Restarting. Restored. Purpose-driven.

Hi!

The need to make a mark, the desire to be known, the longing to stand-out often takes you down.
It did take me down. i still am coming up to breathe.
For long i stood there at the corner wondering why am i not being known by all.
i questioned why wasn't i getting my due.
i thundered, at times, at the zero-influence i had on my surrounding.

Slowly, but surely, the truth has sunk in.
Influence and greatness are the results of longevity with stability, and finding the God-given call on your life, and setting out to fulfill it with integrity.

Hence, i set-out to prepare to leave a legacy.

...and She thought she won!

...and just about when Ol' Death threw her grub hoe and spade,after burying the body of The Christ to rest;

...just about when she turned around and called it, "The-Day-Ol'-Death-Triumphed";

...just about when she walked back to her cold-pale-lifeless throne;

...just about when cruel Death boastfully proclaimed, "It is finished!"

...just about when Ol' Death raised a toast to her now-evident-victory...


JESUS ROSE AGAIN LIVES TO REIGN!

The Uphill Climb

The Pilgrim, out of the cockles of his heart, pleaded,
"Oh Lord! If only I were born blind or never ever had walked the earth...for all this pain and misery I can not bear on my back; the load is too heavy and the incline is too steep, what if I stumble? What if I fall? What if I lose my grip over all?...My strength fails, my health debilitates, my heart agonizes while my soul writhes in deathly sorrow.
Cannot Thee save me? Cannot thee relieve this burden of my body and soul, loving Lord?"

To this, The Saviour replied,"My grace is sufficient for you."

The pilgrim, once lying stretched on the sidewalk, emaciated and shrivelled to bones, stood up at the sound of those words, and filled with renewed energy and living hope embarked on his arduous journey...Again!

To this day, he doesn't know how? He can't fathom why?
But he walked the tortuous path and finished the journey, resting with His loving Lord in his own home, 'til eternity.

Bless You,
TM.

History and What Really Happened

In a special documentary, a major television network investigated the beginnings of Christianity and the influence of the apostle Paul in spreading the message of Christ. The narrator noted his fascination with the historical figure, commenting that if not for the voice of Paul, it is “unlikely that the movement Jesus founded would have survived beyond the first century.” Yet of the resurrection of Christ he also noted, “Something must have happened, otherwise it’s hard to explain how Jesus’s story endured for so long.”

It is a question worth our time: Why has the story of Christ endured? Has it survived through the centuries because of effective speakers in antiquity? Has it endured, as Sigmund Freud argued, because it is a story that fulfills wishes, or as Friedrich Nietzsche attested, because it masks and medicates our disgust of life? Has the story of Christ endured because something really happened after Jesus’s body was taken down from the Cross or was it only the clever marketing of ardent followers?

We live in an age where religion is examined with the goal of finding a religion, or a combination of religions, that best suits our lives and lifestyles. We are intrigued by characters in history like Jesus and Paul, Buddha and Gandhi. We look at their lives and rightly determine their influence in history--the radical life and message of Christ, the fervor with which Paul spread the story of Christianity, the passion of Buddha, the social awareness of Gandhi. But far too often, our fascination stops there, comfortably and confidently keeping the events of history at a distance or mingling them all together as one and the same.

C.S. Lewis often wrote of “the great cataract of nonsense” that blinds us to knowledge of earlier times and keeps us content with history in pieces. He speaks of the common tendency to treat the voices of history with a certain level of incredulity and inferiority. Elsewhere, he refers to this as chronological snobbery, a tendency to concern oneself primarily with present sources while dissecting history as we please. Yet to do so, warns Lewis, is to walk unaware of the cataracts through which we see the world today. Far better is the mind that thoroughly considers the past, allowing its lessons to interact with the army of voices that battle for our allegiance. For a person who has lived thoroughly in many eras is far less likely to be deceived by the errors of his own age.
We must be wary, then, among other things, of assuming the earliest followers of Christ thought resurrection a reasonable phenomenon or miracles a natural occurrence. Investigating the life of Paul, it seems important to ask why a once fearful persecutor of Christ’s followers was willing to die for the story he carried around the world, testifying to the very event that split history. Investigating the enduring story of Christ, it is logical to ask why the once timid and frightened disciples were abruptly transformed into bold witnesses. What happened that led countless Jews and many others to dramatically change directions in life and in lifestyle? That something incredible happened is not a difficult conclusion at which to arrive. It takes far greater faith to conclude otherwise.

A friend of mine is fond of saying that truth is something you can hang your hat on. Even as we struggle to see it today, her words communicate a reality Jesus’s disciples knew well. Truth is dependable and enduring; it is solid and it is real. The disciples and the apostle Paul were transformed by seeing Christ alive--a phenomenon that would be just as unthinkable to ancient minds as it would be for us today. In fact, even the most hesitant among them, and the most unlikely of followers, found the resurrected Christ an irrefutable reality. Comfort was irrelevant; personal preference was not a consideration. They could not deny who stood in front of them. Jesus was alive. And they went to their deaths proclaiming it.

It seems the story of Christ has endured for innumerable reasons: because in the fullness of time God indeed sent his Son; because knowingly Jesus walked to the Cross and into the hands of those who knew not what they did; because something really happened after his body was laid in the tomb; and because with great power and God’s grace, the apostles continued to testify of the events they saw. Moreover, the story of Christ remains today because it is true. Through centuries of lives that have withered like grass, those who believe in Christ have stood on that which is enduring: “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Quoted from a text by Jill, managing editor - A Slice of Infinity

The Good Life

"...What images come to mind when you ponder the good life? Perhaps during these trying economic times, it is difficult not to equate material items with the good life, more money, more security, or more opportunity. While it has always been said of every generation that these are times of great crisis and upheaval, we feel this search for meaning anew and afresh today, and perhaps wonder at the practicality or wisdom of looking to the past for insight or understanding into the good life.

And yet, the ancients remind us that “not even when one has an abundance does one’s life consist of possessions” (Luke 12:15). In this view, the good life involves what we do with our things, abundant or meager as they may be, and necessarily involves right living in community. Perhaps the ancient wisdom is particularly instructive in a time in which we would equate goodness with what we possess. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8) Do justice, love kindness, and live out both of those virtues in light of humility before God; this is the good life. ..."

Margaret Manning.

RZIM