Hello God

A peom on Prayer:

Hello God, I called tonight

To talk a little while ...

I need a friend who'll listen

To my anxiety and trial.

You see, I can't quite make it

Through a day just on my own;

I need your love to guide me,

So I'll never feel alone.

I want to ask you please to keep,

My family safe and sound;

Come and fill their lives with confidence,

For whatever fate they're bound.

Give me faith, dear God, to face,

Each hour throughout the day;

And not to worry over things,

I can't change in any way.

I thank you God, for being home,

And listening to my call;

For giving me such good advice

When I stumble and fall.

Your number, God, is the only one

That answers every time;

I never get a busy signal,

And never had to pay a dime.

So thank you, God, for listening

To my troubles and my sorrow;

Good night, God. I love You, too,

And I'll call again tomorrow!

~ Author Unknown ~

What’s Up – Self-induced or External stress?

Ever since I have received an email from someone who shared about the stresses over church ministries, my heart began to wonder … Is doing God’s work that hard? Then I began to turn to the Bible:

The LORD is my light and my salvation—

whom shall I fear?

The LORD is the stronghold of my life—

of whom shall I be afraid? (Psa 27:1)

If doing God’s work induces so much stress to the point of burning out, how about my office work? In these difficult times of economy woes, Psalm 27 is always my solace. We heard so much about retrenchment, pay cuts and more uncertainty in the coming year 2009. Yes, I am fearful what lies ahead. There is not much business in the company. That forces me to relook at my faith and think hard. God is good to remind me of faith – Forsaking All (doubts), I Trust Him. I wrote that blog from the bottom of my heart.

The last 3 weeks was “fire-fighting” some problems in the China product left behind by those who have left the company. There is this constant fear of not being able to find the solutions within the time allotted. Yet God was gracious and I managed to meet their demand within the time given. The Lord is my light and my salvation. After the storm, what's next?

In this time of uncertainty, would I be able to say like the Psalmist? (Psa 27:13,14):

I am still confident of this-

I will see the goodness of the LORD

in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;

be strong and take heart

and wait for the LORD.

Mark Lim

Be Connected – Facebook is face-book not animated book

A facebook should have a face. Otherwise why call it face-book.

No offence to those who posed cat, dog, and even ??? as their faces. Maybe they are just afraid that people will steal their photo and do something evil to them? Or more likely they want to know about others but want to hide themselves from people. Surprisingly, even the pastor does that when he is supposed to connect with people. (I hope to get a lot of bombardment in the comments, please do)

When I was invited to join facebook, my initial thought was also to avoid putting a “face”. But then, I asked myself, “What is there to hide?” If someone is going to harm me by using my photo when I know it is the right thing to do, would I chicken out? When the prophet Daniel knew that the satraps are out to plot for his downfall, they found no ground for complaint and corruption. So, the only way to get Daniel is through his prayer life. (Read this in Daniel chapter 6). Did Daniel chicken out in his prayer? NO! He continued to pray in his house with open windows and that got him in the lions' den. A blameless person need not fear, except the fear of God. Having pondered over that, I decided to put my best picture in the facebook. When you see my face there, you know who the most important people in my life are! I want to be transparent. Transparency teaches me to have a clear conscience.

Actually, I thought of writing this only after seeing a pretty lady decides to unmask herself by putting a “yearbookyourself” photo with a "back to the future" photo in the facebook!! Not bad! Not bad! Funny? No, she is beginning to unmask herself by moving into the future!! So, if you are still hesitating, follow her footstep, go to http://www.yearbookyourself.com/ and get a new face!!

Let’s open up and be connected!!

The LORD would speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks with his friend (Exodus 33:11 )

Blessings to All,
Mark Lim

God is Gracious in Time of Need

There were some technical problems in the product that my company sold to China. For the past week, we were trying to resolve it. Failure to do so would gravely affect the company’s business. Time was running out. We had to deliver by Monday 3 Nov. The engineer who was working on this was facing some problem and I needed to work with him to resolve it. The previous designer has left the company and the design was not properly done. I came to know about this only after the problem was feedback to us by the Chinese.

This morning, after worship, I went to my office to work on the product. Throughout the morning, I was praying for divine help. Num 6:24-26 kept going through my mind:

"The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace." '

At this moment when time is not on my side, I am asking God to by on my side. Negative thought also came to mind. If I could not get 1 unit to work, I would probably have to work through the night.

We tried many things, changes and addition of components. Throughout the work, I was praying continually asking for wisdom. Then something came to mind. Maybe I need some high Quality capacitors. Sometimes, this method works, sometime it doesn’t. I have done it before. This is my best hope. As the engineer made the changes, I was still praying silently. When we measured the performance, there was a vast improvement; we were almost meeting our requirement!

As I drove back to church at about 12:30pm, my heart kept repeating:

The LORD is good,
a refuge in times of trouble.
He cares for those who trust in him (Nahum 1:7)

Mark Lim