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New Year Prayers for Radical Christians

8 January 2021 blogpastor Leave a comment

Sometimes looking at the prayers of pilgrims who have faithfully gone ahead of us gives voice to the unspoken desires and prayer within our hearts. Use them to articulate what you want to offer to God in the new year.

COVENANT PRAYER

I am no longer my own, but Thine. Put me to what Thou wilt, rank me with whom Thou wilt; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for Thee or laid aside for Thee, exalted for Thee or brought low for Thee; let me be full, let me be empty; let me have all things, let me have nothing; freely and heartily yield all things to Thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Thou art mine, and I am Thine. So be it. And the covenant, which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen.

Source unknown, used by John Wesley in his Covenant Service

SUSCIPE (LATIN, “RECEIVE’)

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.

Ignatius Loyola, 1491-1556

PRAYER OF TRUST IN GOD

O Father, I will trust Thee: for all the known and all the unknown good that I have ever had has come from Thee.

Sweet Saviour, I will trust Thee: thy grace is all sufficient for my soul, as mighty as Thy power and as matchless as Thy love.

Blest Spirit, I will trust Thee: how can I ever dare to trust myself, to think, or speak, or act apart from Thee.

O God, my God, my hope and stay, who knowest and orderest all that is best, I know not what to will or do aright; then make me ever love to choose and do Thy will.

Walter Howard Frere, 1863-1938

PRAYER FOR GENEROSITY

Eternal Word, only begotten Son of God,
Teach me true generosity.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve.
To give without counting the cost,
To fight heedless of wounds,
To labour without seeking rest,
To sacrifice myself without thought of any reward,
Save the knowledge that I have done your will. Amen.

Ignatius Loyola, 1491-1556

PRAYER TO SPREAD GOD’S LOVE

Dear Jesus, help us to spread Your fragrance everywhere we go.
Flood our souls with Your Spirit and Life.
Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly
that our lives may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through us and be so in us
that every soul we come in contact with
may feel Your presence in our souls.
Let them look up, and see no longer us, but only Jesus!

Stay with us and then we shall begin to shine as You shine,
so to shine as to be a light to others.
The light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be ours.
It will be You, shining on others through us.

Let us thus praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around us.
Let us preach You without preaching, not by words but by example,
by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do,
the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear for You. Amen.

John Henry Newman, 1801-1890

(prayed daily by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity)

PRAYER OF PERFECT RESIGNATION

My God, I do not know what must come to me today.
But I am certain that nothing can happen to me
that you have not foreseen, decreed, and ordained from all eternity.
That is sufficient for me.
I adore your impenetrable and eternal designs,
to which I submit with all my heart.
I desire, I accept them all, and I unite my sacrifice
to that of Jesus Christ, my divine Saviour.
I ask in his name and through his infinite merits,
patience in my trials, and perfect and entire submission
to all that comes to me by your good pleasure. Amen.

Joseph Pignatelli, 1737-1811

Write Every Day

7 January 2021 blogpastor 2 Comments

It was so simple. I knew it from reading about writing. WRITE EVERY DAY. The discipline of writing every day yields benefits, as sure as sowing results in the joys of harvesting.

For the past week, I tried a few times to write, but could not get down to it. I did not feel like doing it. I did not feel motivated nor inspired. However, on Sunday, when a friend asked for help to write something about frequently asked questions about retreats, I got it done in less than an hour. I actually could write (without inspiration). I suppose the motivation was there though: the desire to help out as a member of a team that supports retreats. So I wrote, and as I wrote I did not feel inspired, just motivated.

Today over tea and curry puffs, I talked with a friend about writing, and journeying with younger pastors, post-retirement. I was pretty sure this is what the Lord is leading me towards thus far. I have given God a blank page and he has written. My friend casually mentioned something about the importance of writing every day. It hit me, like God was prodding me: Just write it. Don’t have to post everything you write every day. Some days the post is not complete. Leave it to stew. Work on more than one posts. Edit. Rewrite. More thinking and research. Then shoot when its ready to be sprung from the bow. That motivated me.

I sat down in the evening, and wrote this. Ha!

Thank you, Lord. Let this be the start of a fruitful and godly and happy habit. Amen.

I Am Grateful For 2020

1 January 2021 blogpastor Leave a comment

MENACING PANDEMIC

Covid-19 has cast a menacing shadow on the year 2020. It is the year of the pandemic. 1,816,120 deaths from Covid 19 in 2020, and these are only reported cases. 83, 260,611 infected, of which 59,049,598 have recovered. These statistics are bad, mad and sad. Singapore had also been in the valley of shadow of death. Anxiety, fear and frustration are the moods of the year. However, I do not want to dwell on these tragic details in this post. We are all familiar with the roll call of facts about the source, spread and devastation of the coronavirus. Rather, this post is about my personal reflection of 2020. Despite the darkness, I have experienced much of God’s abundance and redemptive grace. I have much to be grateful for.

REDEMPTIVE GRACE & ABUNDANCE

For one, my whole family is back in Singapore. For a while my wife and I were empty nesters with my son Joshua and his wife Ping studying in London, my second son Matthew serving the air forces in Australia with his wife and our two grandkids, and my daughter Elaine working in the USA. In 2019 my two sons returned with their families, and as if that wasn’t wonderful enough, my daughter was allowed to work from home in Singapore from March 2020. We were prepared to quarantine her at home but the hour she landed in the airport she was briskly brought straightaway to the Grand Park Orchard for government imposed and paid quarantine for two weeks. What a blessing and relief to know she was totally well.

Elaine works from afternoon to about 1am Singapore time and meets her office colleagues remotely at night. Then she would sleep in but we get to see her for meals like lunch and dinner and some weekends. It was wonderful to have her around. Now I wonder when she will be recalled back to her office in Washington DC. Hopefully she won’t be recalled until June 2021.

YEAR OF LEARNING & EQUIPPING

I am also grateful that the Covid 19 circuit breaker period and the months after necessitated the learning of new digital skills that I never had before. Speaking to an empty room with only a phone camera in front of me is something I have become comfortable with. I have also become strangely comfortable reviewing my talks on video. I used to squirm and switch off when I watched myself preach on video. Not so any more. I have also learned to use Zoom for meetings, as well as teach a Christian Education course. I can see possibilities in using these digital platforms. In the larger picture, the churches here have moved from being digital laggards to progressives, and this is a big, big positive in terms of future digital presence.

It has also forced me to purchase stuff online, mainly from Lazada. It began with buying necessary equipment to improve my recording of sermons and digital presence. Soon I moved on to stuff like bicycle lamps and camera lens that I wanted for my hobbies, to frivolous stuff like buying a linen shirt for dirt cheap price for the experience of it. I learned that when it comes to clothing, it’s better to visit the shopping mall.

SWEET RETIREMENT BY GOD’S GRACE

I am grateful that my retirement after 40 years of pastoral ministry in the same church was done sweetly. I am thankful that a home-grown church servant, Alvin Lim had been called by God to serve as the English Congregation pastor, and he willingly obeyed. I feel privileged to have seen God’s hand in forming a team of young people in full-time and part-time ministry, and weaving them with the more experienced staff. All this made it possible for me to step down as senior pastor with peace of mind. It was also a quiet but pleasant send-off with words of affirmation and good wishes, from the President and church leaders and members, and prayers of the three congregational pastors. All pre-recorded before a live audience and screened later for people to view on-line. I was feeling joyful during the recording of that segment, which was done straight after, the pre-recording of the ordination of service of Rev Alvin Lim on a Saturday morning. Very joyful and moving occasions when I sensed a strong anointing of God’s Spirit.

I was also grateful for the final retreat I would have as a senior pastor. Lance Ng, my spiritual director guided me to reflect on the 40 years of pastoral ministry and the desires that the Spirit is stirring within me with regards to the future. Co-discerning what God is saying and doing is so vital and that is the spiritual director’s role. I was excited with the desires of my heart that surfaced during that five days of silent delighting in the Lord at Life Springs Spirituality Centre. I have been giving God a blank page for post-retirement, refusing to plan but instead to wait on Him, and the Lord has started to reveal the steps I am to take after retirement. Exciting new chapter.

SUMMARY

To summarize, although 2020 was a “negative” year in terms of the adverse effects on mental health, the economy, jobs, separation and loss of loved ones, and the surfacing of ugly politics, for me personally God has graciously allowed me to experience his abundance, guidance and preparation for the future. Oddly I will remember 2020 rather fondly because I see too many positives for myself and my family and the church– the lot has fallen nicely for us.