My Walk With God

Genesis 22: 1 - 2. 9a.10 - 13.15 - 18; Romans 8: 31b - 34; Mark 9: 2 - 10. “Thou have loved me righteously and though I am a struggling sinner, Thy love leads me to Salvation. I beseech Thee to teach me wisdom, so that I may grow more in faith trusting Thee at all times. Teach me to obey as Abraham did,so that I may find Joy as I continue to follow in Thy Words for all times” It was love that empowered Abraham to believe God as much as he did. It was love that allowed Abraham to trust that God would have an alternate plan. It was love that allowed Abraham to understand that God is not a capable of evil. God loves mankind; every human being is a beloved of God and every human soul is precious to the Lord. However, in His wisdom God knows that He must not force the human to love Him that is Divine. Because if God did force the human being to follow His commands then God’s gifts of eyes to see, ears to hear, mind to rationalise, heart to desire, mouth to speak and senses to feel

Deuteronomy 26: 16 - 19; Matthew 5: 43 - 48. “I live my life seeking Thy inspiration. I seek Thy teachings in Thy Words. My worship is listening to Thy voice and obeying Thy commands. I pray my Lord, that Thy grace will give me special protection from my enemy and deliverance from hard trials” The Lord of Host creator of everything that exists has always been Marvellous. He has extended that marvel to creating the earth and into creating mankind. When God created Adam and Eve, He gave them special conditions that would enable them to continue to live in His Light and then, God put them in a special place called Eden. But these two humans did not live to the expectations of Heaven; they did not remain special and hence they had to leave the garden of Eden to live in a place that suited their spiritual state. Later on, as Adam’s descendants populated the earth, some of the sonsof heaven were enticed by evil and they corrupted the human heart. God was disappointed that mankind would no

Ezekiel 18: 21 - 28; Matthew 5: 20 - 26. “Thou are merciful indeed O Lord. I am forever grateful for Thy teachings and I have decided to renew my faith through the Sacraments of the Holy Catholic Church. This I do, so that I may continue to live in Holiness until the time for me to be lifted to Heaven in Spirit. I pray my Lord that I may always remember Thy commands and I will be attentive to all my thoughts and actions without making any delays to remain at peace with my neighbour and also my Loving God”. God has been patient in our transgressions from the time of creation. Mankind has kept going wrong and even going astray every now and then. And God being compassionate in understanding our weaknesses and our lack of wisdom has been merciful to us. As subjects of God’s righteousness, we must attest to the righteousness that the Lord displays in the Book of Ezekiel 18: 21 - 28 . When the Lord created the world with an environment for human life, it was perfect and mankind thr

1 Peter 5: 1 - 4, Matthew 16: 13 - 19. “Take me my Lord to Thy heavenly abode. Teach me the ways of Mercy, Charity and Innocence and discipline me in Thy ways to follow the teachings of Thy Church established by Jesus Christ through Thy Pontiff St. Peter and the Apostles. I am willing and eager and wish to humbly live in Thy Words to be an example to those that see me so that they may also praise Thy name”. The unfathomable mercy of the Heavenly Father, none can comprehend. It was pre-ordained that none shall ever know the mind of God. For none were there when He created everything. Yet, the truth is that, it was by God’s love and mercy that God created. It was the Lord’s abundant love that brought about the creation of the Heavens with His angelic servants; a Spiritual place from where God could pass the ordinance to create the vast universe with all the stars, the galaxies, the planets and all the other cosmological bodies that astrophysicists are yet to discover. Within thi

Jonah 3: 1 - 10; Luke 11: 29 - 32. “Thy mercy is unfathomable and boundless and I am unworthy of Thy touch. Why should Thou have pity when I transgress in my sin? I am but dust, to dust I will return and yet, Thou reaches out to me to awaken my Spirit to seek repentance. Thou are the sign that lights up in my darkness. Here I am, lost in oblivion and Thou offers me a chance at Redemption”. From the moment that God created mankind, He has always been mindful of us. God cautioned Adam and Eve not to eat the forbidden fruit and even though their sin put them out of paradise; sending them repenting into the wilderness, the Lord continued to be mindful of them and He protected them from destruction. The Lord of Hosts continued to be mindful of Adam’s descendants even though the devil corrupted Cain entirely and through Seth, God raised hope for the future of mankind. After the Lord had populated the world through Noah and his descendants, God sanctified the seed of one faithful man –

Isaiah 55: 10 - 11; Matthew 6: 7 - 15 “Thou has picked me up from among the sinful and sanctified me. Thy Commandments are in my heart and Thy spirit guides my soul. Let Thy Spirit guide me in my prayers so that I may worship Thee in Spirit. Inspire and correct my deeds to be free of evil and hypocrisy, so that I may worship Thee in Truth.Thou taught me to pray in righteousness and this earnest prayer will lead me to Thee as Thy accomplishes Thy will in all things.” It is the Lord’s will to accomplish works that will make us better people. We can only become better people when we keep ourselves close to Him. The only way to cling to the Lord is to put all our faith and hopes on the Lord and His plan. Thus, it becomes eminent on our part to take active part in God’s Plan, thus paving the path to our sanctification and holiness in Him. To alight our minds, let us take a simple example. To warm our food, we must place our food as close as we can to the source of energy and heat. A

Leviticus 19: 1 - 2; 11 - 18; Matthew 25: 31 - 46. “Prepare me my Lord, for the day of Judgement. I am a sinner and I have gone wrong. Let me not fall among the goats, for I love my Shepherd. I follow my Master wherever He goes. And though I stumble and fall many a times, Thou has picked me up and led me to serve thy will”. God has always been our Father. And as a Father figure, the Lord has been our creator, our teacher, our provider, our protector our Master, our Leader, our King … God is all that Mankind ever needs to grow, sustain, thrive and succeed. He created the world within an environment that helps mankind thrive and He created mankind to care for the world and the environment. From the very beginning, God guided Adam and his descendants to subsist. He gave them the basic commandments that were passed down from generation to generation through Noah and to the descendants of Shem, the Semite. Abram, later known as Abraham followed God’s commands and was careful to Obey

Genesis 9: 8 - 15; 1 Peter 3: 18 - 22; Mark 1: 12 - 15. “My Lord and my God, I bless you and thank you with all my heart and all my strength for purging my sin and making me anew. Through the death and resurrection of Thy Son Jesus Christ Thou has given me, Thy humble and sorrowful servant another chance. Sorrowful because of my sins and glad because of Thy mercy. For just as Thy gave mankind a new start after the great deluge, so also, Thou has washed my sins away and in Thy mercy replenished my life”. It was through Kindness and Mercy that God sent His Only Son Jesus Christ our Lord to take the form of a Human, remind His people Israel about His Covenant with Abraham and save His people from their sin by taking it all upon Himself on the Cross. Now wherein history has anyone ever heard about the innocent being punished for the sake of saving the guilty? Nevertheless, God Loves His creation and He is faithful to His covenant with Noah as mentioned in the book of Genesis 9: 8

Isaiah 58: 9 - 14; Luke 5: 27 - 32. “I Bless Thy Name and thank Thee, my Lord. Thou have picked me up from the by-lanes and fed me Thy grace. I was but a sinner, engulfed in my habits and my sinful trade. I knew no other way than living in sin. But Thou offered me Thy hand and entered my unworthy home. Thou sat at my table and fed my spirit with Heavenly Joy. How can I ever turn back then, when Thou has made me such glorious promises? How can I not follow Thee to the ends of the earth?” We need only take one voluntary step to following the Lord and He will support us like crutches until we can walk like righteous people. We all know our difficulties and the lure of the world. We all know that the worldly pleasures that lure us are but temporary. And even if our joy remains incomplete, we lack the strength to build discipline within our hearts and do what is pleasing to God. There was a man once who despite his mother’s upbringing and constant tutoring in the Gospel of the Lord,

Isaiah 58: 1 - 9a; Matthew 9: 14 - 15. “My heart is heavy and my head hangs in shame. I have faltered and now I am in dismay. My life is of prayer and I try my best to devote my works to Thee. But I grow as a plant choking in a thorn bush for the pressure of this world pushes me down. I beseech you my Lord, my penance is not so pure. I deny myself of pleasures but I weigh down my frustration on those who serve me. Teach me patience and teach me kindness so that I may learn to practice my devotion, not like a hypocrite”. All faith with no work is dead. We may have the greatest faith, the loveliest devotion, and the most understanding mind. But if we do not introduce love, patience, compassion, mercy, and charity even in the smallest of our actions and reactions towards our neighbours, we continue to be hypocrites and our sin persists. We do love to practice our faith as per the ‘Good Book’ through repentance, fasting, abstinence, prayer, worship and all that the church teaches

Deuteronomy 30: 15 - 20; Luke 9: 22 - 25. “I have chosen life my Lord and Thou has promised me Life in Abundance. As the world has rejected Christ, so also, I reject the world. I carry my cross for Thy sake and I stumble as I follow Thee. Give me the strength O Lord, to overcome the temptation of vanity and to forfeit the materialism of this world. For this life is just a breath and I, a reed shaking in the wind. Bless me with Thy fortitude and Thy Wisdom, for what can this world offer me when Thou has promised Eternal Life?” God created the Heavens and the earth so that His creation would persist and thrive according to His will. For who plants a seed and does not wait for the tree to yield flowers and fruit? If so, sinful as we are, we expected to derive pleasure out of the work that we do, how much more should the Lord not expect to derive joy out of His creation? Moreover, the Lord was even kind to give mankind the gift of free will so that we can choose our fate. Then to

Joel 2: 12 - 18; 2 Corinthians 5: 20 - 21, 6: 1 - 2; Matthew 6: 1 - 6, 16 - 18. “Thou calls out to me in my darkness. Thy light is hidden from me. Thou call for my repentance and I remember my sins. Go away from me, Lord! I am unworthy... But Thou embraces me with compassion and reminds me of Thy mercy. Nothing is hidden from Thee; I am always exposed. But Thou offers me a chance at redemption only to bring me closer. In shame, I sincerely confess and acknowledge my evil. My shame is my pain, I am in sorrow and repentant. But, my pain arises from Thy mercy and my sorrow is but Thy Grace. Here I am, lost in the darkness and Thy love guides me back to Thy fold”. Our repentance is a call from God. The Spirit within us begins to stir. This Temple can no longer be a home for evil, for it was designed for the Lord. It is only a matter of time before the angels blow the trumpet and our spiritual ears awaken our soul. The Lord has summoned us to a meeting, we need to cleanse and be pure. Wh