Meet Tabinda Ayub!

The previous post has been written by Tabinda Ayub, who I have only got to know in the last few months, but feel I have known for ever! You will understand that Tabinda has lived through some very difficult experiences in her life, together with her family, but they are a wonderful example of what a Christian family should be like. I am hoping that Tabinda will be writing a lot more blog posts on this site, and that they will be a great blessing to all who read them. Knowing Tabinda has been a great inspiration to my own faith in our own easy come - easy go Western culture, where being a Christian is OK as long as you don't take it too seriously or talk about it to anyone. Believe me, where Tabinda lives there are no half-measures, you are either a fervent 100% Christian or not one at all. Since I have got to know Tabinda, I have been challenged to think and live differently, to see that being a Christian means being sold out for Christ, not just someone who attends Church on a Sunday and does what they like the rest of the time. Welcome to this blog site Tabinda, and may we all be inspired your thoughts and insight into the things which are really important in life, the grace of God and serving our fellow

Happy Independence day to all my friends in the US!

You may have wondered why I haven't written on this blog for quite a while. There are a number of reasons, not least that I have been writing in other places such as https://worldprayr.blog.org . Another reason is that I have two very active Grandchildren who seem to spend more than half their lives in our house, although that is probably really an exaggeration. If you want to know how I am doing, my answer is that I am fine, thanks to the work of Grace of God at work in my life. I seem to be becoming more active in ministry work as well as spending time with my family, and hopefully with God Himself in prayer and devotion. I guess, at the age of 59, I am beginning to discover a new freedom from needing to work all the time, and to find a bit more time for relaxation. However, I still find that I feel guilty when I am not witnessing or writing on behalf of God! As if He needs me to save the world!? The great thing which we need to remember when we reach our late 50's and early 60's, is what we can do to impart encouragement, excitement and motivation to those who we can identify and see as potential Church and ministry leaders to the next Generation. I carried out one of those amusing surveys on Facebook recently, which indicated that I have the mind of a 20 year old. I certainly don't feel that way physically as the high blood pressure and fight against falling asleep during the day reveal that I'm not really like a 20 year old! On this American Independence day, 2014, let me wish all my friends in the US a very happy Independence Day. Think yourselves very blessed when you think of all the mess we are experiencing with our EU relationship, here in the UK. I pray that we will fight to the end for our wish to be free from the shackles that Europe has placed on our once proud and independent nation, with a very real Christian heritage, going back to the Reformation (early 1500's). To be honest, I would like to see us having a closer and more special relationship with the US, where our forefathers went to obtain freedom from oppression, where even The Netherlands (Holland) could not guarantee freedom from oppression and persecution from their Government and people. Maybe that may be the way forward, if, as I hope, we re-negotionate our relations with Europe and hopefully withdraw from the EU completely. A 51st. state of the US is how I would rather see our UK position, where we are truly free and can shake off the shackles of Europe once and for all. The majority will of our people is to see laws made in Britain, rather than Brussels, and many of us see this as the way forward, to help poorer nations across the world and greater justice to mankind as a whole. Please feel free to comment on my thoughts and to add your own opinions, for or against. I value all the feedback I get to my blog posts and invite friends who want to know me better and know more about my personal Christian beliefs. We know that we will never all see things the same way, because we are all individuals, who see things from our own viewpoint, based on our own background and experiences.

Beaten But Not Down by Tabinda Ayub

Beaten But Not Down

[Translate]

 

 by Tabinda Saher Ayub

 

 

Dear friends, I have a real story of my life and I want to share it with you. I hope after reading it you will really be made to think.

 

One day we were not at home, we went to my cousin’s wedding and then some people called us and told us that ”your house is burning!” So we went a short distance, and soon arrived back at our home. When we got there we saw our house had been totally burned to the ground.

 

The fire’s flames were very high, we could not look at our house’s destruction and we cried loudly. Our area’s people gathered and called the fire brigade team.  They came to control the fire, but our house was fully destroyed. Everything was destroyed, our house fell down. Our furniture, electronics, clothes, crockery, our books (full bags), school uniforms, etc., everything was burned.

 

We cried because we had worked very hard for everything we owned and we worried, ”How will we buy all these things again and how we will rebuild our house”? But God consoled us. We are strong Christians and believe only on the Lord Jesus Christ and we knew that one day God will provide us with everything needed.

 

We trust and obey God.  We tried to forget that incident and we started a new life in God’s name. Then Jesus Christ helped us in so many ways.  Our relatives collected some money for our help, even though they are also not very rich but they helped us.  With their help, we rebuilt our house with that money and brought new books, copies and school uniforms and then my younger brother and sisters were able to go to school.

 

Our relatives gave us some household goods and after 2 or 3 months we were able to buy our own things with our salaries and were able to return our relatives things. Slowly, slowly we bought more items to replace those lost, as God provided us.  We still don’t have all of our home needs, things like sofa, beds and other things but we hope God will must provide us with everything needed. Praise the Lord!

 

God is a great helper, we believe when we have a problem, God must open the way for help to us. We will follow Job’s hard life.

 

In the Holy Bible we read; ”Then Job arose,and rent his mantle,and shaved his head and fell down upon the ground and worshiped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither ; The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord”. (Job 1, 20:21)

 

My father’s name is Job (Ayub) so people said “you are really Job, your patience shows you are really like Job who obeyed the Lord.”

 

Then we were made as an example for our area’s people.  The people gave our example of patience to other people in these words, ”This family are very strong Christians, they are the great followers of Lord Jesus Christ, they obey God and only believe on God.  Therefore, God provides for them, when they need help.”

 

Now we are hopeful that one day God will help us stand again, and give us all those things we lost. ”I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause; which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvelous things without number; Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the field; To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exatted to safety.” (Job 5, 8:11) AMEN!

 

In this story the lesson and moral is that, when we are in trouble, and we face many difficulties, we should believe on God and obey Him in very situation and pray regularly, then God surely will hear our prayer and help us and provide for us.

 

God bless you.

 

Tabinda lives in Pakistan, is the founder and director of  Wpc Pakistan. She enjoys teaching Sunday School and loves to share her gift of writing.

 

As part of the World Prayr family, she serves with the Daily Devotional Blog team and Facebook team.

 

Meet Tabinda on Facebook>>>

 

Are you an Ostrich?

I heard a story quite a long while ago, from my father. In the Australian outback, there was a small wooden hall with a sign outside labelling it "Ostrich Club." It had no proper floor, just desert sand, like the landscape for many miles around that area. Two ostriches arrived early for a club meeting one day and stood talking about the latest news and asking after each other's families, as ostriches do, no doubt. After about ten minutes they heard voices of other club members approaching and one said to the other, "Quick, let's hide!" and so they duly buried their heads in the sand. The approaching members walked through the entrance into the hall and one of them said, "there's no one here, so we must have come at the wrong time. We may as well go home."

How many of us go through life, keeping our heads down, metaphorically, trying not to get involved in anything, other than eating, drinking, buying and selling and perhaps working and enjoying the ride? I used to be rather like that, not wanting to hurt the feelings of others, trying to go unnoticed and just assumed it was because I was shy and introverted.

Then, as I gained more confidence and knowledge of life, I began to realise that the world and the rich variety of life was passing me by. I looked at the world, watched and read the news and began to see that things could be different. We don't need to accept things the way they are, but have been blessed to be placed on this planet for a time to make a difference, help other people who are less fortunate than ourselves, whether through political channels, our faith and hope, or committing acts of kindness. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said that even when we smile at someone, we are sharing love and kindness with others, brightening up their day (paraphrased).

I used to be an ostrich in my mentality, and would have probably literally buried my head in the sand, had I lived in the Nevada or Sahara desert! Have a think about your own situation, are you into "political correctness," not wanting to rock an already rocky boat, or like wallpaper on Windows 7 or 8, just there looking pretty? Now think where you would like to be in a year from now, what you would like to be remembered for, what you want to achieve. What you do today will determine what you will be like then, your life may have direction, purpose and meaning or it may just be going round and round day by day orbiting the sun one more time!

Some years ago I read "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren, and I can definitely recommend this as a good read. I have been given to believe that many celebrities have read this book, and many people who we would think had got life all figured out. It helps to put things in perspective and see that life itself is more important than what we possess, what we eat and drink and what we wear.

Please feel free to write to me with any comments, questions or join in our discussions on the Bible Study and Prayer group. God bless you and I hope to hear from you soon.



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Vindicate Me, O God

Vindicate Me O God

Posted: 05 Sep 2011 04:00 AM PDT

By Erik Retallick

1 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
against an ungodly people,
from the deceitful and unjust man
deliver me!

Psalm 43:1-5

---

A short while ago I wrote an article about Psalm 42 and mentioned that Psalm 43 follows on very closely with its thoughts and tone.

However, on taking a closer look, I think you will see a much brighter spirit emerging from the gloomy preoccupations of Psalm 42 with its small glimmers of hope here and there.

Those who have suffered depression or mental health disorders which have become so prevalent in our modern world know that it can sometimes seem like a long tunnel they are going through, and at first there appears to be no light at the other end.

After a few bends in the road and maybe some lighter moments, it is glorious to emerge once again into broad daylight, to feel God’s love, peace and joy returning as a reality in our daily experience.

God has been there all the time of course, but we’ve been looking in the wrong direction or become too preoccupied in a cycle of gloom and negativity.

The first thing the Psalmist asks for in this Psalm is vindication and defence, emanating from God. He knows that he has to constantly deal and cope with ungodly people, just as we have to in our contemporary world.

He requests deliverance from the unjust and ungodly man, something which many of us long for when dealing with the current ways of carrying out business.

Some would say it has ever been thus, but I have noticed a definite slippery slope as money becomes scarcer and business becomes harder to maintain. Honesty and integrity, certainly in the UK, seem to be very much lacking in so many areas of business, but especially in the worlds of finance and politics.

Isn’t it a comfort to know that we have a God in whom we can take refuge (verse 2), yet despite this it is still possible to feel that God has abandoned or rejected us.

When the Psalmist asks the question, “Why do I go about mourning because of of the oppression of the enemy?” I believe it is because He feels something of the way God must feel when people abandon His commandments and decide to do things their own way.

It makes us feel oppressed and as though we are swimming against the tide when we try to follow and keep to God’s laws in a society where they have been abandoned.

Verse 3 is a prayer which all those who know and love Jesus, desiring to follow Him, must want to echo. “Send out Your light and Your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to Your holy hill and to Your dwelling!

The nearer we draw to God, the nearer He will draw near to us (James 4:8). We will then reflect His light towards others and they will see that we have been with Jesus and the radical difference it makes to us as His chosen people.

The Psalmist is then led to go to the altar of God, the place where sacrifices are made and where thanksgiving and praises are said and sung.

Do you enjoy praising and thanking God, for who He is and what He has done by saving us from the world, the Devil, flesh and the last enemy, death itself ?

In Psalm 122, David begins this Psalm of ascent by saying “I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” You’ve probably heard the story about the husband who wakes up on a Sunday morning and says to his wife “Oh no, it’s Sunday again, I really don’t want to go to church,” to which his wife replies, “but you’ll have to go, my dear, because you’re the pastor and you’re taking the service!”

I don’t know whether it’s because of the (polite British) persecution we are experiencing here now, or people’s apathy to anything that is spiritual, but I always go to worship God together with His people with a sense of excitement and anticipation, because I know He is going to meet with us, to love and enjoy our praises and hearts being led out to Him in praise and worship.

We can bring the needs of our world, friends and brothers and sisters to Him and hear and put into practice what He has to say to us! To me it is party celebration time, and the way things are going, we don’t know for how much longer we will be free to have this privilege, which is a foretaste of Heaven, where we shall be able to praise and serve Him for ever!

Although Psalm 43 ends with the sad “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” refrain which we see several times in Psalm 42, we see an amazing positive outcome.” The Psalmist ends by saying that if he hopes in God, He will praise Him again and know His salvation.

Salvation, wholeness and healing are still available to all who put their faith and trust in Jesus, seek His forgiveness through confessing their sins (1 John 1:9) and choose to follow Him as their Saviour and Lord.

You can know God’s salvation today, maybe by inviting Him into your heart and life for the first time. In John 1:12 it says “To all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God."

My prayer for you is that you may know with certainty today that you are a blood-bought child of God through knowing that Jesus died to save you from sin and have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

If you already know Him my prayer is that you will walk ever closer with Him and draw others to Him. As St. Augustine said, “preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.”

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Why Are You Cast Down, O My Soul?

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[Translate]

Psalm 42

Why Are You Cast Down, O My Soul

by Erik Retallick

To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
”Where is your God?”
These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock:
”Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
”Where is your God?”

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.

Many people can probably identify with many of the anguished feelings the Psalmist expresses here, with all the turmoil going on in the world at large, the Middle East and African unrest and their own personal uncertain circumstances and relationships.

Do these things give us a thirst for God, as expressed here (verses 1-2)? Or do we become bitter and say, why should this be happening to me? As one of my mother’s Christian friends who is very ill, and has been for many years responds when people say, “Don’t you question why God lets all these things happen to you?” with the reply, “Why shouldn’t these things happen to me? Like Paul, she seems to count it a privilege to share in the sufferings of her Lord, to be counted worthy enough to suffer.

In between the overwhelming moments of feeling downcast and depressed, the writer of this Psalm expresses some wonderful thoughts, which we would do well to take to heart in these turbulent times.

1) In verse 2 he longs to come and appear before God, to be in His presence, to take delight in being with Him!

2) In verse 4 he recalls the days when he felt liberty in praising God, making his way with a crowd of God’s people singing with joy as they anticipated a forthcoming festival celebration. Do we feel like that on our way to worship the Lord with our brothers and sisters, or is it a case of sighing and thinking, “it’s that day of the week again, I suppose I ought to go.”

3) Verse 6 brings in the hope factor, that essential ingredient of our lives, that helps us to get up in the morning and motivates us to serve the Lord with gladness! He obviously had a real sense of God’s presence in the land of Yarden and the Peaks of Mount Hermon and the hill of Mizar. It does us good when we are downcast to recall those precious moments in our lives where God has touched us in a special way and reminded us how special He is to us and how important we are to Him; even the very hairs of our head are numbered.

4) In verse 9, even though the Psalmist questions why God has deserted him, he refers to God as his Rock, the one and only firm foundation in his life. Again, it does us good when we are going through overwhelming problems, to recall that God is our Rock, whose ways are perfect. Deuteronomy 32:4 says “The Rock! His work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A trustworthy God who does no wrong, he is righteous and straight.”

5) This amazing Psalm, which expresses so many depths of sorrow and anguish, ends with a reaffirmation of faith in our trustworthy God, our Rock. “Hope in God, since I will praise Him again for being my Savior and God.”

Without the walks through the dark valleys and the steep climbs up the rocky mountainsides, how would we ever get to appreciate the mountaintop experiences in our lives? Sometimes the mountaintop experiences may seem far and few between, but they are then all the more precious. Even when his friends and family questioned “Where is your God?” the writer of this Psalm knew deep in his heart that He was there all the time. Likewise, He has promised to “never leave or abandon us” (Hebrews 13:5)

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Related posts:

1. The Restless Soul…
2. Take ACTion
3. The World is Crying Out
4. A Mother’s Love
5. Hear My Cry, O God

I'd Rather Have Jesus

"Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways." Proverbs 28:6 (ESV)

Billy Graham preaching the Gospel

George Beverly Shea in action!

I remember as a young 11 year old in 1966, Billy Graham came to London, capital of the UK, where he held a Crusade, I think it was for 10 days, in the great exhibition centre, Earls Court, the last night moving to Wembley Stadium, our largest football ground. Night after night, people came in their thousands to hear the Good News of Jesus preached simply and plainly, with an appeal at the end for people to come to the front of the hall to commit or recommit their lives to Jesus. Many people came to know Jesus as their Saviour as a result of that great event.

It was my privilege to be taken by my parents to hear this great American preacher. There was no reason for me to go forward after the appeal at the end. I had already committed my life to Jesus at the age of 8 and been baptized at the age of 10. What made a tremendous impact apart from the fact that the man who spoke seemed so normal even though he came from America and said a lot of things that seemed to relate to a young boy living on a tiny island thousands of miles away, was the music. There was a singer called George Beverly Shea who sang the following words with great feeling and an obvious 100% commitment to their message.

I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold,

I'd rather be His than have riches untold;

I'd rather have Jesus than houses or lands,

I'd rather be led by His nail-pierced hand

Than to be the king of a vast domain

And be held in sin's dread sway;

I'd rather have Jesus than anything

This world affords today.

The simplicity of the tune was such that it didn't detract from the words being conveyed by a man in his mid 40's who was well dressed and obviously meant every word which he sang. It certainly made an impact on someone who came from a poor background in a small village where we lived a contented and care-free life playing outside without any fear and knowing that we were safe and loved by our parents and extended family.

I think something became ingrained in my thinking at that point, and that is that there are two very distinct sets of values, involving earthly treasures and wealth and heavenly treasures. During our life time on earth, which is short, we have to make a choice about which we are going to set our hearts on, because, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21 (ESV).

So the choice we have to make in our life is to follow Jesus who took on Himself the form of a servant and owned nothing or to hanker after the things that are for this life only. We have been taught a salutary lesson about earthly investment in the last few years, and many of our bankers, financiers and wise investors are looking for alternative investments.

Those of us who follow Jesus as our Saviour and Lord have effectively chosen an alternative investment, one that involves laying up treasures in Heaven. The way in which this is contrasted with the world's way in the opening Proverb quoted is very stark, it is better to be poor and walk in integrity than rich and crooked in our ways. I have to challenge myself on a regular basis, with the last two lines of the verse in this hymn. Can I honestly say today, here and now, "I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today?" If we are involved in the King's work, serving Jesus and reaching out to others with our hearts and lives to share His love and compassion, then the King will provide for our needs according to His riches, and He owns everything.