I'm accompanying a friend who's hosting a group of international guests in Malaysia; they're due to speak and present at a conference on ecumenical and interreligious ministry this weekend in Kuala Lumpur.

My friend is hosting them by taking them for a whirlwind visit to some of the most well-known religious sites all around Peninsular Malaysia. And we've just been visiting a very famous temple up north. In fact, I'm seated right outside that temple this very moment while the group of them take a hike up the higher plains of the structures.

Just a moment ago, we stepped into The Hall of the Thousand Buddhas. It was fascinating and awesome. But something broke my heart: I caught sight of a woman kneeling earnestly kneeling before the statue of the Buddha and she was in tears. She was obviously pleading for mercy and help to cope with a stormy season of her life.

I believe that just as God honours people who earnestly seek Him with sincere hearts, no matter what their conceptions of Him might be, He also hears their cries for mercy and help. Even if humankind, through failure to recognise the full revelation of God, bow before images that may bear little resemblance to the only One who saves - Jesus Christ - God is merciful.

As this woman continues praying earnestly for God's help to bring her through the winters of life, I also pray that God will strengthen me with strength to go through the pains of ministry I'm experiencing now.

I silently ask Him for wisdom to distinguish between battles He desires for me to fight and those which aren't for me to engage in. I think I may have unwittingly engaged in some meaninglessly vain battles which have absolutely no value to His Kingdom. And I'm sorry.

We all intrinsically tend to embrace our sense of the divine with the most broken parts of our lives. Maybe it's because we know we can find real hope in things that are beyond us. I think this is precisely what God requires of us when we approach Him - the acknowledgement of our paralysis in life.

My prayer: Lord, here I am, your humble servant, weak, paralysed and wretched. With the little use that you have for me, I offer myself to you.