."
My daily experience at the radiation clinic made me realise that was not the index I could use any more.
Things almost never go according to plan. Sitting in that room, waiting for my turn to have the waffle-mask put over my face so they could zap my brain with laser beams, I watched people around me grow frustrated.
It was at the clinic that I really began to understand acceptance. Apparently, I wasn't too old to learn something new. You can't control everything.
One of my tasks before I died was to "unwind", or close - or, as I saw it, beautifully resolve - my personal relationships.
I wanted to do the very thing that wiser people advise us to do - to stop long enough to think about the people we love and why we love them.
A few days later the diagnosis was confirmed, I saw down at the dining-room table and drew a list of classmates, acquaintances, neighbours, people who had enriched my life just by being in it.
I was astounded to see that it came to almost one thousand. An unbelievable number.
I couldn't possible "close" all of these relationships. Maybe half, I closed almost exclusively through mail. A number of them I did by phone.
In each case, I tired to focus on something especially meaningful. I attempted to turn the occassion into what I had come to think of as a Perfect Moment.
A Perfect Moment was a little gift of an hour or an afternoon. Its actual length was never the issue.
The key thing was that you had to be open to a Perfect Moment.
The radiation machine breaks down: one hour is going to come and go, an hour you can hardly spare; but then you accept that machines break down.
You don't get frustrated. You focus instead on something pleasing.
The beautiful poem your daughter wrote. The colour of the sky out the window.
Or you stroll with your wife past the Central Part Boathouse - already it's a Perfect Moment, a beautiful day.
Such a beautiful day, in fact - that it's impossible to get a table at the boathouse restaurant, and normally you wouldn't even bother to ask.
But that was before you were open to all kinds of moments. Somehow, a table has opened. You sit down. The serendipity of the day's unfolding is making it perfect.
I thought about how, during my previous life, I'd got into the habit of meeting with certain people.
Was it necessary to have breakfast with them four times a month? I could have done less of that.
Perhaps I could have found time, in the last decade, to have had a weekday lunch with my wife more than ... twice?
Of course, there had been Perfect Moments in my past. The day I married Corinne. The day I adopted Marianne. The day Gina was born.
But almost all those moments one could have seen coming. They weren't the mundane, fabric-of-life stuff.
Maybe other people appreciate the perfection in small moments; I was just too caught up in my fast-paced, high-pressured life to ever get at the sublimeness embedded in them.
I experienced more Perfect Moments and Perfect Days in two weeks than I had in the past five years. Some friends wanted to prolong our final encounter. They continued to call me.
"I'd like this to be it," I would say. "Trying to improve on a perfect moment never works."
Not a popular answer. Too final. Kind of cold, actually.
Although I was not there yet, my mind wandered often to my unwinding with Gina. She had recently turned 14, and, like anyone that age, she had her days.
We'd frequently gone out for delicious lunches, and we loved sharing our theories.
But both of us could have short tempers, and obviously, we were frustrated by what was happening. I wanted her to understand my confidence and pride in, and profound love for her.
But I struggled to come up with the best way for a father to make his daughter see him for who he was, rather than for how long he had stayed.
This was the best day of my life.
Corinne, Gina and I were at our vacation home in Lake Tahoe. We took a boat out.
For the first time, I sat in front, the only place Gina ever sits. The water looked like glass. There were hardly any other boats out, or it seemed that way.
We crossed the lake. We seemed to be riding not in the water but on it, skating along the surfaces. It seemed as if I was part of the water.
It went on for miles and miles. I loved the sensation of being so close to the water.
Or really, it wasn't so much that I loved anything, but just that I had the sensation, felt it fully.
Corinne and I decided that afternoon that we would both have our ashes spread upon the waters of Emerald Bay, in a very particular spot that we loved.
I was getting closer to zero miles an hour. My mother and my brother flew to Tahoe. I took my mother's hand and told her I was in a good place.
Later, my brother and I talked alone. He was angry that this should be happening to me.
I told him to take the energy he was spending being angry at the world, double it, and channel it into love for his children (or even more love, I should say, because William already loved his daughters and son dearly.)
He promised me he would.
It was a perfect day. I felt complete. Spent but complete.
Eugene O'Kelly died at 8.01 in the evening of Saturday, Sept 10, 2005
Taken from New Sunday Times, Sunday Column by Kalimullah Hassan.
-= Guten Tag =- by Bram & Vera
Prayer
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
"This, then, is how you should pray:
"'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
But how do I pray?? I remember...Your teaching. One of your very first teachings, when you taught your disciples how to pray and i know that the Holy Spirit is reminding me of the essence of prayer...and how important it is to come to You, not with our own agenda or desires but to come with an open heart to allow the Holy Spirit to move in our lives...even when it is not clear to us...
Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be Your Name"...Firstly, I must be able to acknowledge that God is sovereign in my life...that there is no other Name than God's Name..."Hallowed" is our God because He sits in the highest position, not just in our lives but over ALL Creation. So high and lifted up is the Name of our God...who deserves every of our praise, exultation, reverence, holy fear and adoration. When I can come that way then, i will be able to listen to You without wanting my own way, which brings me to the key prayer in Mt 6, verse 10....
"Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven"...Lord, when I come to You in prayer, let me not come with a heart filled with own desires and wants. When I come to You in prayer, first, let me check if there is any selfishness there. I ask that I may have the strength to pray "Your Will be done....Not MY will, but Yours be done." As Jesus prayed, I ask for strength from You Lord...My desire is not for this world. My desire is not for money...My desire is for Your love to be made known and Your kingdom to be established...to see every man and woman receive the promise found in John 3:16...I know that I will not live forever. One day, I will return to You. Let my desire be for You...to see You face to face on that day and stare into the eyes of my Maker and know that I am finally home...where I will belong for eternity..."I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me."...John 12:24-26 (New International Version). I have tossed and I have turned...I have fought and I have struggled. All for but this reason - That Your Will be done in my life. Whatever you serve onto my plate, Lord, let me work on it with all my heart and strength. Let my eyes be continuously set upon You, my God. And I will pray again and again and again..."Let Your will be done."
"Give us today our daily bread"...We must not love money, but yet God knows we need it still. God does not desire for any of His children to starve. To not have one's basic needs and neccessities met, is a great struggle that may cripple even a person's faith...And God knows. He knows our needs, that man needs to eat, to have good things in life to remind them that God is a good God. And I know, Lord, You know me more than I know myself most of the time...I give my desires to You. Lord, whatever you place on my plate, this life, let me receive them with thanksgiving...because I know that every thing is from You. So daily, i give to you my worries and my fears. They are not my own to carry alone, because You are there to take care of me as well. Give me THIS day my needs and my desires. I live one day at a time...by Your grace. If I have more, i praise God. If I have less, I praise God. But i will not take anything for granted. And I will work with all my heart because I know that if God gives me a good thing, I am to be a partner in receiving it. I need to play my part in this equation of "US"...God and I.
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."...Matthew 6:25-34 (New International Version).
"Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors"...Debts are something we owe; An offense requiring forgiveness or reparation; a trespass...What is the debt that we are asking God to forgive...Oh!! I have so many! Can't count. Each day, I have things I need to ask God for forgiveness...my lack of self discipline, my selfish thoughts, my lack of trust towards Him, my temper...Need I go on?? They may not be big, yet, to a God who loves us and desires for us to be His image, He wants to hone away all these. So I come to Him and ask for forgiveness for every iniquity that I may have trespassed against God, against people, and even against the Church. I am not perfect and God knows that...and I know that He forgives me...and I know that He wants to change me...one difficulty at a time, one trial at a time, one day at a time, one difficult person at a time...at the end, I will be a Masterpiece that my God created and shaped. He is the Master, I am the vessel...
"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."...Lord, my weaknesses, You know. When I am tempted beyond my capabilities, pull me out before I hurt myself and others! Lord, I know I have to face temptations of many kinds in my life. But You are in control. I may not be, but You are. So, please don't let go of me, even if I may fall in my temptations. But deliver me! Save me! Yank me out of the hands of the evil one...who wants nothing better than to see me fall. But my God is for me. He will rescue me because You are able. Lord, but sometimes, I am not...Lord, I am in this yoke together with You. I on the left, and You on my right. When the yoke gets too heavy, Lord, please lift me up...When I am walking too fast, please slow me down. When I am walking too slow, please give me a gentle push...When I find myself distracted by the temptations in life, Lord, please send Your angels to remind me of my place, my calling and Your Will. Let every door that You choose to open, remain open and every door that You choose to close, by closed...Because my spirit may be willing, but my body (my desires, my thoughts, my emotions) is weak...Help me, Lord!
"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins"...Each and every day, let me be reminded of my own imperfection when faced with weaknesses of others. Whatever hurt, whatever misunderstandings, whatever mistakes, whatever selfishness, haven't I also been responsible for the same hurts, misunderstandings, mistakes and selfishness. Lord, let me never look at myself more highly than I ought but to always humble myself when it comes to dealing with people. Every bitterness, I give to You...They are not mine to hold...They are Yours to forgive. And I choose to forgive and give them to You, Lord.
This is how You've taught me to pray...And this is How I pray, to You my God, the Author and Perfector of my faith...Who has given me all that I need to walk each day and Who I continuously look to for direction and peace. Guide me Lord. Guide me Lord...And I can't help but sing....
What a Friend We Have in Jesus
What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilage to carry
Ev'rything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Ev'rything to God in prayer!
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged,
Take it to the Lord in prayer:
Can we find a friend so faithful
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus Knows our every weakness,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Saviour, still our refuge;
Take it to the Lord in prayer:
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer;
In His arms He'll take and shield thee;
Thou wilt find a solace there.
...
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