Nothing Is Impossible: The Gospel and My Grandfather

"When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying 'Who then can be saved?' But Jesus looked at them and said to them, 'With men this is impossible but with God all things are possible." - Matthew 19:25-26, NKJV

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes..." - Romans 1:16, NKJV

My mother and "new" grandfather!

   It was 6AM on the 20th of April. Tired, sleepy and worn out with more than a day's journey and almost 24 hours of flying time to India, I stepped forward and pressed the doorbell. My sister was beside me, my aunt and uncle behind us after having driven us home from the airport. Tired as I was, I also felt and expectant thrill. A few minutes later, the door opened and I was looking at the face of a very old, but very happy man. 

   "Hello, son!", said my 90-year old maternal grandfather with a smile, reaching forward to hug me. His voice had aged, grown softer, yet still deep and clear. The thrill I felt was not just seeing him again after more than six years. It was not just the sense of nostalgia or the familiarity of childhood memories. In a very real way, I was looking at what I had thought impossible. I was meeting my grandfather for the first time as a new Christian after he had given his life to Christ two years ago at the age of 88, while I was in Canada.

    From what I understood of my mother's memories of her parents, the spiritual difference between my maternal grandfather and grandmother could not have been more different when they got married. M. J. John was a Christian only by label, who had very little knowledge or interest in his faith, though he had sung in the choir in his childhood church while growing up. His wife Mercy was the complete opposite. My mother described her as someone who "loved going to church and participating in the liturgy, not just as a ritual or out of duty but because she loved God and loved being part of the church." My mother credits her mother for any spiritual input and notion of God that she was given while growing up.

   With his God-given talent, communication ability and hard work, my grandfather ascended in business as the manager for all of India for a Swedish company. Health, wealth, power, prestige, influence, the 'good life' of the elite - he had everything that is coveted and considered the marks of those who have "arrived." But his spiritual life was almost nonexistent. Having made it all, he set out on a business venture to start and run his own company, was cheated by his business partners and lost everything.

   It was shortly after this that my mother was married and I was born. Relying on his own ability and stubborn will, my grandfather started a number of businesses over the years, both in India and Dubai. He made and spent what I heard were massive amounts of money. Through it all, he remained a loving and doting grandfather, who lavished love, affection and presents on me and my sister when she joined us 10 years later. But his heart towards God had not changed; he still relied on other sources for guidance, and relied on his will and human effort.

   When my parents came to saving faith and gave their lives to Christ shortly before my sister was born, my mother (who is a strong woman of prayer) began to fervently pray for her father's salvation. Nothing happened. She prayed, shared the gospel with him, lived out her faith, shared her testimony with him. Nothing happened. She humbled herself, prayed and wept, fasted, pleaded with my grandfather in tears, loved and cared for him. Nothing happened. When I accepted Jesus as my personal Saviour, I shared my testimony with him, prayed, loved, pleaded, argued. We began praying for him as a family, along with many others who knew and cared for him. Nothing seemed to happen.

This went on for more than 20 years.

   Time went by. My grandmother passed away. My grandfather went through his sixties, seventies and eighties. It looked like nothing would change.

   And then, two years ago, I got a phone call from my mother telling me what I had given up hope of hearing - that my Grandfather had given his life to Christ. During a visit by a relative who was a pastor, he had broken down and cried over his life and all that had happened to him. The pastor faithfully led him through a prayer of repentance and salvation that committed his life to Christ. When my mother visited him on vacation, she bought him a Bible with large print that he could easily read. He started going to a church close by - the same Mar Thoma parish that my late paternal grandparents used to go to. He still goes there.

   When I visited my grandfather after six long years, I bought him Billy Graham's latest book, written in his nineties, as a present - "Nearing Home: Life, Faith and Finishing Well." I hoped that it would minister to my grandfather, having been written by someone of his own age group. I had the privilege of giving it to him as an advance present for his 90th birthday.

   In turn, I was stunned when my grandfather told me that he had read the entire Bible twice, cover to cover and was starting on it a third time. During the time that I was there, I realized that I had never in my life heard him use the words 'God' and 'grace' as many times as he did during my nine-day vacation. My eyes filled with tears as I once saw him eagerly turning through the pages of the book that I had brought him. It now sits on the coffee table next to his favourite chair in the living room.

Appachen's present beside his favourite chair

   The story of my grandfather's salvation is a story of the impossible, and the power of faith to triumph over circumstances through persevering, fervent and humble prayer by our family. It is a demonstration of the truth of God's unstoppable will and power and the mighty work of His Holy Spirit to bring people to salvation through the gospel. And in a very real and personally relevant way, it shows me the power of faith, hope and love as described by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 to persevere through difficult circumstances, move mountains, overcome impossible odds and demolish obstacles. My mother persevered in prayer for her father for 20 long years, and though it seemed God was deaf and silent, He was working in the background to bring things to pass.

   Dear reader, what is it that you need in your life? No situation or circumstance is impossible for my almighty, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present God. His power defies description. Everything is possible, if only you believe in Him. I pray that my grandfather's story will strengthen and encourage you, and leave you with these two promises from the mouth of Jesus Himself:

"And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." 

- Matthew 21:22, NKJV

"And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." - John 14:14, NKJV

God bless. May the Lord be with you!

- The Wisdom Seeker

To India and Back Again

   This is a quick post before I go to bed (again), after having woken up about an hour ago. I'm still trying to recover from the accompanying jet lag after returning from a vacation trip to India on Sunday. I thought I'd use these few minutes to update the blog. I was too busy to write while on my trip, and didn't have access to an internet connection everyday to do so.

    I was visiting my hometown in India after more than six years. After finishing my undergraduate and spending some months with my grandfather and other relatives, I had left at the end of 2005 to move to Canada to study, work and live here. My main objective on this vacation trip was to spend as much time with my only surviving grandparent (my maternal grandfather) as possible. He is turning 90 in June, and had not seen me since I had left. As he has grown older since I have been away, he has grown increasingly anxious to see me, not knowing when the time will come for God to call him home.

     The  nine days that my mother, sister and I spent together with him were wonderful. As I write this after having gotten off the phone with him, he is still very much healthy and happy and I hope God will grant him many more years to live.

     Aside from the time spent with my grandfather, this trip was a wonderful time spent revisiting childhood places, memories and people. But it was also a time for reflection, as I took in the shifts that have occurred in the land, culture, economy, people, places, and attitude. Although much has changed, much has also remained the same.

    Over the next few days, I hope to process some of those experiences of my nine-day vacation and the accompanying lessons that I feel God has imparted to me through them. I will also be sharing some of the photos and videos that I took on the trip, which I hope readers will enjoy!

     Until then, it's time to go back to bed and hopefully get back to my usual waking and sleeping schedule. Vancouver is telling my body it's time to go to sleep; India is telling my body it's late in the morning and I should have got out of bed a long time ago. Till next time, good night and may the Lord be with you!

- The Wisdom Seeker

The Hurting Lie: What I've Been Hiding From

   Over the last few days, I've been steadily and increasingly drawn to a significant, inevitable and sobering personal conclusion as I contemplate the lessons that I learned during Holy Week and Easter:

I've been keeping the Holy Spirit at a 'safe' distance, afraid of Him, because I'd been fooled by the lies of those who have misrepresented Him and abused His name. I've been hurt, and I've been hiding from the pain for the last four years.

   This is a troubling realization to be arriving at as I try to put this into words. I have a nagging feeling that this is going to be like facing the painful memories of my childhood bullying and abuse that blindsided me more than a year and a half ago. I first began processing those memories in the post "Infliction: Childhood Wounds", as God began unraveling the emotional bandages that I had wrapped my heart in, and dismantling the armor that I had erected to protect myself. I wrote about that in "Adoration: Childhood Heroes" and "Conviction: I'm not Iron Man." I felt scared as I started to work through those memories then; I'm starting to feel scared again now.

   It is an unnerving experience to be taken by God into the hidden and hurting places of my heart, where memories have been suppressed and locked away, wounds bandaged over, barriers erected, defenses at the ready. It is scary to face the truth about our hurt, abuse, fear, and the lies that we have believed about myself or others. However, it is more painful to realize that I have been scared of God as a result of spiritual wounds at the hands of false religion and teaching, and believed a lie about Him. That is the sensation I'm beginning to feel now as I think about the Holy Spirit in light of my experiences of last week, and I'm afraid. I'm afraid because I know it's going to hurt to think through those memories, but I have to if I want to find the truth.

    I first tried to describe my spiritual and intellectual confusion that took place during my teenage years, when my family shifted into the Pentecostal/Charismatic community and congregations in my post "In Search of 'Holy Ground'." It was there that I first heard all sorts of people delivering extraordinary and conflicting claims regarding the Holy Spirit and His power in the life of the believer. Some seemed biblical. But others taught that He 'zapped' people with His power, causing them to shake, shout, clap,  fall over, laugh, roll around, jump, and other strange behavior. Yet others taught that His whole purpose was to deliver anything that was asked of Him on demand, like the 'delivery boy' of the Trinity. According to them, He could be commanded at will with 'name it and claim it' language, with the intention of delivering health, wealth, big houses, cars, success, prosperity, personal aircraft, and anything else that we asked for to make us happy. All of them tried to use Scripture to prove their claims. All of them seemed attractive and legitimate.

Young, gullible and naive as a new Christian, I fell for all of it.

   The end result of believing lies built upon swiss-cheese theology was that I formed a completely wrong picture of God, His Word and especially the Holy Spirit in my mind. This influenced who I thought I was, who I thought He was, how I approached Him, and how I looked at life. In the end, it took two devastating personal crisises that shook the foundations of my world and caused it all to come crashing down to wake me out of my stupidity and "smell the burning coffee." When the shock wore off, I realized to my horror that I had been well and truly fooled. I had been taken for a ride, spiritually duped, fed and believed a delusion, a blasphemy about the person of the Holy Spirit and left a fool at the end of it all. I felt devastated, like I had woken from a bad dream; I had been used, violated, pillaged, an idiot who believed anything and everything that was told to him and robbed of innocence in the process.

   Four years ago, disillusioned and hurting but desperately wanting to live the real and authentic Christian faith, I went in search of a church that could help me lay a solid foundation in my faith and teach me the "truth." God in His mercy led me to the theologically conservative yet somewhat unconventionally Mennonite church that I attend, where I have had to unlearn much of what I thought I knew. Although I have learned much in the process, especially the precious truth about how to carefully read and interpret God's Word, I am beginning to realize that I have unintentionally kept the Holy Spirit at a safe distance. Although I pray to my Heavenly Father and think a lot about Christ, His Son, I have been afraid of speaking too personally to the Holy Spirit, asking for His help or expecting His 'power', because I've been afraid of once again opening the door to all the false teaching that I fell for before, falling into the trap and committing blasphemy in the process.

   It hurts to realize this. I have to face the fear and lie that Satan tells me about the Holy Spirit in my heart and destroy it. I know that I know the real Holy Spirit. He is not the crazy, distorted image that I naively believed in many years ago. I have to firmly establish the truth about Him in my heart, and call on His power. I'm going to stop here for now and go to bed. This has been emotionally exhausting to work through for one evening. See you in the next post.

Good night, Holy Spirit. I love the real You.

- The Wisdom Seeker.

REFERENCES:

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[1] Infliction: Childhood Wounds

[2] Adoration: Childhood Heroes

[3] Conviction: I'm not Iron Man

[4] Salvation: The Guardian