Saturday, December 4, 2021

How I came to know God

 Hello!

Today, instead of freewriting, I am trying to do free talking. I have set my timer to 20 minutes and my recording program is also recording whatever I am talking about. Next to that, the notepad is also typing the same things about which I am talking.

 Yesterday we had a 10-minute experimental session, and it did not work out well.

 At first, I had created it through typing, and with that, I could correct it and put it back as a blog post.

 Now I will keep talking. When I talk, the notepad will keep typing it with no punctuation. Everything else will just keep going ahead. I will stop all the things and first I will compare what I have typed with what I have recorded.

 This will help me make sure that what I have recorded is the same thing that I have typed, is the same thing about what I have talked about. So, this will help me correct things.

 Then, after that, I will enter whatever I have collected in a notepad. I will take it to Scrivener and keep that as raw data. Then after that, I will make a copy of the raw data and I will edit that to make sure what is in and what is being edited is the same thing that I have spoken about.

 So now again I see the notepad had stopped, so I restarted the recording on the notepad. If you talk beyond a certain speed, notepad also cannot keep up with it, so I must talk at the same speed.

 Now let us come to the actual content.

 My goal today is to see how I came to know God. This is a larger topic. Let me see how I am organized and if I can keep dictating to it without losing my thoughts. I must ensure that the notepad is going ahead without losing things.

 Okay, let us come back to what my topic is. How I came to know God.

 I was born into a Christian family. Even though I was born into a Christian family, in our family, we did not have any bible related activities or anything like that in our home.

 And there was another problem. There was no church nearby. You need to take a hired taxi to go to church and, in those days, it was not even easy to arrange for such a taxi. So, we went to church, which was about 7 miles away from our house. On a couple of occasions, when I was a teenager, I remember walking to the church from home and back with my father. So that is how it was.

 We were staying in a tea estate, and my parents enrolled me in a school with hostel facilities. In that school where I was studying, we used to have an assembly every morning, and then in the assembly, the principal used to say some brief Christian message.

 At that early age, it was difficult for me to understand what was being talked about. During my younger days, I had no introduction or anything else to do with Christianity. I was studying my Pre-University Course in Sankarankovil, where I started going to church every Sunday because my relatives insisted I do it. I went to church every Sunday as a part of routine things, yet I learned nothing.

 When I got into IIT, something changed, something different was there within me. When I was studying at IIT, in time I came to know about an uncle of mine, Dr. Xavier Ponnaiya. He used to invite me for lunch at his house.

 So, what I would do is, I will first go to the church that he was attending. Then, after church, I would go with him to his house. So, this way of Sunday became a routine for me. My first thought about these deeper things came into my life only then. I would discuss with my uncle these religious things about the message that I heard in the church. Some deeper thoughts used to come into my mind then.

 Later, after passing out, I came to Delhi for employment. In Delhi after a couple of weeks, I started attending a Tamil church that was around. As I had come from Tamil Nadu, I had no other place to find Tamil friends. That was how I started. And I also came to know that another uncle of mine, Michael Ponrathnam, attended that Church. He introduced me to the church. Through him, I started going to the church.

 And there again I used to go to the church, and after church go to his house for lunch, sometimes with him and go back to my room in the evening. It was the first time I started regular church attendance. Until that time, I had no regular church attendance.

 Then later I got married in the same church. After marriage, we started regular church service attendance because my wife was very particular about going to church every Sunday, even though I had no such needs then.

 Later, I started attending Delhi Bible Fellowship as well. Somebody introduced me to the Delhi Bible fellowship. In the morning I will go to the Tamil Church and in the evening, I used to go to Delhi Bible Fellowship. In Delhi Bible Fellowship, we used to have in the evening a one-hour study called Bible Hour. It was there I came to know more about the deeper truths of the Bible. One Dr. Ramesh Richard, who graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary, taught this. These messages appealed to me a lot, and that I have liked them.

Somewhere around this time, Dr. Samuel Kamaleson came on evangelistic work to Delhi. For some time in one week, he was preaching and teaching in our Cathedral Church Parish Hall in the evening. And in that week, he was teaching in the Cathedral Church Parish Hall. From Dr. Samuel Kamaleson, I came to know even deeper truths. I still remember his teaching Psalm 139 last two verses where he talked about “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalms 139:23-24)

 After that, Delhi Bible Fellowship organized a citywide campaign. Dr. Samuel Kamaleson again spoke on the citywide campaign. One evening I went with my wife, and I remember my mother-in-law was also there with us. On that campaign somehow, Dr. Samuel Kamaleson’s words touched me deep in my inner self and when he made the altar call, I went forward. Until that time, I did not know deeper things. At that altar call, I learned a couple of things about my need for a God. I thought I was responding to the altar call by my will. But one counselor, Sudhir, reminded me I did not come on my own, but God had called me and that was why I got attracted and I went forward.

After my altar call protocols were over, I realized my wife also had come forward. She had met with some other counselor. After such altar calls, an organization like Delhi Bible Fellowship would track the people who have come forward and follow it up with them. For some unknown reason, Delhi Bible Fellowship never followed it up with us. Thereafter, we went back to our normal way of normal Christianity and that was it.

 Long after that, I had forgotten all about Dr. Samuel Kamaleson’s teachings. I was back into my normal routine things. Many years later, when I was browsing through the TV channels, they had God TV on our cable network. Now there was a deep spiritual thirst within me, and I started watching on God TV and watched all important programs. I used to watch all the programs on God TV’s channel. It was here I learned what the Bible is and what it teaches and things like that.

And at some point, in time, I had one experience with God who kept on hammering into my heart the word “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) That is where I got to know the sinful nature of man. God hammered it strong into my heart. I later found out that it is the sinful nature of man that causes all evil things.

 Soon I learned more about what the Bible teaches. Even though I was never a serious bible student, I learned a lot through the people I was listening to on God TV. Andrew Wommack was one of my favorites then. I used to buy his CDs and listen to them. The other people were Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Keith Moore, Creflo Dollar, and many more. From their teaching, I have written a couple of blog posts from time to time depending on my thoughts then. Other than that, I never went into anything else deeper.

 After one year of my marriage or so, I even left Delhi Bible Fellowship because family responsibility became more after the birth of our daughter. Before that, at Delhi Bible Fellowship, I listened to one message which said that I should root myself where God has planted me. That Delhi Bible Fellowship message said to me I need not move to Delhi Bible Fellowship, but I can continue to be with Cathedral and be fruitful there. So, after that, my spiritual life continued with Cathedral.

My true spiritual care for growth came from the TV and later from the Internet. When Internet technologies improved and speed improved, I used to read on the Internet or watch videos on the Internet.

 I have not organized my thoughts today and there are a lot of repetitions. There are a lot of other things, but let me see how, from this material that I have talked about, I must figure out how much of it is there, how much I altered it? The notepad seems to get broken from time to time. So, I’m speaking faster than I need to speak. Though the recording is going on, the notepad has not caught it up.

 I will have terrible work to read all that, listen to the recording, and verify notepad contents. Let me see how much of all thoughts I can get into this document, and later let me see how much I can understand it.

 Since this is the first time I am recording through voice, I do not know what the mistakes are that I am making. The next time I will be better, more prepared, and better organized with my thoughts a little better. I will then be able to talk about it more clearly. I have another about 30 seconds of dictation time. Let me see how this material comes out. This is again an experiment, so I may publish nothing because this is an experiment.

 Next time around I think, I will do better.


Statistics

 

Revision

Created

Changed

Words

Raw

04-12-2021 08:44

04-12-2021 08:45

2081

Recording Check

04-12-2021 08:45

04-12-2021 08:47

2071

Raw Word for Web

04-12-2021 09:24

04-12-2021 09:26

2220

WFW recording Check

04-12-2021 09:26

04-12-2021 14:02

2177

Scrivener

04-12-2021 14:03

04-12-2021 14:08

2104

MS Word Professional

04-12-2021 14:09

04-12-2021 15:51

2067

Grammarly[1]

04-12-2021 16:02

04-12-2021 16:02

2066

ProWritingAid

 

 

 

Grammar & Style

04-12-2021 17:59

04-12-2021 18:00

1816

Fiction Style

04-12-2021 18:13

04-12-2021 18:16

1810

Final

04-12-2021 18:35

04-12-2021 19:25

1846

 

 

ProWritingAid - Where your document may need work.

Glue Index 49% - Reduce to 40%



[1]. Free Version

Friday, December 3, 2021

Freewriting

 

Freewriting today is about why do I want to author a book.

Right now, I am writing two books though I have only parts of the first book and the second book has no content yet. As I have 3 months of Kindle unlimited access, I am now reading books about writing.

One subject I ran into was Freewriting. I have seen three books that have content about Freewriting. They are Start writing your book today: A step-by-step plan to write your nonfiction book, from first draft to finished manuscript,by[1] Morgan Gist Macdonald, Writing With Power: Techniques for mastering the Writing Process 2nd Edition, by[2] Peter Elbow, and “Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content,” by[3] Mark Levy. From reading the books, I have done 20 minutes of Freewriting slots to input into the system.

So why do I want to author a book?

Myles Munroe inspired me with book writing. His YouTube video[4] got me thinking that even I may have some things to share with others, like a book. The first book I have has the theme of wondering about the creative wonders of God. The world keeps calling mother nature forgetting about Father God. I want to expose to the world the reality of Father God and debunk the so-called mother nature. Earlier I have even written a blog[5] post on this topic. Another blog[6] post is The God I believe in. I want to take these topics and anything that I have already written about God’s existence and make it known to the world.

I do not have any earlier writing experience except for the academic or professional papers that I have written as a part of my career. I learn that writing for a book is a unique skill. Even though Myles Munroe gives more information on how to create books. There are a lot of things I am not familiar with, and I need to learn how to do it. So now I am experimenting with Freewriting, and this is an experimental written matter.

The books I have in mind have “My insight into…” type of subtitle. The first subtitle is “My insight into creation” and the second subtitle is “My insight into the afterlife.” The first is Eternity Past, and the second is Eternity Future. I must cover things from Eternity Past and things about Eternity Future. Since I do not have access to scientific studies, the only access I have is to the Bible, which God-inspired authors wrote over 1600 years. This will help me clarify my understanding of the bible and try to make my understanding available to others.

My focus will have to be from my point of view. I do not have to write about others’ beliefs because what matters to me is my belief and I expect the readers to be interested in what I think about something I believe and not just repeat what others think. I see that as I type, I am making too many spelling mistakes because of trying to write at my maximum speed. After doing all the editing and correction using the tools I have on my PC, I have got to see how good is the matter that I come out with.

In this way, I will write much better after I read all the three books that I have picked up from Kindle unlimited. I also read a book about Scrivener[7] three for windows. I could understand better about scrivener three after I read that book. So, for the next 3 months, I will have many books to read about writing and my subject and try to capture my thought in quick Freewriting sessions and include them in the book in the proper place. This will help me keep putting up content without editing it while I am typing and, in this way, I will get the maximum number of words in writing. It is a different matter of how good the content is and how much of what I will keep and discard other unimportant thoughts that keep coming up as I write. I am sure from session to session I will have multiple thought repeats. When I read the books, I will have to pay special attention to the authors to understand how they used Freewriting.

So, in the beginning, I have one technique. I do not know how many other techniques are waiting for me to discover. If I keep on reading, I am sure I will find much more techniques for my writing.

 

 

Statistics

 

Revision

Created

Changed

Words

Raw

01-12-2021 08:12

01-12-2021 08:36

761

Scrivener corrected

01-12-2021 08:13

01-12-2021 11:45

818

Audio checked

01-12-2021 10:26

01-12-2021 11:45

818

MS Word Professional

01-12-2021 08:14

01-12-2021 11:45

829

Grammarly[8]

01-12-2021 08:14

01-12-2021 11:45

829

ProWritingAid

 

 

 

Grammar & Style

01-12-2021 08:14

01-12-2021 11:45

829

Fiction Style

01-12-2021 11:08

01-12-2021 11:45

790

Final

01-12-2021 11:24

01-12-2021 12:48

763

 

 

ProWritingAid - Where your document may need work.

Sentence Length 18.2 - Reduce to between 11.0 and 18.0 words

Conjunction Starts 10% - Reduce to 9%

Glue Index 50% - Reduce to 40%