Freaks House

Pic Courtesy - Guardian - Internet Good news is hard to find these days, and the question “Where is God?” or “Where is God during such times of suffering?” keeps coming up in times like this. In this blog, I try to present the Christian perspective to suffering. I hope the post helps both believers and friends from other faith, understand suffering from the Christian perspective. Before we move on to the purpose of suffering, I would like to address a few critical questions. I shall be borrowing many of these thoughts from Ravi Zacharias and his talk on suffering. You can hear the talk on the link - Ravi Zacharias – Where is God in the Midst of Suffering and Injustice? The 1st question I want to address is Does suffering in this world mean God is absent?  The important point to note here is we are defining something as good and something as bad, which means that there has to be a definition of good and bad somewhere, this means that there needs to be a legal frame...

How messed up can my nation get? How lost in despair? From a land that taught the world “Peace”, to a land where sorrows are shared. From a land that gave the world it’s “Religions”, to a land where women are scared. We respected them, we looked up to them as goddesses, I don’t understand why today we look at them as something less? A brother could sleep in peace, Knowing through the night his sister won’t be harmed. Today he lives on a prayer, Cause you can’t predict the coming of the storm. We are nation young and resilient. But without God this shall be our predicament! We can have a million resolutions, But what we need today is a God Revolution. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, Probably that is what holds the key to our freedom. This New Year I make a wish, Let my nation awaken to the place where true freedom exists, Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, Where women are respected and the men stand by their side. Till...

Slowly he approached the place he once called home. Questions raged within him, questions he thought he knew the answers to. But secretly he hoped the answers he knew were wrong, secretly he hoped for acceptance, secretly he hoped for love. ‘But doesn’t hope always disappoint?’ Thoughts collided in his head, they multiplied, they divided, but never did they add. Everything around him screamed ‘Turn back!! Don’t make a fool of yourself!’ He sat down on a rock close by; he had made it to the lane that would lead to him to his father’s house. ‘Should I go in?’ he questioned himself and his thoughts continued ‘I guess I shouldn’t. Which father would accept a son who has wasted everything the father had given him? If I was the father I would not accept a son who has done what I have done. What a mess have I made! Why? Oh Why? Did I squander everything? My father gave me half of what he had worked for his entire life and look what I made out of it. I have destroyed it, blown it away to ...

Open my eyes, O Lord, I need to see. Open my eyes, O Lord, I need to believe. With my eyes shut, O Lord, All I can see is darkness. With my eyes shut, O Lord, I forget I was made in Your likeness. Open my eyes, O Lord, I am thirsting for Your presence. Open my eyes, O Lord, I am searching for Your purpose. With my eyes shut, O Lord, I feel I am worthless. With my eyes shut, O Lord, I feel like I am faithless. Open my eyes, O Lord, Please move these mountains. Open my eyes, O Lord, I need to see You moulding this lifeless. With my eyes shut, O Lord, Let me hear your voice again. With my eyes shut, O Lord, Let me feel You fill my veins with strength. Open my eyes, O Lord, Let me drown in Your love. Open my eyes, O Lord, Let me take this moment to tell Oh! How I love! For in Your presence, O Lord, There is fullness of joy. And in Your grace, O Lord, I’ll find purpose from above. And let me remember every day, This life is passing. And let me re...

“What are you wearing??!!!”, “Why is your hair such a mess??!!!”, “Ahhhh!!! Not a pimple, not today!!!” and the crying goes on. With so much money being put into surveys and advertisements to promote the importance of good looks, it is hard to ignore the fact that our looks can take us places. Beauty may be skin deep, but for many, it is a way of life. Many hours are spent in front of the mirror, lots of money on hairstyles, all this for acceptance. For the many of us who don’t have those gorgeous looks and those who can’t afford body sculpting, ‘make-up’ comes to our rescue. I still remember those days when ‘make-up’ meant just putting some powder on the face, but now it’s about the layers of ‘make-up’. Now a day’s ‘make-up’ is not just about your face, its’ about the entire body. The so called beauty experts are finding new things to do each day with every part of our body. I remember those days when ‘make-up’ was just for the ladies, but now there is a significant increase wit...

Every now and then teenagers are heard complaining about their parents “These guys, will never give me the freedom, I deserve.” In an age where the definition of freedom is rapidly changing, I decided to set out on a mission to understand the word. This post is an output of that mission. In this, I decided to do an analysis of a few of the so called ‘freeing experiences’ available in the world. Before I start, I think it would be better for all of us to agree on the purpose of freedom. The purpose of freedom, is to bring joy to our life, it is to comfort us, and to give us peace. The purpose of freedom is to make sure that our lives add colour to the world around us. Precisely the purpose of freedom is to keep us at peace with ourselves and our surroundings. Now if we agree on this, let me get back to the so called ‘freeing experiences’ I mentioned before. Most of these experiences, never deal with God or spirituality, but more than often they deal with rebelling against God an...

“Sorry, his condition is not getting any better”; “We have done all that we could”; “Only God can save her”, statements that none of us want to hear, but many of us face at least once in our life. And the people in these discussions are our generally the one’s we care most about. Death, failure, divorce, accidents, terminal diseases, pink slips, when times of such pain hit one’s life, what does one do? For all of us it is easy to believe in God when we see a calm ocean, than when we see a tsunami. For all of us, God is easily seen in a new born than in a dead body. Again for all of us, God is easily found in times of peace, than in times of war. It is easier for us to thank God for our victories, than for our defeats. We love Him when we get what we want, but we are at a loss for words when He takes away something He gave. Wonder why? Humans haven’t changed much. Even with all the new technologies, even though we have come a long way from wearing sheep skin, still something’s ha...

Pic courtesy: Flickr “Work hard, Party harder”, “King of good times”, “Let the good times roll” extremely known phrases aren’t they! The media keeps throwing at us these happy faces, faces with a can of beer in hand, or with the latest funky gadget in hand, or with sum new fashion line on, or simply with a new toothpaste in hand. Come to think of it, when the advertisers bring these ads out they are desperately trying to tell us that our pursuit of happiness will end with their product but it never does. Being 23 years old in 2011, and working in the corporate, comes with its set of challenges. From my interactions with my ‘generation mates’ over the past year, I have found, that for my generation life is all about the ‘I’ and the ‘me’. And just like the media portrays, my friends have come to believe that, happiness is in the ‘fashion’, it is in the ‘drink’ and it is in the ‘flings’. It is in everything that can be bought. More bluntly put all of we have been made to believe in...

You can’t live in the 21st century if you don’t have the art of making complex things simple. But in our attempt to do this, somehow have we complicated our life? In our time, people say “I Love You” more on SMS than when they talk to each other. Gone are those days of poetry running to pages, we have come to the generation were poets have only 160 characters to express their “love”. But then again, what is love? Enrique’s latest song “Tonight I am loving you” has another version which simply takes the word “love” and replaces it with the F-word. Now are both of them the same? Greg Laurie, one of the most passionate evangelists working amongst the youth warns all the teenagers saying, “Guys will love to get sex, and girls will have sex to get love”. I would like to continue from there and say, that is not love but that is lust. In the 80’s there was still some difference between love and lust. But as we modernise, or simplify things for ourselves, we have made, both love and lu...

“There you are older by another year now” said the brain of a youngster to his heart, “And you still don’t know where you’re headed”. His heart replied “I agree, no point in growing up, when you lack direction, no point in breathing if it lacks purpose” He let his brain and heart continue their complaining, you see in a few days he’ll be celebrating his birthday, and just like every new year he has witnessed in his life, even this one seems to lack direction, and purpose. His thoughts stopped there and then like always they questioned themselves “Seriously! What is this life for?” As youngsters many of us want to live for the moment, we hardly want to work, but surely want to party harder. We want to shop on an impulse, make friends in a click, and lead a life where the world revolves around us. In retrospection, I seem to have done the same. A major portion of my life was lived on my terms. Every time I lived for myself I came back home emptier than before. What good is it to ha...

“Murder at high noon” screamed the Mirror this week as it announced the death of the Additional Collector of Nasik district, Yashwant Sonawane. As I sat in the comfort of my cubicle, surrounded by the beauty of manmade architecture, the dream world of a growing India burned around me. Will India ever get there? Will corruption ever leave us? Will the system ever change? Will honesty ever be respected? Will love ever rule over selfish desire? As these thoughts bogged me down, a sudden realization gripped me, living the life of a Christian means to be a rebel! Everything that Christ taught was against the system, against the principles of the world. Christ is a rebel! So this makes every follower of Christ a rebel! We have come to live in a world, where everything from educational degrees to sex is available for a price. We have come to live in a world where selfish gain is counted before the betterment of the nation. We have come to live in a world where saving trees is more im...

If you are finding it hard to understand the reason for this blog, then probably you are new to my world. A world filled with these wonderful people, with wonderful Christian names, but their lives are anything but Christian. A world where Christianity is screamed out from microphones, than from lives. A world that does not know where it is headed. 33% of the people on planet earth claim to be Christians. If all these people were actually Christ’s followers then we would not need songs like ‘Heal the world’. The so called ‘Leader of the nations’, America, which once praised ‘God’ in everything, from their national anthem to their currency, has not only unanimously decided to take ‘Christ’ out of ‘Christmas’, but also it has lost sight of the ‘God’ it use to believe in and worship. If you think that there is nothing much we can do about America. Then let’s come back to the Indian Christian. Try reading the news paper for a week and make a note of the articles were Christian name...