Neil's Sharing on his Walk with Jesus

Memories

As a kid, I sought refuge in my mother's arms.

In primary school, I relished the companionship of my classmates.

When I was 16, I fell in love and had my first taste of romance.

Interestingly enough, I'm no longer living with my parents, lost contact with practically all my childhood friends and my highschool sweetheart escapade has long ended. In the words of Matt Redman, the music faded and all was stripped away. Truly it was only then, that I began my walk with Jesus who is, as the readings from the last youth mass reminds us, my friend who loves me very much. By no means am I downplaying the vital role a community plays in our spiritual growth but rather that unless God remains firmly in the centre of a community, one can never fully experience the fullness of His grace through it.

It struck a very intimate chord when Fr Fred delivered the homily on our friendship with God through prayers. Admittedly, it was a point of time when my personal passion for Him was rapidly diminishing. The mass gently urged me to reflect upon my faith journey and how beautifully prayers had been answered without me realizing.

Come as you are

Once upon a time, not so long ago, I suffered from a series of failed relationships with a community I had been a part of during my polytechnic days. For a good while I stood on my own and was quite proud of it. As the months went by,I began to grow quite proud of myself that I claimed my identity as "the man who stands alone". I'm sure some of you can relate to that given the novel potrayal of rogues in society who operates solely on self profit with nobody to burden their character. The "cool factor" surely is fascinating, especially when backed with the energetic youthful aspiration. Curiously though, I ended up challenging God in many ways and to my shock He had prepared an even more fascinating life for me.

Thus began my walk with Jesus. Many a times I found myself studying God rather than living in Him. Salvation history, Holy Trinity, Gospels were all mere concepts to me like any other subject. None the less, I was quite an image mongering person and gradually found the need to live like a Christian. The wickedness of my intent, ironically, was my key to a deeper relationship with Christ. Henceforth I entertained this selfish desire by vigoriously attempting to be more "Christlike" so that I may live up to my new found faith. Naturally I failed miserably but it was in this failure that God jumped in to purify my intent.

Ask and you shall receive

I recall quite vividly, that I was in a room alone with the Blessed Sacrament. I began speaking to the Lord as though I would to any other person when suddenly my mind was directed to the "Our Father" prayer. A mysterious stirring came upon me and without doubt I opened my eyes and said,

"Wow, You're really alive"

Having a sudden epiphany of how He's been moving in my life all along, it was then that I finally allowed Christ into my life, no longer as a subject to be studied, but a very real friend. Certainly for all the wrong reasons I wanted to know Christ, and He gave me more than I could handle by giving His very Spirit to me. Talking to me, cracking jokes with me and letting me know in hundreds of ways that He's always around. It's like having an imaginary friend! except that He isn't quite imaginary at all... Today, I carry this little story as my testimony of how serious Jesus is when He says "Ask and you shall receive". If only we knew how to persistantly ask for His Spirit.

Since then I've been led to ministries and communities right here in OLPS and another at St Peter and Paul's. You know, the English language isn't very satisfatory for my tastes. When we use the term prayer, we somehow end up relating that with petitions. Petitions is good, no doubt, but if we just stop there we're missing out the real treasure of prayer.

Prayer truly is an conversation with the Risen Lord, as much as Christianity is an encounter with Christ.

It is the medium that nurtures our relationship with the Lord. Like any friendship, it's essential to talk to take the relationship deeper. If we as imperfect human beings, still make time to meet up with the people we love, how much more does Jesus, the perfect God of love will want to spend time with us? Alas, we're too caught up with our own lives. It gets quite common for me to spend hours surfing the net but five minutes of prayer suddenly become a chore. Thankfully though, God reminded me last weekened to go back to the most basic and most valuable petition.

"Lord teach us to pray"

Why settle for God's gifts only when what He wants to give us is His Spirit eh?

Let's really want Him so that we can mean it when we sing to him that "it's all about You, Jesus"

God bless.


-- Dominic Neil Nyi Nyi Htut

"I am not capable of doing big things, but I want to do everything, even the smallest things, for the greater glory of God" ~Saint Dominic Savio