Encouragement

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"To honour the Lord is a heartfelt delight; it will give you a long and happy life, and at the end of your days all will go well for you."

What is the need of the hour in today's present day. Some would say that the need of the hour is a better world, a better society to live in, better rulers who are in power and govern us, an end to corruption, an end to violence, better moral ethics among the youth of today's generation, an end to the negative aspects of media influence, more priests and nuns and the list goes on.....
I think above all the need of the hour is to be ready and prepared, safe in prayer and constant connection with the network in heaven. The need of the hour is also giving a lot of love, joy in our hearts and peace in the world.
Mother Teresa once remarked that the greatest disease in society is loneliness. We all need the company of others to share life's ups and downs and make us feel loved and wanted.
She also further stated; "I have found the paradise that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."

There is an anecdote on how a man once hesitantly put a one dollar bill in the church offering when the box was being passed around. Suddenly a man taps him on his shoulder from behind and gives him a hundred dollar bill. The man in front quickly looks around for the box, leans over to the next bench and puts in the hundred dollar bill. He feels a little ashamed at having put in a meagre amount as compared to the gentleman behind who had been so generous in his offering.
So he turns behind and thanks him. The man behind responds that it was nothing and asked the man to be extra careful next time while pulling out his wallet as the hundred dollar bill had fallen out of it. He had tapped him to return his bill.
Sounds amusing! The man who did not wish to part with a bigger value bill ended up putting the same amount in the offertory box. Maybe heaven's way of an indirect enforced offering.

We see so many people today on their sick bed and the need of the hour for them is full restoration to good health. Yet others maybe awaiting donors for organ transplants to keep them alive. This is their biggest need of the hour.
I am reminded of a movie I watched long ago where a woman is involved in a serious accident and just before dying, she begs her husband to donate her heart to a young lady whom she had befriended some months ago and who was in urgent need of a heart transplant. The husband refuses outright but later gives in when the woman makes it as her dying wish. However, the husband never goes to meet or visit the lady to whom his wife's heart was given to.
A year later the same lady who underwent the heart transplant unknowingly applies for a job in the man's organisation whose wife had donated her heart. The young lady bags the job. It so happens that every time the man comes in contact with this lady he keeps getting drawn towards her. This disturbs him a lot as he is still grieving for his late wife. However he feels himself being pulled more and more towards this lady and begins to keep a distance. The lady too falls in love with the man and cannot resist being attracted to him. She discovers a great love for him. She feels hurt when the man starts avoiding her. It so happens that one day the lady collapses in the office. It soon becomes common knowledge that she had undergone a heart transplant. When the man learns of this he is shocked and quickly makes inquiries as to the hospital, date and time when the surgery took place.
He is struck to the core when he gets to know that this is the lady with his wife's heart inside her. This clearly explains the reason why he was being pulled towards her. It was the deep love that had lived on in his wife's heart even after she has passed yonder. This love was still being radiated towards him. The lady in turn too could not control the love which was pouring from the heart given to her towards the man as this love had always been for him. The man rushes to the hospital. He now does not want to lose the love of his wife through this lady. When the lady sees him at the hospital, her heart responds instantly and she gradually recovers. The man ends up marrying the lady and the heart wins in the end.
This is the great power of love. Once in the heart, forever in the heart. Love will stay and never budge.

As mentioned earlier, another need of the hour is timely prayer. In life we do not know when and where our prayers are being used for others and sometimes even for strangers who happen to be in our vicinity at that moment and in the environment around us.
Two days ago, in a train journey travel, as was my usual practise, I was mentally praying my daily prayers. It was raining heavily at that time and the doors of my compartment were closed. The train was at a halt in the central station. All of a sudden there was a loud thud from outside the door. When the fellow passengers promptly opened the door, they saw that a young lad had fallen from the opposite train which had just left the station at high speed. This lad had fallen across the iron railing separating the two trains right in front of our train.
It was a pure miracle that he was saved! It could have ended very badly for him or been the end of him if he had fallen under the wheels of our train or if our train had happened to start on due time.
The incident left me quite shaken and then on reflection it dawned on me that perhaps the prayers that I was reciting at that very moment may have helped this lad. The power of prayers is so effective that I have begun to realise that the moment we begin to pray, blessings start flowing in all directions to the people around us to a very great distance. These people too benefit from our prayers. We may not even know who they are but if a prayer said from our heart can help them, then why delay? It might be the need of the hour for someone indeed. A one word prayer just with the name; "Jesus" is enough to perform great miracles and save others.

There was once a man who was depressed with life and would always pray to God to take him away from this world. To this God replied that if he answered his prayer then what about the prayers of his loved ones who kept praying for him to have a long life. God had to heed to their prayers as well.
God always keeps us for the ones whom we love and who love us in return.

The Lord has said that we should be watchful at all times because we do not know when the Son of man will be coming. If the servant knew what time his master was coming, he would be prepared and how happy was that master who found his servant waiting for him at whatever time he chose to arrive.
In contrast the man who wanted to build bigger barns to store his grains and enjoy life by being merry, eating and drinking presuming he would live for long did not know that his soul would be required that night by God.

There is a beautiful song that sums up our need of God; "I need you more than yesterday. I need you more than words can say. I need you more than ever before. I need you, Lord, I need you Lord. More than the air I breathe, more than the song I sing, More than the next heartbeat. More than anything." I would like to add that Tomorrow I will need you more than Today and in the next life I will need you more than in this life.

Let us always recognise the greater need of the hour and that is to keep ourselves holy and ready for the Lord. To honour and worship the Lord. To look forward in joyful expectation to the second coming of the Lord as promised to us.

Maria Franco

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