Lessons from Dan: #2 - Father's Plan

On a Sunday evening, as has been the case for every Sunday the last few months, we were rushing to get ready and be on time for the Holy Mass. Dan, our nine month old, was playing on the floor and it was now his turn to get ready. Just as we picked him up, he started crying, wailing and screaming in protest. He wanted to continue playing. He kept on crying for the entire time we were getting him ready. But once he was ready and we got him out of the house, he was the happiest soul on this planet - smiling from ear to ear, jumping excitedly in his mother's arm. Over the weeks, we have come to know this routine very well and we know that it will happen this Sunday too. 

We know very well that Dan loves to go out, but he doesn't understand (yet) that our intention to stop him from playing and to get him ready is exactly so that he can go out.

In some ways, aren't we like Dan? Don't we behave like this with God - our loving Father? If as human parents we would always want the best to happen to our child, how much more would the almighty powerful God want it that way for us, His children. And we just like Dan, cry, protest, whine, rebel, get frustrated, angry, irritated, impatient when all that is required is that we trust God's plan for us and cooperate with Him as He gets us ready for what He has in store for us.

Thus says the Lord, "For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope." - Jeremiah 29:11

Surely, He knows the plan for you. It's not an ok-ok plan. It's not a good plan. It's the best plan. Trust in Him. Let Him work in you and with you!

God Bless!

Photo by lauren lulu taylor on Unsplash

Lessons from Dan #1: Love of God the Father

Daniel has been in our lives since Mar’18 – in womb for 9 months, we got to see him face-to-face in Nov’18. And I consider each day with him, such a blessing.

Over these last few months of being a dad and spending time with Dan, I have received such wonderful insights – the biggest one is about God, our loving Father.

When Jesus came into this world, he gave a radically different and disruptive image of God. He called God His Father and asked us to call Him the same. The relationship with God completely changed. It was no longer a Master-slave relation or a Creator-creature or an Almighty-powerless or a Holy-unholy or a Judge-accused or a Ruler-subject relation. It is a Father-child relation!! St John in his letter will go on to say – “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.” (1 John3:1) It is this relationship that I have been understanding layer by layer over the last few months.

The moment my wife and I became aware about Dan’s presence, we started loving him. He didn’t have to do anything for us to love him. We love him because he is our child. No matter how much he troubles us, we love him. There have been times when he has pushed us to the limits of sleeplessness, frustration, tiredness, irritation, but in spite of all of that we love him. He might be his crankiest worst, but we still love him. If we as human parents with all weaknesses and imperfection feel this way, what about God our Father?

And that has led me to experience once more and may be more powerfully than ever, that “God is Love." Period. He is love, He knows only to love and He pours out His love for us. No if’s and but’s, no conditions or comparisons or consequences, no question asked, no explanation sought, no commitment taken. He just loves us – you and me – personally, unconditionally, immeasurably. There is nothing that we should do to be loved by Him. He just loves us – just as we are.

He pours out His love on you. Would you let yourself be soaked in His love for you? Would you stop worrying? And start trusting in Him? All that is required is just to be a child, a child safe in the arms of a loving, almighty powerful God who is our Father! Would you do that?

“You cannot imagine at all how much you interest God; He is interested in you as if there were no one else on earth.” – Julien Green

God Bless!

Be Like Bartimaeus

My fave Bible character is Bartimaeus. He is not a miracle worker or a powerful prophet or a great preacher or a person of great stature in the society or someone who led armies to victory. He was a blind beggar. But he made God say “What do you want me to do for you?”

He figures in three out of the four Gospels (Mark 10:46-52, Matthew 20:29-34 and Luke 18:35-43) and is identified by his name in the Gospel according to St. Mark.

Sitting on the roadside, when he heard that Jesus was in town, he began to shout and say, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.” People around him asked him to keep quiet, but he shouted even louder. Jesus then called him and asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” He answered that he wanted to see and his sight was immediately restored. He then followed Jesus. 

So what inspires me about Bartimaeus? His persistent faith! He was not bogged down by his blindness or his poverty. He knew that Jesus could touch and transform his life. When people around him discouraged and actively opposed him, he persisted with an even greater vigor till Jesus took note of him and lovingly gave him the miracle he was looking for.

Do we have faith like Bartimaeus? While going through struggles, pain, suffering, problems can we put our faith in the Lord like Bartimaeus did?  When we struggle with our faith, when we are bogged down by sin, apathy, lukewarmness, laziness, indifference, busy-ness, can we persist in our faith like Bartimaeus focusing not on what pulls us down but on Him who can raise us up? When experiences, incidents or people passively or actively encourage us to shun our faith, can we, like Bartimaeus, shout out louder and put greater trust in the Lord and his personal, unconditional love for us? In the face of everything that snuffs out our hope, can we, like Bartimaeus, hope in Him who can turn our darkness into light, our mourning into joy, in Him who knows and understands us like no one else does, in Him whose love for us is greater than our sin, our vices, our mistakes, our weaknesses, in Him who has great and wonderful plans for us, in Him who will never leave or forsake us?

Let Bartimaeus – a beggar who begged his way into God’s heart – inspire us to persist in faith and to trust in His love and mercy.

God Bless!