Call of God

Today our pastor Dr Joy George shared a great message from John 21:1-15. The message was, God is able to provide the needs of people who serve Him.

But what caught my attention was much more from his side comments or background explanation to the passage.

FIRST CALLS
He taught us it is not that Peter magically followed Jesus at the first call. In fact, there were two calls before he responded.

In the first meeting, Jesus gave him a new name Peter (from Cephas, John 1:40-42).

Second call is mentioned in Matthew 4:18-20. This time Jesus addressed Peter by the name Jesus gave him. This time Jesus specifically asked him to follow him. And he did.

Third incident happened when at the direction of Jesus, Peter and his friends caught a huge number of fish (Matthew 5:4-10). By then Peter left everything he had and followed Jesus.

I remember a friend's comment: God's call for ministry is intricate. There are multiple fabrics that God worn. There is no one event.

SECOND CALLS
After multiple calls, Peter finally followed Jesus as long as Jesus lived physically. Then when Jesus died, though Jesus already appeared to them twice according to John 20, he goes "fishing".

Jesus asked for love from John 21:15 onward. He challenged for another level of following Jesus. Not by sight by but faith, just as we are called for. To perform miracles, not watch Jesus do. Accepting God's power and our inability.

MY REFLECTION
I realized God does not call just one time. If he calls just once, none of us would come to ministry. Because we are concerned for many things in life. Knowing that Jesus persistently calls everyone.

So sometimes, I am not very worried when I see people whom God is calling but haven't responded yet. God is persistent and he will not give up.

I also need to keep my eyes open for other levels of commitment and intimacy he requires from me and my family.

I really thank my pastor for sharing this powerful message this morning.

Devotional Life

Recently my boss gave a book called Mentoring Paradigms by Edmund Chan. This is written in devotional style and very simple to read, but had lots to think about.

In one of the chapters called Three Arenas of Mentoring he talks about Devotional, Domestic and Developmental Life. His comments of Devotional Life struck me.

He says “Quiet time does not automatically become easier as one grows older. In fact, it becomes harder. Why? Because one can browse through God’s Word quickly and pick up a thought or two without much meditation and intimacy with God.”

He goes to say that we can have routine and discipline of having devotions without the encounter and the wonder. We can read God’s Word and miss the God of the Bible.

Quite powerful warnings! I shared this to a colleague. He has an interesting reflection too. He told me, God allows those dry times in our devotional life with God, to remind us that we need to depend on Him even in this area.

I need to keep this in mind as I grow older, now mid in 30s. To be able to learn new perspectives from the Bible, I change versions of the Bible occasionally. While in Bible school I got so used to NIV that I just know most of the words. Later I used Revised Standard Version for over two years. Now I switched to New Living Translation.

My desire is that a child-like curiosity and interest will continue to grow in mind in my daily study of God’s Word.

Education Reflects Philosophy of Society

Today I read an interesting note on education. As obvious, education is meant to develop learners in the areas of skills, knowledge and attitudes. But this depends on what a society (in a wider sense) consider desirable. Some societies promote communism while others favour democracy. So the desires of a society differ. Therefore, any educational institution is a reflection of educational philosophy. 

CENSUS 1981: LANGUAGES OF GUJARAT

Today I read K. S. Singh’s book on Gujarat and he gave interesting language information.

In 1981, the state’s population was 340,85,799 (3.4 crore). The following is the languages and speakers according to that decade. Gujarat is the largest language in the state.

LANGUAGES	POPULATION
Gujarati	30,817,185
Hindi	746,659
Sindhi	745,182
Urdu	643,926
Marathi	413,697
Khandeshi/Ahirani	85,557
Konkani	28,662
Bhili	NA
Nepali	5,542
English	3,581
Total	33,489,991

Another note was the bilingual ability of each language in other languages. Good analysis as it gives the overall picture, which language/s is learnt most, after the mother tongue.

	GUJARATI	HINDI	SINDHI	MARATHI	SANSKRIT	BHILI	URDU
Gujarati	x	4,823,788	53,924	20,789	6,173	1,606	NA
Hindi	246,936	x	NA	3,053	1,283	NA	NA
Sindhi	2,666,202	72,329	X	NA	NA	NA	4,987
Urdu	229,420	73,492	NA	NA	NA	NA	X
Marathi	107,937	91,876	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Khandeshi/Ahirani	19,084		NA	4,003	NA	NA	NA
Konkani	8,367	1,564	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Bhili	130,189	3,922	NA	6,429	NA	NA	NA
Nepali	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
English	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Total	3,408,135	5,066,971	53,924	34,274	7,456	1,606	4,987
Percentage	10.18%	15.13%	0.16%	0.10%	0.02%	0.00%	0.01%

Information on particular language can be looked at. For example, Gujarati speakers are bilingual in Hindi, Sindhi, then Marathi and so on.

This also give overall bilingual information on the state. At the end of the table an overall percentage of bilingual people are given. In that most people are bilingual are in Hindi (15.13%) and followed by Gujarati (10.18%).

Source: Singh, K.S. 2003. Gujarat Part 3 (People of India series, Volume xxii). Mumbai: Anthropological Survey of India and Popular Prakashan PVT. LTD. Page: Forward xvii.

Difficult Decade for Gujarat

I randomly heard about Gujarat. Today is the first time I read a series of difficulties Gujarat faced in the last decade. It has endured and I am very happy the state is now has the fastest growing economy in India. Events that were trying moments for the people of Gujarat:

DROUGHT: News and other info show scary situation about the drought in 2000. Its intensity is huge that happen only after 100 years. 17 districts, 25 million people and 7.1 million cattle were affected. The rainfall was -38%.  

EARTHQUAKE: This earthquake on 26 January 2001 was too cruel. Within 2 minutes of earthquake 20,000 people were killed, 167,000 injured, 400,000 homes destroyed and 600,000 left homeless. Its epicenter was in Kutch district but spread to neighboring districts as well. There must be great pain at the lost of may precious wealth and lives in this incident.

RIOT: The riot at Godhra Railway station created huge communal disturbance. The 58 Kar Sevak who were returning from Ayodhya were killed in Sabarmati Express on 27 February 2002. A report says that as many as 500 were killed as a result of this incident.

This verse from the Bible comes to mind after learning about these incidents: The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

Learning about Gujarat

As I read about Gujarat, few interesting facts have come up.

• Gujarat comes from Gujjars, who ruled in the seventh and eighth century.
• In 2003, 92% of the world’s diamonds were cut and polished in Surat.
• It is the only state in India with surplus electricity. The surplus is sold to 12 states.
• The state is the only home for Asiatic Lions outside Africa, found in Gir Forest.
• About 50 sites of Indus Valley Civilizations are found here. Most notable sites are Lothal, Dholama and Gola Dharo.
• World’s cheapest car, Tata Nano, was manufactured in Sanand.

Source: Wikipedia

I remember a parable

This evening electricity cut in our area and we went for evening walk. Its full moon and quite a pleasant moment. As we walk, we found many new building constructions began. Many workers’ temporary shed are built. A family was having dinner, outdoors. And a men’s group was out chatting loudly. Some were playing songs on their mobile phones.

Then the Parable of the workers in the vineyard came to my mind (Matthew 20:1-16). Here are a group of people hired to work in a house construction.

Two years ago, I happen to visit morning hours at Kamnahalli, Bangalore. I saw many workers with their implements waiting to be hired.

Then I realize there are job markets like naukri.com among others, where employers and employees find their match.

Even in Christian ministries, we have lots of advertisements. Forerunner comes to mind as the top list on this area.

After reflecting on this, I began to appreciate the ability of our Lord to teach about the Kingdom of God from an extremely relevant example in life.