This is the picture of words, of the innocent search of the delegate creations, and a glorious Creator’s grace to response the search by revealing Himself.
My journey to find my creator God fortunately started with the belief in God. I never remember struggling with the thought of, whether there is a God or not? I fully believe, God installed the deepest desire in every Human’s heart to search Him. This desire to search for the creator God is million times more intense than a search of the orphaned child for his/her biological parent. This deepest desire of man to search for the maker is sometimes responsible for different conflicts in Human minds, unfortunately. Just like, an orphaned child in the search to reach the graceful mother, falling in many pitfall and failures. This is not predominantly unusual for, that child to never reach his/her mother or end up with the believe that there is no mother.
This same deepest desire to search my creator, made me search Him intensely but ingenuously. He was graceful enough, to respond my innocent search. I started searching God in every created thing. I was taught to see God in every creation. Even though now I see the creations and wonder at the creativity of my Heavenly Father, at that point of my life, I saw these creations and try to find, which one created the rest of them, and that did not make any sense to me. I used to walk around the Neem tree in circles multiple times (this is one of the forms of Hindu worships) but could not quite believe that this tree created and controls entire universe.
"Know that the LORD has set apart the godly for Himself"
(Psalm 4:3)
The struggle was to believe that multiple gods created and control life, death, and the whole creation. I surely could not believe the multiple God theory because I used to see the chaos that few people create due to inappropriate communication in the small families. I could not rationally believe multiple gods can control the universe in perfect harmony, and that was the beginning of my journey in search of one living God, who created, and controls everything in the universe.
Even with innocent search of my heart, I was remarkably faithful, the strongest desire of my heart to find my creator God would not settle for anything less than God Himself. I was ready to pursue anything, just to see, and fell the presence of my God. When I fly many hours to reach India that will not be too hard because of the very thought that I am going to see my mother’s face, so this emotion of readiness to pursue anything to see my creator God was not an out of the ordinary feeling. I asked questions, I argued with people, I cried in secret but continue to ask Him, innocently, to reveal Himself to me, not in the way I was supposed to, but in some way that I understood appropriate.
Finally that day, which now I believe, God’s pre- planned day to start the reveling process, My mom decided to take me to Vocational Bible School, not to learn Bible, but to have fun, during my summer vacation. The instructor spoke those supernatural words, at least for me those are super natural, “There is one creator God and his name is Jesus, He died instead of us, for our sins. At that time in my life, I did not understand the sin in me, so I did not bother about, who died for my sin? But the one created God was so believable. I could not express the joy that engaged my little heart. I found my Creator, and His name is Jesus. It was so relieving, to believe that there is one God, who created this universe, and He is still alive, and in control of everything happening in and around me. Ever since, every bit of my spiritual life was revolving around this Jesus, one God. It took many years, to understand the depth of his love; I am still in that learning process.
“She came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet
weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.”
Luke 7:36
I was like this woman, in the above passage of Bible; I was deeply in love with him. I just got one card, with suppose to be a picture of Jesus (I do not believe in worshiping pictures now). I kissed that picture so much that the paper got wet and peeling off. My sisters used to tease me saying, “Please, do not kiss that picture anymore that is going to be altogether destroyed.” I was profoundly in love with this God that was mostly emotional than rational. Christian faith completely is not emotional but rational, there is a reason for Christian faith, and I learned that later in my life.
"Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."
John 21:25
Every day in my life, I see not one but multiple miracles, it is like the apostles said, if I have to write everything God did in my life, without exaggerating, it will take my entire life- time, and truly, I forgot many of those, but let me explain here the most influential days that myself or anybody else around me, could deny that, there was a supernatural involvement in those, incredible situations of my life.
I decided to do Nursing after my twelfth grade. I did work hard, got decent grades, and I was extremely positive that I will get into nursing by all my work; I did not need God for that. God decided to teach me an extremely strong first lesson, of how foolish I was to believe, that “I could totally control my life?” I did not get to go to nursing that year, not because I did not have enough grades but just because, I missed to see the newspaper, in which, the results for the selection committee was published. I was chosen, but missed to show up. One whole year was wasted (That is what I thought). I cried secretly, and I was so depressed, but I was so adamant, and did not go to any other degree but wait for the next year. Next year came around, I again only applied for nursing, waiting for the results from the selection committee, but this time checked all the possible newspapers, every day. One day, as I was sitting and crying deeply, to this God and asked, “God can you comfort me in some ways?” I still remember that was a Sunday, I got this mail, from my neighbor he said “Oh! It came Friday, we forgot to give it to you” I was not expecting any mail, particularly not on Sunday. That was a call letter for my counseling to get into a Nursing program.
I was so excited, called all my friends and bragged that I got selected for Nursing (I did not realize that it was not a selection letter, but just a counseling letter. None of my family certainly had experience with that so they believed, whatever I believed).After the large celebration my mom, I, and dad packed, and reached the counseling, on the assigned day. The announcement, on that huge ground broke my heart, there are five more seats, for BSN, and the candidates with three points above me, were called up the stairs for counseling. You may not understand this situation entirely, if you or anyone in your family has gone for the selection process for professional courses in India. This simply means no way; I am getting any of those five remaining seats because there are at least 10 candidates within those 3 points, if not more. My sweet little heart broke utterly. I could not take it anymore. I said, “God it is ok, I did not get it last time, but why would you make me believe I almost got and deny it? I did not hear anybody talking to me. My mom was comforting me and saying, “Do not worry, there are many other things you could do” but I did not even hear those words, it did not make sense to me. I do not want to do any other thing but this.
I communicate so deeply to my Creator first time in my life; I would never forget those deep words. I said, “Lord I am not going to live, if I go back home without this Nursing seat, how can I tolerate the ridicule of people, whom I said, I got this seat? So prove to me, if you are real, if I get any one of these five seats, I will never again in my life, ask this question, are you real? If not, even if you appear before me, I will not believe, you are real” (now I surely regret, I said those words, I would never recommend, those kind of prayers, it is by His grace, He saved me from that trap, but it is scary to think what if not? ) .The announcement was coming again, calling out my points, ran upstairs, there were only three seats, with five people ahead of me. Two of them got the seats, one more seat, and three candidates ahead of me, they did not show up that day, and that not particularly common to occur. As I was seeing this person counseling me said, “Congratulations Ahila, you got the last seat for BSN.” I saw God for real, until then, I just knew Him, and then I saw Him. He was so real; I said to myself, “Never again in my life, I will have that question, that if He is real?” I did not hear any other words from anyone. I was totally taken away by this reality of seeing, and feeling my God’s presence, it was beyond expression. My mom with a smile said, “It is your god, who gave you this.”
Fortunately, I went to the Christian College, had incredible Christian friends, they taught me basics of Christianity, but only one of the friend had the courage to challenge me, and said, “There is no connection between dark and light. You cannot serve two masters at the same time. You chose this living creator God or worship all your creations” (even though I realized the real God, I was praying to God but was standing in the temple of idols). Of course, my soul chose to worship this creator god, my ego fought for my past life. I asked God to talk to me directly and precisely. I opened the Bible and I got these exact words,
“This is what the LORD says
Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last;
Apart from me there is no God”
Isaiah 44:6
(I am not saying this is the only way, which God will talk to us, but this is the very way, God choose to speak to me).
I put my trust in God right away. I started reading the Bible. I was been convicted of my sin, and understood, how God loved me so much that He sacrificed His son (Himself) as a sacrifice, instead of me in the cross. I understood that salvation is the done deal, and all I have to do is put my trust in my God. That was easy. The challenge was to obey the commands, to declare my internal change publicly. I feared that would hurt my mother’s heart. I loved her so much that I did not want to hurt her in anyway (including my declaration of my conviction). I should certainly, thank my mom; she always respected my individuality, in my faith (until other problems rose later in my life), even though she did not believe in the same.
I truly believe, God can come along, and talk as Human will understand. He can talk to us as a breeze or with strong biblical ideas. He can express his love in most profound way, or just like how teenagers will express their love. It is possible for Him to communicate in all different ways. Beginning of my Christian journey, I always wanted to know, if God truly loved me. When my prayers were not answered that question became stronger. I was a teenager, and did not understand, all the depth and length of His love that He showered on me by His death. I constantly asked this question to Him in prayer or simply in my heart. Once I became desperate and said, “God you do not really love me, Do you?” And I opened my Bible and read these words.
“You have such a place in our hearts that we would live or die with you”
II Corinthians 7:3.
It is not a complete verse, and it could have a different meaning altogether, in this verse is Paul talking to the specific church (Corinthians). I believe every word in the Bible is God revelation to His creations. All I am trying to say, is God can communicate with us in our own innocent way. These verses made a much sense to me. That was like a teenage boy, who would express his love, so deep and profoundly. I never again asked that question to Him, if He loved me; this was the one verse, filled all my longing. I also understood that He loved me so deep that He died for my sin, and I will live with Him forever, long-time after, this encounter with God.
Another regular day in my life, I was in the church, and the pastor spoke another set of super natural words in my life “All of you, should keep a distance between you and the person who is not baptized.” Those words pierced my heart like a sword, not because no believers will associate with me, but I was thinking, “If the believers have to keep a distance from me, than how far am I from my god?” I could not believe that I was so far from my god (now, I do not believe every person who is not baptized is far from God or vice-versa, but that was God’s brilliant way of talking to my innocent faith).
I got extremely impatient and was waiting for that sermon to be finished. Quietly got close to the pastor and said, “I want to be baptized, and today.” Nothing came to my mind, about my mom, and I am hurting her, nothing. All I wanted was to obey my only God by declaring that I am His possession in public. The pastor said “ Hold on, we cannot just give you baptism like that, but have to announce that in the church, and there are preparations that has to be done” ( I will not blame him because he had no idea about, how I loved god, is it emotional or real transformation). I got so bold and said, “Pastor, I believe, today is the day, if I miss it, I will never be baptized, and guilt of my blood is on you” (Oh! my god, I could not believe, I said that). Of course, those words did the trick. The pastor said “Ahila, wait for us. I and some of the elders of the church have to pray about this, and we will come to the conclusion.” I said, “Sure, if God is the one talking to me, He will surely talk to you too.” I waited out, He came out after an hour, and said “Ok, let us go to this Yamuna River, and give you baptism.” That was the day my secret acceptance of God, was declared in front of the whole group of God’s people. I am sure that pleased my God’s heart, and there was a tremendous feast in heaven just for that.
Life was beautiful had ups more than downs. I did well in school, worked, helped my family, and shined every place I worked. Now the next chapter in my life, I wanted to get married. I was determined; that I should get married to someone who believes in Christ (at least will not restrict me from going to church). I did not think that it was going to be such a struggle finding one. My mom wanted someone from our caste, so our caste and believer that create whole new trial in my life. I would say that was the biggest trail until now in my life. As my family was getting desperate, I also became so desperate; I wanted to meet this man, whom God intent. Quickly, after that I came to the conclusion that God did not create a man for me, and I said to God, “If you did not create a man for me, then teach me to live without searching for one.” (See I am getting mature in faith, but not understanding God; do not create a desire in believer’s heart, for which he has no plans for). God did not seem to answer that question (he knew exactly the future). After a while, I met this person, in my path of groom searching. I started talking to him, thinking he will be my husband. After a week or so I came to know that he was married before, and that he hid this thing altogether from me. I was not okay with that and my mom was obviously not okay with that. This whole situation brought more storms, in my already desperate heart. Remember the vow, I made to God long-time before, in my nursing selection counseling. I did remember those vows, but this storm seems to pull me far away from my God.
One day, as I was talking to my friend I utter these words, “I am talking to you, these words, and I know you are hearing it, God is hearing this, and also Satan is hearing this. Even I go to the pulpit, ready to be married to the guy and thousands more times that the marriage stops, I will not question my God because, I know He is real, and has control over my life.” Soon enough, I got this man, who is truly customized, he is a believer, and belongs to my caste. Not only he will let me go to church, but also he will worship this same God, holding my hands in the church, standing next to me (this was like, very much more, than I ever imagined).We had challenges in our lives, but never did this question came in to my mind, is he the right person? Because it is so obvious that he is the only and perfect person for me.
These are the greatest storms, and the exact ways God revealed Himself to me. I am in the journey of growing deeper in my faith. God has assigned many spiritual people, in my life that they serve, the exact need at the very moment of my life. Now, I know all my deeds were filthy rags before God, and God send his precious son (Himself) to suffer for all my sins.
"All our righteous acts are like filthy rags."
Isaiah 64:6
I have a beautiful inheritance, eternal life as a follower of Christ. Jesus is not only real, but also so sweet that I am falling in love with him, every day, deeper and deeper. His love is so deep that I will never understand it perfectly.
I deeply desire that I will fulfill this life journey, as a Christian woman, who will create a whole new generation of Christians; those will serve the Lord with their hearts, souls, and minds fully. I believe that is also my Creator’s divine purpose. I am not sure if that generation will arise from me and my husband’s gene, but God has a perfect plan for my life. I will be a part of the zealous Christian generation to come, no question about that.
"So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."
Luke 11:9
Dear most friends, even none of these words make sense to you; believe one thing God did answered my innocent search for him in an amazing way. I believe for sure He will do the same to anyone who searches Him with honesty. Just ask Him to reveal Himself to you. Even, if you do not believe in Him; just say if you are real, reveal yourself to me. That is all it takes, you will be amazed at the ways that He can reveal Himself to you. God bless.
