Contemplative prayer – Page 18

Category: Contemplative prayer

Backpack on Sale – Thanks, Lord!

4 October 2019 blogpastor Leave a comment

I am thankful to God for this timely sale at Decathlon. I had been eyeing this good quality backpack for my upcoming Camino Ignaciano. I was not prepared to pay the $70 original price a few months back. So I waited and occasionally peeped the website. A few days ago, I saw that it was on sale at $50! Was I seeing things? Was it only available on line?

My wife and I were going Decathlon anyway to change a hiking pants that was too tight. So what a joy it was to see the backpack on sale. Bought it immediately with joy and thanksgiving.

In todays world of consumerism, waiting is a struggle for many. Why wait when you can have it now? Enjoy now with credit card and pay later. We want what we want now. Instant gratification is the rule of the day.

To wait requires holding back gratification of our demanding desires (often as demanding as Arsenal football club fans). What I found was that patient waiting is worth it. I experienced God’s fatherly love and great timing ( I fly off this Sunday). It is so sweet and special. Whenever I carry this backpack, it will remind me of His meticulous provision and evoke thanks and praise for his kindness.

Regretting the National Day

13 August 2019 blogpastor Leave a comment

Hazy and lazy day

It was National Day. It was a hazy and lazy day for me. One I regretted. I went for a long ride to the Jurong Lake Gardens with my Brompton bike. The cloud cover and slight haze made for a cooler ride. The park was more crowded than usual but still pleasant to cycle on the park connector. It makes no difference marking out paths for cyclists, pedestrians and joggers. Most do not observe them anyway. Still it was a pleasant 10km ride back and forth from my home to the endpoint near the AYE expressway.

View from atop Passion Wave a new building for water sports at Jurong Lake Gardens

TV and internet

When I returned my brother in law and wife were visiting. They had been there an hour but I was riding. Talked a little before they too went off and my wife and I went out to the Yuhua hawker center and market for a yong tau fu lunch. We bought some kueh kueh for tea so when I got home I plonked myself in the sofa and surfed the web happily: Arsenal had bought some good players at the last day of the transfer window and I was reading all that different newspapers in England said about that. I also manage to catch a Korean variety show, a K-movie titled Microhabitat, and in the evening an African movie titled, The Queen of Katwa, based on a true story of a chess prodigy. The whole afternoon and evening was taken up with internet news and television.

Reviewing the day

On Saturday morning as I reviewed how I idled on National Day I regretted that I was throughout the day mostly oblivious to the presence of God with me. If the Holy Spirit had been a physical friend who was with me the whole day he would have felt offended, upset or saddened that I had hardly paid any attention to his presence with me throughout the day. So absorbed was I in relaxation activities I had forgotten His lovely presence. As I sat there I enjoyed His companionship. It was so peaceful, refreshing and enlightening. I felt sorry and told Him so. And I found my thoughts absorbed in the Korean movie I had watched. In God’s mercy and ability to recycle waste, I saw how the Microhabitat movie threw light on a verse that had puzzled me before. I even remember praying, Lord help me understand this verse. And now the Lord was shedding light on it using the Korean movie to give me some insights into the life of the Spirit.

I felt blessed and enjoyed God’s company throughout the Saturday as He helped me finalise the sermon I would preach on Sunday about the Holy Spirit. Life with the Spirit is always interesting.

The prayer of trust in God

29 July 2019 blogpastor Leave a comment

This prayer of trust in God is not easy. I find that when I bring a burden, problem or concern to God, I have strings attached. I unconsciously want it answered my way, and usually as soon as possible. I want the outcome to be what I envisage to be God’s plan or will in a given situation. If things does not pan out that way, I get upset, frustrated, worried. But I am learning.

How can water meet a shortage of wine in a wedding?

I am learning prayer from Mary, the mother of Jesus. She saw that the wedding at Cana was in trouble because the wine was running out (John 2). It was a big problem because hospitality was a big thing. It was hard for hosts to estimate the amount of food or wine needed because virtually everyone invited could invite anyone. What did Mary do? She told Jesus, “They are short on wine.” That’s all. She did not tell Jesus what he needed to do and how to do it. When I pray, I find myself telling God what to do as though I know the best way of solving various problems. Who has known the mind and ways of God to counsel and instruct him? Of course none of us tell God what to do – except unconsciously or unknowingly – in prayer. It cannot be called a prayer of trust in God then. It should be called a prayer to control or use God.

This insight from Mary’s example has been an impetus for me to learn to pray by just letting God know there is a problem and telling him I don’t know what to do and I trust Him with it. If he does whisper, or bring to my mind something I could do about the matter, I will just do it, no matter how irrelevant or inadequate the action he drops in my mind may seem. Pouring hundreds of litres of water into stone jars seemed totally inadequate and irrelevant to the shortage of wine in the wedding, but the servants did as they were told and lo, and behold, God was able to do exceeding beyond all that Mary could ask or imagine, and all the glory goes to him.

When I do the prayer of trust in God it liberates me from this grasping tendency to want to maintain control over events and peoples future, over wanting to look good, over my lust for success as I define it, over greed and selfishness. I enter a realm of peace, contentment, and abandon. I welcome a willingness to let God be God, for I acknowledge that I am not.