Living a fulfilling life as a Lean Christian in a Fat World ©

As we enter the month of December, we are motivated to ponder on the Christmas story. In Luke 2 we see a decree for census being made from Caesar Augustus, a Roman Emperor. This forces Joseph and Mary to travel a difficult journey from Northern Israel town of Nazareth to the Southern Israel town of Bethlehem. The Christmas story unfolds with the birth of Jesus followed by angels pronouncing the birth of Jesus and shepherds rejoicing at the good news. In Luke 2:22 we see Jesus being presented at the temple to the Lord, where Simeon and Anna come to worship Jesus. This appears to be a nice story. However, if we look at its details, we will be amazed at how a Master Plan is being unveiled. The distance from Nazareth to Jerusalem, as the crow flies, is about 63 miles. Now having walked through the rugged terrain of Israel, I can fully comprehend that the walking distance is much more than 63 miles. This journey for Joseph and Mary must have a taken at least 4-5 days, espec

The other day I was reading a Business Week article about the list of the world’s most successful immigrants.  They ranged from Google’s co-founder to Warren Buffet’s blue eyed boy from India. Their success seemed to inspire me. As I continued reading, I thought to myself who does not want to be successful? Everybody wants to win! Coming to America or to a new country is not easy. On top of that making a success in the new country as an immigrant is another dimension. As an immigrant to USA for twenty one years, I can totally relate to the struggles that an immigrant faces in a new country. I am sure that these successful immigrants worked hard against all odds.  These guys must be smart, intelligent and most importantly had key opportunities knock on their career doors at the right time.  Unfortunately for many immigrants or even local natives, such career success is like a distant star in the sky. However, have you considered the challenges for the land that you will be

We have all seen how electrical equipment’s get their power to operate, that is, when they are connected to the power socket through an electric cable. Let’s take the example of a laptop.  When the laptop operates only on its battery then with time and use its life will start deteriorating. However, when the laptop is connected to the electric outlet on the wall through an electric cable, then the laptop’s productivity is always at 100%.  As long as the cable is connected between the laptop and the electric outlet, the laptop receives full power and it is able fully open up all its different programs, without fail. Otherwise, we will keep seeing a pop up sign that keeps telling us how much longer we can stay connected or stop working.    Our life on earth is just like the laptop. Inevitably, we always seem to be trying to operate as if we are only on battery power.  We try to do things with our own intellect, logic, understanding and worldly concerns, but with time we will see o

Tom Hanks in the movie Forest Gump says “ Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get .” Life’s challenges begin from the time we are little. At elementary school, many of us are forced to compete for good grades. As we grow older we practice hard to make into sports, robotics and debate teams and some of us even work harder to get a date for a school dance. In this struggle, we go through cycles of success & failure, joy & sadness, excitement & disappointment.  After we graduate we become happy with the assumption that there are no more grades, but we soon realize that competition has just increased two or three fold. Two month vacations are a thing of the past – the hard reality of life kicks in.  In Jeremiah 18 we see God taking the prophet Jeremiah to a potter’s house. He sees the potter taking the clay that was “marred” or broken and making it into another vessel that seemed best to him. The prophet understands that our life is lik

On Saturday Jan 23, 2010, I was watching CNN and was seeing how a firefighter was trying to rescue a dog that seemed to have walked into an overflowing river. The firefighter was dropped down by a line from a helicopter, to save the dog.  As the dog was being rescued, I could see how the scared dog was wriggling through the arms of the fire fighter.  The dog did not realize that this man was trying to save him, but continued to wriggle to get out of the arms of this man.  Finally, when the firefighter put the dog down on solid ground the dog bit the hand of the firefighter.  The firefighter was then treated for his injury. The same day, as I was praying the Lord’s Spirit reminded me of that incident and showed me how many times, we all are similar to the dog. Many of us walk into danger and situations that jeopardize our lives, either knowingly or unknowingly. This gets us scared and worried, however we fail to realize that God has already begun the process to drop a line from

Some time ago I heard the story of the Chinese bamboo tree: You take a little seed, plant it, water it, and fertilize it for a whole year, and nothing happens. The second year you water and fertilize it and nothing happens. The third year you water it and fertilize it and nothing happens. How discouraging this becomes! The fourth year you water it and fertilize it and nothing happens. This is very frustrating. The fifth year you continue to water and fertilize the seed and then sometime during the fifth year, the Chinese bamboo tree sprouts and grows NINETY feet in SIX weeks! I am sure many of us can relate their life to that of the life of a bamboo tree, especially the first 5 years of its life.  We seem to be praying to Jesus, obeying his commandments, reading the Bible; but God’s promises do not seem to be coming through into our lives.  The God who provides, the God who heals, the God of peace, the God our righteousness, does not seem to be responding.  We seem to be waiti

In the world we live in, there are many people who believe that God is an unjust God. He does not love us, nor does He care for us. Some even think that how can a loving God allow people to go to Hell or even allow people to suffer. Some believe that God is responsible for all the bad things that happen in our life. Is this really true? The first book of the Bible tells us the creation story, where he created two unique trees, “the tree of life” and “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” In Genesis 2 we see that God forbids Adam and Eve to eat from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” However, the interesting thing to note here is that he never forbids them from eating from the “tree of life” or from any other tree in the Garden. It is noteworthy to see that the devil comes in the form of a snake and deceives Eve to eat from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Adam and Eve choose this willingly in spite of knowing that it was wrong. The consequence –

Will you drive your car forward with your eyes on the rear view mirror? I am sure you will say. No!!! Only a person out of his mind will think about driving his car this way.  The outcome of such an act could be disastrous. It can lead to an accident killing people, and/or property. This sounds so straightforward. One would wonder who would ever do this. However, so many times we seem to be driving the car of our life by looking at the rear view mirror - our past.  Maybe today you are looking back in your life and thinking about all your past mistakes and wondering if you could have done differently.  Your future might have been different. Maybe you are thinking about the injustice you faced in your life or perhaps the harsh words said by a close friend/family or perhaps the cruelty inflicted in your life which made you suffer. Perhaps, if those could have been avoided, life today might have been better today.  Yes, I too have done that so many times. But today I realiz

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord .  Couple of years ago, when Spring finally showed up in Michigan after a long winter of seven months.  I saw the flowers starting to bloom, the birds beginning to chirp and joy seemed to be overflowing all around.  It seemed like heaven had just descended on earth. However, in midst of this beautiful milieu I could see yellow colored dandelion flowers popping their heads from my lush green grass lawns.  They initially looked wonderful, but I soon realized that these were not like the flowers which I could enjoy the smell, nor could I keep them in a flower vase.  They were more commonly called as pests or weeds to the common person. But alas, my lawn was infested with dandelions. A friend of mine suggested putting “feed and weed” in the lawn, which would help prevent the lawn from dying due to these weeds.  Interestingly, this fertilizer has double power in it,

The month is March and Jesus is walking by a fig tree with his disciples. He reaches out to the tree, pulls back the leaves to find a fig, but he does not find any. So he curses the tree (Mark 11:13). Within a short while the tree withers away. Figs were fully ripe in Judea as early as the Passover (April timeframe).  The fig tree always puts forth its fruit first and afterwards its leaves. Indeed, this tree, in the climate which is proper for it, has fruit on it all the year round.  Fruit tree growers know that a small amount of fruit ripens prior to the main crop. This is a referred to as the first ripe fruit or the firstfruits. When Jesus approached the tree, it was the time of the firstfruits of figs, but it was not yet time for the main harvest. So Jesus expected to find figs, but it was barren all it had was leaves.  This tree did not fulfill its purpose, and as any diligent orchardist would do, Jesus simply eliminated an unproductive tree, not with an ax or a saw