Sometimes God does not want to reveal the full picture of His plan for our life. God hide it for our own benefits. Perhaps He knew the condition of our heart and how we will react if he reveals to us too much. Like a father who would not give a car to a small boy even though he intends to do so in the future. It is just not the right time.
I remembered hearing stories of my friends getting head hunted and experiencing rapid progression in their career. I started to develop this desire to be headhunted as well and hence I told God about it. True enough, I begin getting calls and leads on potential job offers. However I also did not realize that pride had started to creep into my heart as more calls started coming in. I begin to feel proud about myself to the extent that even though some of the jobs that I was head hunted for were not suitable, I felt bitter about it. I thought that I was so highly prized that everyone should think that I was good enough for all the roles offered. Soon I came to realize that this was only a sign of immaturity and lack of social exposure too.
Romans 12:3, “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.”
Eventually, all the jobs that were offered were not suitable for me. Actually there was also no peace in going for them. I started to feel demoralized and God started to take this opportunity to teach and correct my heart and warned me of pride.
Proverbs 3:11-13, “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor detest His correction; For whom the LORD loves He corrects, Just as a father the son in whom he delights. Happy is the man who finds wisdom, And the man who gains understanding;
Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.”
1 Corinthians 4:7, “For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”
After all, all the talents and gifts that people might see in me is God given and not by my own strength. I learnt that if it is the intention of God to lead me to another job, it would be a smooth transition with everything falling into place. I do not need to get overly excited or promote myself so eagerly during the calls. I just need to do my best and God will settle the rest. Moving forward, I begin to take a very different attitude towards such head hunter calls. An attitude of humility instead of pride, knowing that next job offer might not be what God wants me to do. There is nothing particularly great about a head hunter call after all. I would not have known my weakness in this area if I did not go through the failed interviews. God is good. He changes us inside out.
It was then that a job offer came by through a head hunter which God has meant for me. I accepted the offer and God blessed me financially over this job transfer.
Eventually I was led out of my old job with peace and entered another new one with joy.
Isaiah 55:12, “For you shall go out with joy, And be led out with peace;”
Praise God.
Anonymous
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Developing a heart of giving and allowing God to open up your heart
I tithe and give under the obedience of God’s leading.
During times when I am in doubt of the amount God impressed in my heart to give is more than what I wish to, I would pray about it and eventually just follow my heart. The attitude that I have kept is, even if I heard wrongly from God, it is still money sowed into good grounds.
While sowing into the kingdom of God will bring returns to us in various forms,
I realized that as I continue to do so, God has also developed my heart in the area of giving and helping others in times of need; be it for spiritual reasons or natural reasons.
When I was a young Christian, a few of my seniors blessed me with Christian books which have helped to enrich my spiritual understanding of God immensely and at the same time developed a hunger in me to read extensively. When I was tasked to take care of a group of church members, I too started to seek out opportunities to bless them with books which I have read and hope that these readings would bless them at the right time. In this aspect of giving, the value the book I perceived could bless them often far exceeds the tangible cost of the books that I need to pay for them. In such instances, I would not be overly concerned about the price of the book although some of them were expensive to me. It was a pick and go attitude.
In the area of helping people with natural needs, I too start to realize my heart starts to seek out opportunities to do so. I become sensitive to situations that I come across and conversations I have with people around me be it Christians or non Christians. I wanted to see where I could contribute financially through practical gifts, cash etc. Moreover such acts of gift will help soften the heart of non Christians whom I want to share the love of God with them as God leads.
Luke 16:9, “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.”
Luke wrote about using money (unrighteous mammon) to make friends with non believers to make connections and eventually share the gospel with them.
Not only God gave me the desire to help others, I realized that the desire to make my contribution a bigger impact to the recipient or organization increases as well. I seek to see how I could significantly help in various situations as God leads within my means.
I could relate to Pastor Amos when he mentioned that he does not bat an eyelid when it comes to God’s leading in the area of giving while he is more “careful” with spending in his personal life.
Acts 20:35, “I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’””
I definitely feel blessed in my heart with the joy and liberty to help others within my means. God bless us to be a blessing to others.
Like what Pastor Amos mentioned, one of our purposes is to help others to be a success.
To side track a little, there was a time when I was pondering on the below scripture and thinking to myself:
Philippians 4:19, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
God is faithful in meeting our needs and not our wants and His will is always to bless others through us. This implies that if I continue to develop this heart of giving to others, perhaps it will come to a point that such acts of giving would eventually become part of my need; and this could be one of the many reasons I give God to bless me financially even more!
Steve
During times when I am in doubt of the amount God impressed in my heart to give is more than what I wish to, I would pray about it and eventually just follow my heart. The attitude that I have kept is, even if I heard wrongly from God, it is still money sowed into good grounds.
While sowing into the kingdom of God will bring returns to us in various forms,
I realized that as I continue to do so, God has also developed my heart in the area of giving and helping others in times of need; be it for spiritual reasons or natural reasons.
When I was a young Christian, a few of my seniors blessed me with Christian books which have helped to enrich my spiritual understanding of God immensely and at the same time developed a hunger in me to read extensively. When I was tasked to take care of a group of church members, I too started to seek out opportunities to bless them with books which I have read and hope that these readings would bless them at the right time. In this aspect of giving, the value the book I perceived could bless them often far exceeds the tangible cost of the books that I need to pay for them. In such instances, I would not be overly concerned about the price of the book although some of them were expensive to me. It was a pick and go attitude.
In the area of helping people with natural needs, I too start to realize my heart starts to seek out opportunities to do so. I become sensitive to situations that I come across and conversations I have with people around me be it Christians or non Christians. I wanted to see where I could contribute financially through practical gifts, cash etc. Moreover such acts of gift will help soften the heart of non Christians whom I want to share the love of God with them as God leads.
Luke 16:9, “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.”
Luke wrote about using money (unrighteous mammon) to make friends with non believers to make connections and eventually share the gospel with them.
Not only God gave me the desire to help others, I realized that the desire to make my contribution a bigger impact to the recipient or organization increases as well. I seek to see how I could significantly help in various situations as God leads within my means.
I could relate to Pastor Amos when he mentioned that he does not bat an eyelid when it comes to God’s leading in the area of giving while he is more “careful” with spending in his personal life.
Acts 20:35, “I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’””
I definitely feel blessed in my heart with the joy and liberty to help others within my means. God bless us to be a blessing to others.
Like what Pastor Amos mentioned, one of our purposes is to help others to be a success.
To side track a little, there was a time when I was pondering on the below scripture and thinking to myself:
Philippians 4:19, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
God is faithful in meeting our needs and not our wants and His will is always to bless others through us. This implies that if I continue to develop this heart of giving to others, perhaps it will come to a point that such acts of giving would eventually become part of my need; and this could be one of the many reasons I give God to bless me financially even more!
Steve
God made a divine arrangement for me to demonstrate His love for my friend grandmother
Jude 1:21-23, “keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh."
Recently a grandmother of my friend passed away. Although I have met her only 3 times within a period of a few months, I felt sad in my heart looking at her corpse at the funeral. There seems to be a connection between both of us. God supernaturally connected me to this friend of mine and led me to be a part of his grandmother’s life.
The first time I learnt about her was when I was giving my friend a ride home. He mentioned about his 90 over years old grandmother being admitted to the hospital. The immediate question I had in my mind was whether she was a Christian. I knew it would be a matter of time before she passes away. Unfortunately she was not. Hence I wanted to visit her and share the gospel with her.
The first visit was at a local hospital. She was in a dazed state with no ability to move or communicate effectively. I could feel the compassion in my heart for this particular grandmother. I spoke into her ear about receiving the salvation of Christ and prayed for her. All I could ask God was, “God, help her know you.” However I was not convinced she would receive her salvation then. Despite my friend was a non believer, he was appreciative of my prayer.
The second visit was when I learnt that the grandmother was admitted to one of the local old folks home. I visited her and could understand why my friend was reluctant to place her there. In her ward of over 20 old folks, all of them except her were in the state of unconsciousness, mental instability or handicapped in one way or the other. The old lady beside her had both her legs amputated while the old lady diagonally across her bed died a day ago. The atmosphere was definitely not edifying and there was a sense of despair lingering around. The care takers were also mostly foreign workers who could not speak dialect or Chinese. After the visit, I shared with my friend that I was very concerned about her salvation than her current situation. He was appreciative of my concern but he told me his grandmother was not ready to receive Christ.
The third and last visit was on Good Friday. I have been pondering how I could help to bring some joy to the grandmother’s day and so I thought of bringing my baby girl to see her. My family went there without the knowledge of my friend. Initially I was a little apprehensive about the spread of diseases or sickness among the old people but I just make sure hygiene was ensured for my baby during the visit. The grandmother could not recognize me but I just took her hands to stroke my sleeping baby’s head and talk to her about my baby. Although the grandmother was still not able to communicate well, she was more alert in her mind this time. On several occasions she even broke into smiles as she touched my baby. This time, I took the opportunity and time to explain the gospel to her again and prayed a little in tongues for her. I asked her if she believed Jesus and she just looked at me and nod her head at times. To be frank, I do not know if she really did accept Jesus.
Every now and then, I would have this grandmother in mind and would ask my friend how she was doing. The last time I heard was she got into a seizure and was admitted into the hospital again. However I had other commitments and thought of dropping by the week after. It was then that I received the news of her death when the new week started.
Through this episode, I was reminded not to be negligent in the area of reaching out to non believers. I am probably the last person to reach out to my friend’s grandmother and who knows I might be the only person to share the gospel with her.
Moreover whenever God made the divine connection to touch non believers through us, He would place the compassion in our heart to love them to our best know how for the sake of the kingdom of God. I also realized that when these people passed away, I would feel the sense of loss in my heart that is different from the loss of people whom I have acquainted for years.
Steve
Recently a grandmother of my friend passed away. Although I have met her only 3 times within a period of a few months, I felt sad in my heart looking at her corpse at the funeral. There seems to be a connection between both of us. God supernaturally connected me to this friend of mine and led me to be a part of his grandmother’s life.
The first time I learnt about her was when I was giving my friend a ride home. He mentioned about his 90 over years old grandmother being admitted to the hospital. The immediate question I had in my mind was whether she was a Christian. I knew it would be a matter of time before she passes away. Unfortunately she was not. Hence I wanted to visit her and share the gospel with her.
The first visit was at a local hospital. She was in a dazed state with no ability to move or communicate effectively. I could feel the compassion in my heart for this particular grandmother. I spoke into her ear about receiving the salvation of Christ and prayed for her. All I could ask God was, “God, help her know you.” However I was not convinced she would receive her salvation then. Despite my friend was a non believer, he was appreciative of my prayer.
The second visit was when I learnt that the grandmother was admitted to one of the local old folks home. I visited her and could understand why my friend was reluctant to place her there. In her ward of over 20 old folks, all of them except her were in the state of unconsciousness, mental instability or handicapped in one way or the other. The old lady beside her had both her legs amputated while the old lady diagonally across her bed died a day ago. The atmosphere was definitely not edifying and there was a sense of despair lingering around. The care takers were also mostly foreign workers who could not speak dialect or Chinese. After the visit, I shared with my friend that I was very concerned about her salvation than her current situation. He was appreciative of my concern but he told me his grandmother was not ready to receive Christ.
The third and last visit was on Good Friday. I have been pondering how I could help to bring some joy to the grandmother’s day and so I thought of bringing my baby girl to see her. My family went there without the knowledge of my friend. Initially I was a little apprehensive about the spread of diseases or sickness among the old people but I just make sure hygiene was ensured for my baby during the visit. The grandmother could not recognize me but I just took her hands to stroke my sleeping baby’s head and talk to her about my baby. Although the grandmother was still not able to communicate well, she was more alert in her mind this time. On several occasions she even broke into smiles as she touched my baby. This time, I took the opportunity and time to explain the gospel to her again and prayed a little in tongues for her. I asked her if she believed Jesus and she just looked at me and nod her head at times. To be frank, I do not know if she really did accept Jesus.
Every now and then, I would have this grandmother in mind and would ask my friend how she was doing. The last time I heard was she got into a seizure and was admitted into the hospital again. However I had other commitments and thought of dropping by the week after. It was then that I received the news of her death when the new week started.
Through this episode, I was reminded not to be negligent in the area of reaching out to non believers. I am probably the last person to reach out to my friend’s grandmother and who knows I might be the only person to share the gospel with her.
Moreover whenever God made the divine connection to touch non believers through us, He would place the compassion in our heart to love them to our best know how for the sake of the kingdom of God. I also realized that when these people passed away, I would feel the sense of loss in my heart that is different from the loss of people whom I have acquainted for years.
Steve
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