New face for "Earnest Expectations"

Earnest Expectations (My Blog) started as a way to express my thoughts on Christian life, faith and the discipline of a Christian - Member of the holy church. Often, it helped me to group my ideas and thoughts and it allowed me to share those with my friends. The most important gain for me is that it helped me in enhance my writing skill - which is really important at this point. Moreover; it helped me to kill some of my personal time thinking about what to write next and how to write.

Lately, I was thinking about putting more time in to "Earnest Expectations" and also to spread my thinking in to other areas of human life which includes politics, economics, philosophy, technology and other areas which I can think off. It's definitely different from what I usually do, but it looks good to me to increase my knowledge on other areas. Even if I wont do anything good, it is nice to give a try. After all I will learn something from this exercise.

Likewise, increasing the breadth of subjects I am going to cover in "Earnest Expectations" will definitely add value to this blog. It's my earnest expectation that this facelift will add more readers to my blog and make them think about reality. To become easily accessible to others, I decided to register the domain name http://www.earnestexpectations.com/. The style of this blog is still going to be same and will continue as place to scribe my thoughts rather than a commercial website. The registration process has started and is expected to be completed in a week. I will update you guys through this blog when it is ready.

This week is going to be hectic with all the new changes in the blog and I do have an exam for the next week. May the Almighty Christ help you to achieve what you want in this life and this is earnest expectation for you all.

Shibu Raj

Many are called, but few are choosen

As many of my friends know, I spend good amount of time in Borders for studying, for reading and also for fun. I have some great friends there and I really like spending time there. I do most of my blogs when I am at Borders. Today when I was going through a grammar text to brush up my English skills, I came across a nice sentence which caught my attention. This sentence reads like this "Many are called, but few are chosen". This goes in accordance with my thoughts for the very same day.

I often experienced situations like this in my life where I was among the few people who are chosen for a particular event. Often time, I sat in the other side also: the people who are called but are not chosen for a program or the aspect in discussion. Both instance you will go through different state of mind, a very different experience and very different personal moods. In one case you are like a winner and in a joyful state but in other case it is just opposite. It is needed in a person’s life to confront these situations as it makes a person a better human. This makes a person to respect the winner as well as the looser. This also helps a person to accept the reality of this world’s life and take it as it is given to us by Our Holy Father. In other words, we cannot expect to be a chosen person always in this world. God provides us with necessary nourishment whenever it is required and in required amounts only. Some people look like they are always a winner in what ever they do. People may coin some examples too. I am not claiming that it is wrong in any manner. It may be true in same cases but not always for sure. We need to value the scale on which we measure a person and then only we can claim whether he is always on the winning side. Most often, these always positive cases are stated with just one particular aspect in mind. I would say that is too narrow and that is the same reason for which it turns out to be a false positive statement. If you look things in a very broader manner, taking in to account all aspects of a person's life, then each one of us should have gone through a case like we are called, but are not chosen.

The gist of the matter is, even if we are called it is not certain that we are always successful. The opposite is also true. So, as humans we need define our destiny. We can model our destiny by having a strong faith in God and having good will for others. As the bible says we are a group of people chosen by god; this is the only concrete case where are all the people this world are chosen; chosen to believe in god and enjoy the marvelous joy of fellowship with God Our Savior. This is great, wonderful and long living than being chosen by some worldly bodies. By having a strong faith in God, model you destiny and be a chosen person in the kingdom of God.

This is my earnest expectation for you my friend.

Shibu Raj

Welcoming Anitha in to my small family.

"You can show others the goodness of god, for he called you out of darkness into his wonderful light" 1 Peter 2:9

God blessed me with lot of opportunities, a good and caring family, good education and a Christian life. I know he had given all these because he had a special purpose through my life in this world. It is not to enjoy these amenities but to live a Christian life with all these blessings. For this special reason only he called me out of darkness in to his wonderful light. I always thought of giving back some thing which I enjoyed in my life. But I haven’t done any thing concrete till this time.

Last week I came across the blog by Anderson Coppers of CNN. He talked about nightly commute of kids from one village to other to escape from the hands of kidnappers. These kidnappers take away the kids of all ages and train them to fight against the government and for other illegal activities including carrying drugs. People of this region are afraid to stand against them as they are always equipped with arms and threatened to kill any one who stand across their way. He even narrated experiences of people who are taken away by these people but later escaped. Girls are raped and humiliated by the leaders of these gangs. They treat these kinds much worse than animals. The stories are so touch and mind-boggling and I couldn’t completely read those blogs. He also stated some of the good works done by organization like world vision at these places to help the local community in protecting their kids from these evil hands.

I looked through the world vision website and totally impressed by the very good work they are doing for the children across the world. It is a trustworthy organization working for the uplift of children across deprived areas including India. They provide these kids with vaccinations, vitamins, good drinking water and educate them to be good citizens of tomorrow. They also have a program for people like us who can’t go to each one of these kids and provide them with the needed help. World vision helps you to identify a child and sponsor her as long as you like. You send 30$ to world vision for a month and they provide the assistance to the child you identified through their own organizational network.

By having a commitment like this, world vision will help these kids on behalf of you. It’s like you are helping these kids to achieve greater success in their life. Even if it is small, do some thing that makes this world a better place to live rather than not doing any thing. Make this world a place to live for you and for the future generations.

I have identified Anitha from India and started sponsoring her through world vision. She is now 3 years and I will support her as long as I can. In the coming days I look forward to sponsor more kids like Anitha if I have enough money to support them.

I encourage each one of you guys to do the same in what ever ways you can. World vision is one such organization that can help you in this matter. You can choose how you want to do, but try to do some thing. May The Almighty – Jesus Christ bless you with the necessary thoughts and deeds to make this world a better place to live. This is my earnest expectation about all of you.

Shibu Raj

Why are you different in this world?

Dear Friends,

"But you are not like that, for you are a choosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession. You can show others the goodness of god, for he called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." 1 Peter 2:9

Most of the people like to know who they are and how they are different from others. It's a human instinct to know how each one of us is different from the rest of world. God created each one of us with a special purpose. Each one of us has a mission in this world to complete before we join with our eternal Father. We will be judged on our judgment day based on how much we accomplished on our stated mission. Gospel books have lot of parables to describe how we can achieve our mission. I am not going to detail those here. Instead, I like to look at in a different way. How to know our stated mission in our life? How can we achieve our stated mission? Lastly, how can each one of us help each other in our journey towards eternal life.

One implied reason for every human being to be in this world is to accomplish or complete what he is supposed to do in this world. Also, no one is supposed to act as a hump in another person’s journey to their eternal life. We as Christians, hardened in our Christian faith do have the responsibility to help others to reach our eternal father. It’s not enough for us to complete our stated mission but should also help others - our fellow brothers in this world, to achieve their missions. By helping them, we are indirectly adding one more point to our stated mission, which will definitely get counted towards in our favor on the judgment day.

Being a Christian, we have to help others to carry their burden. Also, we need to help them to get out of their sins of this world and look forward for an eternal life with Our Father. As 1 Peter 2:9 says, we are not like others. But are a group of chosen people of lord. We are royal priests of this world, we are a holy nation and God's own possession. In other words, being a Christian means, we are chosen by God. For that we need to follow his examples and live as he told us to live in this world. In the same verse, peter says, we need to show the goodness of god to others, so they also can follow the same path. In other words, peter is asking us to set an example, like Jesus Christ, so other Christians and others can follow those examples to accomplish their eternal goals.

In the last part of the verse, peter says, God called us out of darkness in to his wonderful light. In short we can no longer be blind Christians any more, but are powered by the light of God’s words. We don’t need to worry about any kind of distractions of this world as we are called out of that by Our Father through the blood of his beloved Son Jesus Christ. We need to stay focused in the light of God as this will lead us to Our Father and Our Savior from all our sins. We can be joyful, even though we have heavy burden to carry, even though we have a heavy and weeping heart, even though the distractions of this world blame you or they judge you for simple reasons or because of some preconceived notions. We can be joyful in this world just because we are called out of darkness of this world in to the marvelous light of eternal life with Our Holy Father.

Be courageous and face the trials and tribulations of this world with vigor and enthusiasm and be passionate on joining together with Our Holy Father. This is my earnest expectation for all in this world.

Shibu Raj

Gods Will and Your destiny.

Dear friends,

This year, 2006, started as a marvelous one for me. In a way it is harmonious with the swing of last part of year 2005. Reached most of my personal goals and in most cases achieved more than expected. But, like every other instances of life, it also comes with ups and down. These ups and downs in life are just another way by The Almighty Jesus Christ, reminding the humans to believe in God and also keep up the good faith as his beloved son Jesus Christ. Also, to reiterate what he want us to learn from Bible and to lead a life in accordance with his holy commandments. I often think this is required in all humans life .When we achieve most we look forward for, and reach all our personal goals, we often tend to loose track in some other faces of our life. It can be in our faith in God, or in spiritual life or in our personal commitments to family, friends and society. In short, when we work hard to achieve our personal goals, often we tend to deliver less in some other areas than our holy father expected from us. So these down points are definitely a check point to look back on what we have done till now and correct our life’s in accordance with our faith. After having one or two instances like this in life, people will try to have this check points as part of their lifestyle or it become habitual. This will definitely help them to stay focused on their purpose of life. Life is not about achieving every thing in life. It’s all about achieving and delivering consistently what is expected from you to your family, friends and community. Personal achievements are just one of the measuring points and not every thing.

Last week, I have gone through similar kind of check point in my life. As I stated above, I thought I am an over achiever in year 2006. But I realized that I am not. I have failed in some aspects during grading. Is this means I am a complete failure? Not at all! This is just like a class room quiz and I scored less in that. The real examination of our life is when we join with Our Holy Father. This is just an input from Our Holy Father to correct what I have done wrong and deliver what he expects from me in all facets of my life.

Today I realized how to lead a Christian life and how joyful it is. How to grow up to my earnest expectation in my life: Judge Not ... Condemn not ... be gracious always and be quick to forgive. Also rise to the expectations of Our Savior Holy Father. I realized that our destiny is in the hands of Our Savior Jesus Christ and we need to follow his path and his teachings to reach that. This life is short and Our Savior Christ expects us to be successful in this journey towards him. He is the light and the leader and we are members of his holy troop – The Church. We need to say "Aye Aye Sir" and follow what he commanded us to do. This is going to be a challenge for each one of us, because we are surrounded with the peers who are distractions in our holy journey. These are people who believe in the earthly pleasures and they always persuade us to join their way rather than follow Our Savior Jesus Christ. They may twist your words, deeds and thoughts, portray you as a person of negative thoughts and engage with you in dialogue to reach their stated goals and mission.

Be watchful and vigil to these distractions. Behold to your faith and stand by his words and commandments of Our Savior Jesus Christ. He will definitely lead us and our souls to our eternal destination: To join with Our Holy Father. This is my earnest expectation for all my friends.

Shibu Raj