Ang Lingkod Ng Panginoon- Singapore: February 2009

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Here I Am To Worship

Light of the world

You stepped down into darkness

Opened my eyes, let me see

Beauty that made this heart adore You

Hope of a life spent with You

Here I am to worship

Here I am to bow down

Here I am to say that You're my God

You're altogether lovely

Altogether worthy

Altogether wonderful to me

King of all days

Oh so highly exalted

Glorious in Heaven above

Humbly You came to the earth You created

All for love's sake became poor

I'll never know how much it cost

To see my sin upon that cross

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

I was praying last night and thanking God for the many accomplishments I was able to do at work. I thought, finally! I have a long prayer time because I was not distracted or overly tired to do it that night. Plus I wanted to thank God (gloat is more like it!) about my “so called accomplishments. As I was going on and on about it, I realized that Jesus Himself had so many accomplishments. Everyday He had a lot of things to do. He preached in the temples. He cured the sick. Another day, He fed thousands of people. He visited homes and performed miracles. He even stopped a storm and drove out many demons. There was no bus or mrt then so He must have walked long distances or even rode a donkey or a camel (seriously I cannot imagine it being very comfortable, and let alone how they smell!) to reach His destinations and I imagine Him tired and hot and exhausted as He falls asleep each night. If I compare my accomplishments or even the activities I have to His, It will miserably fail in comparison. I believe Jesus accomplished more in a day than I will ever do in my lifetime. What is astounding to realize is that this eternal Son of God, this sinless son of Man, is also human just like me. He experiences the same tiredness I feel everyday, the same exhaustion of mind. The same longing for that bed …but unlike me, He takes the time to pray as sacred, and He makes it a quality prayer time, irregardless of what He must be feeling that day… He prays in the morning, in the evening, before every important task. He even prayed the entire night and then did many miracles the following morning. His very life is a prayer. It is His way of Life.

Sometimes it is hard to be faithful in my prayer time, but truly I have no excuse not to be. Jesus Himself proved that I cannot use the excuse that I am busy, or I am tired not to pray and talk to Him, He made sure I have His divine example to follow. And His example also promises that I will be able to do great things after praying too. He does not ask much anyway, a couple of minutes a day even just an hour; He gave every second of my entire lifetime after all. What I read once rings true to me now; God needs to hear my voice and what I want, not because He forgets but because, He loves to hear the sweetness of my prayers.

We have to pray, we need to pray. There really is no excuse not to.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Faith is a Verb

In You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought, John Roger and Peter McWilliams offered a new description of faith. They chose the word faithing to describe their proactive approach to confidence in life's outcomes.
In their thinking, faithing works in the present, acknowledging that there is a purpose to everything and life is unfolding exactly as it should. It is actively trusting that God can handle our troubles and needs better than we can. All we must do is let them go so that He can do His work.

"THE TWO BOXES"

I have in my hands two boxes
Which God gave me to hold
He said, "Put all your sorrows in the black,
And all your joys in the gold."
I heeded His words, and in the two boxes
Both my joys and sorrows I store,
But though the gold became heavier each day
The black was as light as before.
With curiosity, I opened the black.
I wanted to find out why.
And I saw, in the base of the box, a hole
Which my sorrows had fallen out by
I showed the hole to God, and mused aloud
"I wonder where all my sorrows could be."
He smiled a gentle smile at me
"My child, they're all here, with Me."
I asked, "God, why give me the boxes,
Why the gold, and the black with the hole?"
"My child, the gold is to count your blessings,
the black is for you to let go."

Faith is the assurance of the things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1