Here I am...

A reflection from the January Bible quiz

Here I am.........This sentence appears 8 times in the book of Genesis.

Abraham: His conversation with God, with his son Isaac and with Angel
Easu : His conversation with his father Isaac
Jacob: His conversation with his father Isaac, with Angel, and with God
Joseph: (In some translation) with his father Jacob
The response “Here I am” always expresses a person’s readiness or willingness to say “yes” with Joy to do things. But at the same time in some cases it shows the humbleness/hypocrite of the people as well.

Please reflect:

Who are we when we say ‘Here I am’ to people and to God.

What can we make up of ourselves when we develop our character

A big difference in learning together at Hounslow

On 2^nd Sunday of Epiphany in 2012

On 15^th January nearly 12 people including 2 children were gathered to worship the Lord at the United Reformed Church, Hounslow. We decided to sit in a circle. We sang and prayed together. During the time of sermon we were able to discuss about the 2 lessons of that day from the Bible (I Samuel 3:1-10 and John 1: 43 to end)

Description from the passage:

1. Samuel as a small lad and Elai as a elderly priest: There was encouragement , teaching of a prayer in a polite way and also understanding, “how God can reveal the situation through a small child”.
2. Philip and Nathaniel as friends would like to meet Jesus together: But the first invitation was extended politely and patiently from Philip to his friend, Nathaniel who had a challenging question.

The following thought provoking questions were asked to the congregation:

• What could we learn from these passages ?
• How and where God can reveal himself to us today ?

Following inspiring thoughts were shared to learn together:

1. God can reveal himself to us despite different situations, ages, gender and ethnicity or nationality.
2. God’s loving nature was revealed through Jesus. For e.g. Jesus pointed out and appreciated Nathaniel as (an innocent) truly an Israelite in whom there was no deceit.
3. Here Nathaniel expressed the human nature of love in a sarcastic way. For e.g. When Philip pointed out Jesus as a Nazarene, Nathaniel sarcastically said can anything good come out of Nazareth.
4. Do we need to be innocent like Nathaniel always in our life? Here Jesus’ teaching with his disciples from the Gospel of Mathew was reminded. (Mathew10:16) The message was shared as a good Christian disciple we need to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

Continuing thoughts for the week:

• God’s love is so amazing and his expression of His love through Jesus Christ is also incredible
• God’s ways are creative not destructive. Jesus’ conversation with Nathaniel was creative because Jesus was able to recognise Nathaniel’s good characters and pointed out to bring creative relationship with him. We can understand here Jesus ignored Nathaniel’s ill feeling about him and also to helped him to understand his continuing revelations as well..
• Epiphany reminds us God’s revelation overcomes all the differences and God’s nature of true love is expressed among all kinds of people in a creative and mysterious ways. .