Rest
Psalm 116:7”Return to your rest, O my soul, For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.”
Early one morning while I was reading the Bible , this scripture spoke to me really deep! Really deep! You got to actually read the entire chapter to understand the feelings of the writer, who is David. Listen, David said, ”The cords of death encompassed me And the terrors of Sheol came upon me; I found distress and sorrow.” He further says, ‘I was brought low’, despite being engulfed with such problems, David goes on to say ‘return to your rest, O my soul!’ Glory, Glory to Jesus!
Self-medication!
The above scripture brought me healing, I’m sure someone out there needs this Word today! Stop running to 1000 people, but learn to do self-medication; you may ask what is that? Have you not seen the dogs, cats and few other animals lick their wounds and do self-medication, we got to also learn to treat ourselves. Listen! Don’t get me wrong here, we do need the body of Christ to pray for each other and love each other, but there comes a point in our life, when the ‘pressure and heat’ increases, we got to fend for ourselves. I got to share something personal here, so that you’ll understand what I exactly mean; as preachers and pastors, life becomes terribly lonely for us. If we need shoulders to cry upon, then those shoulders should not only be broad to soak the tears but also it got to be trustworthy, is anybody listening? Not worth it friend. People judge you. If you have the patience, click SAMUEL to watch me weeping and preaching towards the end; well, after the message was uploaded on youtube, I watched it and felt bad. Why am I weeping that way? Slowly, God started dealing with me and explained that those tears were not about me, but was for someone out there who needed comfort, God did not stop there, He made me watch a couple of videos of very good prophets who were weeping and sobbing worse than me, during the time of delivering sermons. Well, those tears are not ‘helpless, hopeless tears’ but tears that carry the burden of the body of Christ. Anybody listening? Stop looking for people to download your sob-story, that becomes ‘juice’ for people to drink, enjoy and gossip. Learn to close your door and pray. Be strong. Say like David, ‘Return to your rest, O my soul!’
MAKING OF A KING:
The Lord strips David from his family, hometown, familiar surroundings, friends and even Jonathan and brings him to the wilderness because it is HERE that David gets his training to be the next king.
One cannot become an Olympian champion overnight, for some it had taken a decade of practice, determination, sacrifice and commitment to arrive to that stage. David was God-made product. While the enemy Saul was chasing to kill David, God did not leave his side even for a second, that’s why David writes:
• Psalm 16:8”…..Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely.’
Today, people do not want to go through the path of training, practice, learning, grooming and waiting but would like to do long jump and high jump, but the Bible says, ‘the steps of the righteous man are ordered by the Lord!’ Even though the work of the Lord may look slow; yet, He works steadfastly and steadily. When we started our ‘three days fire retreat camp’ about seven years back, with an aim to train people to be soldiers for Christ, the first meeting comprised of people from my family and few friends. I will never forget the statement of someone close to me who said, ‘it does not look like a fire-camp but a family camp!’ The expenses were nothing less, they were huge; we just charged per person Rs.150/- for three days food and lodging but we took care of the balance expenses. The fire camp called AIC fire camp(Abide-in-Christ ) were held the following years too; it was great learning, it was held in three metropolitan cities and now we are hosting the 8th one in Bangalore. Pastors, leaders and preachers travel from villages and towns to attend the meeting; God has taken it to the next level! Still leaning and growing, though. I’m the main preacher, while my entire family are into this work of God, taking care of worship and other things. We still charge less and take care of the expenses because people from villages attend this camp to equip themselves for the Lord’s service.
GOD MAKES YOU STRONG THROUGH THE PROCESS;
1 Samuel 20:41”David got up from the south side of the stone and bowed down before Jonathan three times, with his face to the ground. Then they kissed each other and wept together--but David wept the most.”
Each time I read the above scripture, something in me gets stirred, though I have written several devotions based on this single scripture; yet, I can dig more each time I come to this portion of the Bible. David wept the most. The comments of AB De Villiers about Kohli in ‘ The Hindu’ today, made me pause and read the column again, he wrote,” I doubted that Kohli had leadership qualities because he was too emotional and passionate but he has managed to control it.” Ah! Who said emotional people cannot lead? We got to read about David to cancel all misconceptions. Have you at any point of time felt in your life, ‘hey, this doesn’t hurt me like it used to hurt me before?’ Please tell me, because this level of maturity is simply delicious! You get to this level after you endure betrayals, humiliation, rejections, sudden ditching, unexpected cancellations and huge lot of other things. We find David weep like a baby when he had to leave Jonathan and run for his life from king Saul; here we find him weak and emotional but God started dealing with David in the wilderness and working on the inside of him. I’m excited. Pregnant with multiple complications in my uterus, I used to retire in a small empty room in my bank during lunch breaks, back when I was working for a multinational bank. None visited me, except for one friend who visited me occasionally; however, that loneliness led me to find solace in Christ – inch by inch I was led to Christ, never to turn back again. Hallelujah!
During a particular retreat camp in our new city, where we not only had to preach the Word but also cater to food and boarding requirements, one particular night the helpers failed to turn up and hence the entire place was filled with dirty utensils; there was none to help, things had to be cleaned for the morning session to begin, working till midnight, got the place cleaned up. After handling such silly tensions and frustrations, my mind refused to get ready to preach the next day. Who would ever know that I was settling issues relating to ‘dirty vessels’! In order to muster up myself together, I tuned on to a powerful sermon and kept hearing it, that was enough, I went to bed peacefully. Let me conclude by telling what I learnt from the episode of ‘dirty vessels’, we stopped dealing with such things and we hired food caterers. Today we have food coupons for all three days of the camp, the team handles everything from collecting registration money to delivering the food packets upon receiving of food coupons. I am not in the picture at all. Sometimes you learn the hard way. Everything is well organized now after eight years of struggle, pain, rearrangements and hard work; we are upgrading ourselves through experience. Have you been blessed?
