This Week With Jesus

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” -  Matthew 19:2 6 God works. And He does not do things with a wave of a magic wand, but through people like you and me. We all can be used for good, in some way, big or small. Let me relate a short story of a simple act of kindness and love, which I happened to have witnessed. "Every place in the world has two common things: street food and the hunger. One day, a person, call him X (since I do not know his name), saw some enticing street food being cooked. It was a rainy day and the smell of the food, hot on the stove, was more than he could resist. He walked over to get some packed for himself. As he was waiting with the rest of the customers, he noticed a small girl, maybe 6 or 8 years old, dirty, filthy and obviously hungry. She went from person to person begging for some food. Most people ignored her; the shop worker scolded her half heartedly; he had seen enough hungry folks to

Author Unknown A wise woman who was travelling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. when she asked him why he returned the stone, he said, "I've been thinking: I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone." In today's circumstances, sometimes it may make more sense and wisdom to give someone in need a skill, a tool or a job, rather than just money. It may have more impact.  Remember: A little boy gave up h

  If you had a choice between winning or losing what would you choose? This is a story of Shay, shared by a well-wisher, friend and a social worker. In this story there is no hero, no punchline and yet brings tear to the eyes. This is how it goes: "At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: 'When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?' The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. 'I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature prese

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Reference: Matthew 25: Ver 35-40 If God comes knocking at your door today, what will you do? Seriously. What would someone do? Would we be excited? Would we be afraid? Would we run around like chickens not knowing what to do? Or would we turn Him away? The fact is, God does come knocking at your door, at your car window or in your office . And every so often we turn Him away. The fact is, there is God in everyone. The hungry beggar, the homeless man or woman, the lame and the sick. He comes to our door in many shapes and forms, but we do not recognize Him. So little is our faith in man that we judge: "oh why should I give? Can he not work?" Or "He will only go and drink it away". Or simply "this is another way of thievery". Friends, we justify our apathy with judgements. Yes, everything we think maybe true. They might drink

In his book, Pastoral Grit: the Strength to Stand and to Stay (Bethany), Craig Brian Larson writes: "In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe Pioneer 10. According to Leon Jaroff in Time, the satellite's primary mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about Jupiter's magnetic field, radiation belts, and atmosphere. Scientists regarded this as a bold plan, for at that time no earth satellite had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would destroy the satellite before it could reach its target. "But Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and much, much more. Swinging past the giant planet in November 1973, Jupiter's immense gravity hurled Pioneer 10 at a higher rate of speed toward the edge of the solar system. At one billion miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn. At some two billion miles, it hurtled past Uranus; Neptune at nearly three billion miles; Pluto at almost four billion mil

Have you noticed how the tallest trees bow the most before the wind, while humans (mostly) bow before none, not even God?  1 Peter 5 Ver 6 remains a verse in the Bible, to be referred to once in a while.  "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time". Commenting on this topic, Chipo Biti wrote - "When we try to live our lives according to impulses inspired by pride and our egos, we are simply setting ourselves up for failure. There is no good that can ever come from thinking that we know better than God. When we try to rush for opportunities that we are not ready for, we simply end up setting ourselves up for embarrassment. When people are not used to delayed gratification, they believe that they deserve to get whatever they want whenever they want it. This is not a wise way to live. When this happens, we ignore God's instructions and we choose to follow our own way instead because we believe that it is far better than t

Today we will share a short story, based on our post of yesterday, where we talked about how we, as individual humans, can carry the love from God that we have received, the sacrifice of Christ and the daily guidance of the Holy Spirit, and can make sure we get up each morning, filled with the vigor of knowing our duties for the day, as outlined by God.  This story was shared by a person, whose age I cannot determine, and whose nationality can be that of anyone and whose name does not matter. This story was written during Covid days, reflecting the pain, failures and setbacks of those times, of all those youth, students and young workers who got stranded without jobs, food or shelter. This story is also an ode to all those Human Angels who chipped in and made sure we all got through.  So, without further delay, here is the story, and we hope it encourages each one of our readers to be running for God when that sun comes up every day. Click anywhere in this para and read.