It's Christmas Eve, Dave

I have confession to make. One of my favourite Christmas songs, is a song that has nothing to do with Christmas. It also boasts some bad language and plays endlessly on the radio during December. Released in the year I was born, it's called 'Fairy tale of New York' by the Irish band Pogues. Songs have different meanings for different people. Good songs, like all great works of art, allow you to come up with your own interpretations. I found a life lesson in the otherwise ordinary lyrics of this song.
The song starts off with a drunk man recalling memories of a relationship that started at Christmas and then goes on like a conversation between two lovers. The last part of the song goes like this. The woman says 'You took my dreams from me, When I first found you'. Then the man replies 'I kept them with me babe, I put them with my own, Can't make it all alone, I've built my dreams around you'. Beautiful. Romantic. Comedy. That's why this song is an all time favorite.





But I like this song for a different reason. These last lines remind of God every time I hear the song. Because many times, like the woman in the song, I complain, "God, you took my dreams from me, things I had always wanted to have, the things I have always wanted to see and do, the places I wanted to go, the people I would have liked to be part of my life, the way I had wanted life to turn out. My hopes and dreams. You took them from me". And then, a voice inside seems to tell me, No son, I kept them with me, I put them with my own and my dreams for you are higher than yours. What a promise. I like fairy tales and I like happy endings, I don't know how my story would go but I do know how it will end, because I know, the author. He's written yours as well, and it starts with the Christmas story.

Merry Christmas my dear readers!

Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV

8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Storms and Giants

The last six months have been the most difficult time of my life so far. Disappointments one after the other have been hitting me like waves at high tide. If I had never been in a storm in my life before, I am in one right now, and an awfully long one. I think the most terrible thing about storms is the absolute uncertainty of time, I can't tell if this is the beginning, the middle or the end of it....

Its been six months since I graduated for university, still can't find a job, don't have the money to study any further, the economic crisis forecasts a dark picture. Refused applications are piling up. Disappointment. Only a single friend left who seems a little interested in my life when called upon. Loneliness. What's gonna happen next? How long is this gonna last? Will my life get any better? Will I survive this? Fear. And the biggest question, where is the God who promised so many things to those who believe in him? Who said 'I'll never leave or forsake you', who speaks to a storm and it becomes still waters? Is He watching, is He listening to all the prayers I've been offering, the tears I've shed, just a little show of force from Him could do wonders for me. But silence. Doubt creeps in, faith starts becoming shaky. Maybe I need a plan B now. Some other way to get me out of here. I don't ever doubt the existence of God, or His love for me. But sometimes I, like Job in the bible, do wonder what's going on in the heavens. Have I done something wrong, is God teaching me a lesson or is this just my share of universal human suffering?

What do you do in a storm like this? You do what you would do in any storm. You sit back and trust God that on His watch, you'll always make it through. You wait with hope that no dark night lasts a lifetime, dawn might be just around the corner. Is it difficult to trust God with your future at a time like this? Ofcourse, otherwise it won't be a storm in the first place. Could it be done? That's totally up to you, how you look at things, 'perspective' as it's called.

Take the famous story of David and Goliath from the Bible. The whole army is scared of a giant warrior. Passing by is a sheperd boy delivering a meal. He sees the giant, is furious at his insults, decides he's gonna take him out himself. What made the difference, what gave him such absolute courage? It's called perspective. While everyone else saw the mighty giant, this guy saw the mighty God. And that was enough to change everything.

Is my storm over? Not at all, I have no idea what's yet to come. Have I learned to trust God with my life and totally depend on Him to get me through all this? I'm still getting there. And my perspective? Its changing slowly. The giants of fear, discouragement, doubt..... are getting smaller and smaller everyday, and my God's getting bigger all the time.

Unconditional Love

Arundhati Roy's Booker prize-winning novel, The God of Small Things, begins with the preamble '..it really began in the days when the love laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.' What sort of love has laws attached to it, I ask myself. Answer: the humanly kind. Mostly the love we have for someone else has conditions attached to it, just like the laws of nature. We love a person only if he satisfies those conditions. If you do this I'll do that. We are nice to the people that are nice to us, we like people that like us, we greet, visit and talk to people that do likewise, and we love people that love us, or more rightly, appear to do so. And what happens when we don't get what we expected in return? We get hurt and we draw away from the person. We begin to love them less until hate replaces love. Popular culture, tv shows and books have us believe that this is what love is, and for it to be bounded by conditions is perfectly normal, positive and healthy even.
Yet, the Bible paints a very different picture of what love is and what it means to love. This is the other kind of love, the divine kind. Christian Love. Christian, because it is the only way you could ever have it. Divine, because it all starts with God; you cannot love like God if you have never experienced what it means to be loved by God.
1 Corinthians 13 is a very popular passage that gives one of the most eloquent and profound definitions of love ever written '..And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.'
Love never fails. Divine love, Christian love never fails. Why? Simply because it is unconditional. It is not bounded by your performance; how well you fulfil the requirements. God loves us not because of who we are or what we've done, but because of who He is. There is absolutely nothing we can do to make him love us more, or less, His love is steadfast, never ceasing. Unconditional.
Most Christians fully realise and appreciate all this. But here's the thing: if we believe God lives in us, how often do we show God's love, which is also in us, towards the people He created? How often have I done something without expecting anything in return? Very seldom, I have to confess. Most of the time my love for someone depends on how they treat me or what they have done/will do for me. Jesus told his disciples "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35). Not by what you teach and preach, not by how you worship and pray, not by your good works, but simply by your love. I ask myself, when people see me love, do they see who's disciple I am, do they see Jesus, can anyone distinguish my Christian love or unconditional love from the ordinary one? If not, then I need to be worried, very worried about what sort of Christ I claim to be following.
Could it be done? There are countless known (and countless more unknown) Christians throughout the world who make sure the world sees how their love is different, who are truly ‘shinning lights’ in a very dark world. Mother Teresa is very well known. Once a teacher to children of the dignitaries of India, she chose spend her life on the streets, showing God’s love to millions of poor, sick, homeless, and orphaned. And then there is Uncle John M., a missionary to Pakistan, who is not so well known. Had we wanted, he could have earned himself the Nobel Prize in physics by now. Yet, compelled by God's love, he has been on the dusty streets of Pakistan for more than forty years, telling people how much God loves them. I don't think he's ever expected anything in return.
If they can do it, so can I. So can anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ. Love shines through, love never fails, but only when its unconditional. I want to be showing that.