Monday minutes blues

Whenever my boss is on leave I have to sit in one of the loans committee meeting to take minutes as her replacement. The committee meeting is normally held on a Monday and I really had to prepare myself spiritually before stepping into the conference room. It is not something that I look forward to as the senior managers can be critical and make comments that can be offensive. At one time, the credit head called me to tell me that one of the minutes that I had to prepared was the worst he had ever read as it was full of mistakes! At another time, the Chairman caught me dozing off and said "Eh! You must write down the discussion as this is important". Was I embarrased! Often certain bosses like to point out English mistakes, word construction, grammar etc which really had me flabbergasted. Like I told my boss, I checked, I checked and I checked, yet I missed out the mistakes. The eyes play tricks especially when pages after pages before me are swimming with words!

So usually on the Mondays when I am supposed to sit in for my boss, I will really pray. Last night I knelt down and prayed. I woke up at 4 am this morning and prayed again. During lunch time, I found a quiet place to rest and committed my 2 pm meeting to the Lord in prayer. My prayer was the same "Lord let my minutes be approved without any mistakes being pointed out".

I really want to thank the Lord for answering my prayers. Sitting there with the senior bosses of the bank, I actually saw typo errors and mistakes in the first few pages of the minutes staring at me! I had expected someone to point it out to me but thank God no one did and today's minutes were approved without any comments.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Jesus!

New Year Resolutions

Lord I pray you will help me to build my character this year:

Give me grace to replace pride with humility
Resentment has to be overcome so that I can be set free
Unbelief in my mind must be replaced by faith
Complaining must make way for praise.

Help me to make thanksgiving my daily confession
Love and forgiveness must cover all resentment
Lord please deal with all my wicked thoughts
Help me to dwell in Your embrace, my safe abode.

Gossip has to give way to encouragement
Selfishness has to be replaced by compassion
Help me not to make an outward show of deeds
My life must be a written epistle for all to read! Amen

About S

Yesterday during church service, Pastor showed a recent newspaper article containing the picture of a temple caretaker who reported the theft of some idols from his temple. Pastor said this "how can you trust in an idol who cannot even take care of itself"!

Unknown to Pastor, there was this Indian lady in the service who was a hindu (that's what she told me quite affirmatively) when I went over to talk to her after the service. When I asked her whether she was a first-timer, she told me that she had attended the recent Christmas celebration in church. Sis A then came over and told me that she had accepted Christ during the Christmas celebration on Dec 25 in church.

I decided to go over with her the 4 spiritual laws explaining to her that Jesus is the only way, the truth and the life and that only He and He alone gives assurance of eternal life. I felt that I had explained the Gospel clearly and thoroughly to her. After reading the 4th law, I asked her whether she would like to say the sinner's prayer. I was surprised when she said this "I believe in Jesus, I believe in all the gods but I am a hindu". That's when I realized that for some people Jesus is just another 'idol' to be added to the many 'idols' worshipped by them on the altar!

Anyway I thanked the Lord for the opportunity to get to know S and to pray for her knee (she had an accident before and had trouble walking). I believe that God will begin to work in her heart and hope to see her again next week.