Life is short. All of us at different times in our lives have searched for a deeper meaning or purpose of living. I would like to share with you my experience in searching for the true God. I wonder how many of you have enjoyed playing hide-and-seek when you were young. I used to hide in the darkest part of our home. Have you ever had a brother or sister or friend forget to find you? Isn’t that disappointing? “Ready-or-not-here-I-come” is the tag word which starts this fun game. In life, we are all either “good hiders” or “good seekers” when it comes to finding the purpose and meaning of our lives. We either hide from the truth that is evident in the creation or tend to suppress the truth in our lives. We think of God as a “Seagull manager”. Ken Blanchard of the ‘One-minute Manager’ fame came up with this term - He flies in, makes a lot of noise, and dumps a load on all of us, and then flies away. Or we seek to please God by what we do, hoping that he will be pleased with us. I often call this a “bicycle manager” – we bend our backs to the one above us and furiously kick the people below us.

I was such a person. I was born and raised by my loving parents in India in the Hindu faith. As a child I was very zealous for my faith. I came from a Kshatriya caste or the “warrior” caste. Most of my ancestors were descended from the lineage of the bygone Kings of Mysore state. Our clan was known to be heroic, resourceful, and courageous in battle, generous and having noble leadership traits. I excelled above all my brothers in the knowledge of the Hindu holy books – the Vedas, Upanishads and the Bhagvad Gita in their original language of Sanskrit. Looking back in hindsight today, my life as a youth was full of religious zeal without true knowledge, always searching but never finding hope. My life was based on a teaching that if I have enough devotion (bhakti) or gain enough self-knowledge (Gyana) by meditating, and if my good deeds (karma) were more than my bad deeds, then God would have no choice but to let me into heaven. My religion had made me blind to reason by its intricate fables and myths. I believed that God is everywhere in nature, and godly men can perceive the truth revealed within or around them.

When I came to the United States in 1990, my father’s last words of advice were “Son always seek the truth, and if you find it follow it”. Almost three years passed. I got caught up in my education in Arizona. These words started haunting me when I moved to California. A year later I ended up staying with my cousin and her family. Since day one, I was challenged to defend my belief by my cousin’s husband – Jaipaul Swamidass. Jaipaul was unique person who had a few businesses of his own but spent a large part of his time in sharing Jesus Christ with different people.

I remember hours of debating with Jaipaul across the dining table on several topics about life and beliefs. All of His responses came from a book called the Bible. We were opposed in every area of belief. We debated on the concept of God. I believed that God was impersonal and an eternal force called Brahman, which has none of the attributes of a person (such as knowing, thinking, loving, etc). And as there were many gods, how could I be so arrogant as to say I ‘know god’? Jaipaul answered from the Bible and told me that I was separated from God by my disobedience from conception and I was reaping its wages which was spiritual death which he explained was separation from God. And I could do nothing about it on my own to win God’s favor by my good works. Two thousand years ago, God in His infinite love for me came down in the person of Jesus and paid the full fixed penalty of my disobedience to satisfy the wrath of God, once and for all.

We clashed on the subject of Authority. I had confusing authorities like books, myths and fables and Jaipaul said that I needed only one book – which was revealed by God to man – the Bible, and you need God as your teacher too. He said that it was inspired by God and had no errors in its original manuscripts.

I told Jaipaul that he was very narrow minded. “There are many ways to God – for you it is Jesus and for me it is through my dedication to my Hindu gods. Why can’t I just accept Jesus in to my pantheon of gods as the one who forgives sins?” Jaipaul replied that God is a jealous God and cannot share His holiness and worship with other gods. He made it simple in the Bible: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

I asked about Destiny? Do you know for certain where you are going? I believed that I had already done many good works and that I had reached the end of my Karmic cycle and can then finally come out of rebirths through moksha or liberation. Jaipaul argued that the Bible says, “It is appointed unto man once to die and then to face judgment” (Heb 9:27). You won’t have another chance in another life. Every person goes to a final destination – Heaven or Hell - decided by the choices they make and live by in this life. If I receive God’s free gift of eternal life through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, then I will definitely go to heaven.

Finally we disagreed on Salvation. I believed that if I am devoted enough, or live in self-denial (moksha), or gain self-knowledge (gnana), or meditate enough and if my good karma (deeds) were more than my bad karma, then God would let me into heaven. Jaipaul’s answer was simple – you can experience a new spiritual birth by having your sins forgiven right now by believing that Jesus died as a payment for the insurmountable debts of your sins and just as He was raised from the dead, so will you also be.

My heart was rebellious and hard and I consistently ran out of logic and reason in these discussions. I was comparing myself to my standards and not to God’s standard from the Bible. To my frustration this confounded book – the Bible - always had an answer which made sense. Finally I picked up the Bible; sure that it had holes in logic. And I read the Bible cover to cover for three whole months trying to find mistakes, and found some apparent inconsistencies which I was unable to resolve.

Months passed and Jaipaul and his family sowed spiritual seeds into my life, took me with them to a place they called Church where many people studied the Bible and sang songs. I saw how they lived their lives, opened their home to me and showed me love even though I did not share their beliefs. I was never forced to make a decision to accept what Christ had done for me but told to search the Bible. These were the days when the Word from the Bible started to penetrate my hard heart – some of the Christian songs like “Amazing Grace” and “How great Thou art” would often bring me to tears and remind me how bankrupt I was and that God loved me and did not want me to perish for eternity.

I refused to submit to a change in my life, until I was confronted in a daydream by God, and He made my heart receptive to His word. My search led me to a friend’s house on August 15, 1994 when I went to argue with him about the apparent flaws in the Bible. This person was a Christ bhakta who was willing to talk with me. Even before I met him, God confronted me in a vision sparked by a picture in his office of Jesus knocking on a door with the words of a Bible verse (Revelation 3:20): “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me”. This opened a floodgate and I knew how destitute I was without God. It brought back to my memory all that I had been reading in the Bible – that I was born sinful and had a selfish nature and that I was incapable of doing good or being righteous in the sight of a Holy God. None of my works earned any favors from God. I realized that Jesus was a gift of God’s grace and I needed to make a personal commitment to Jesus Christ and turn from my selfish disobedient ways towards Him. I realized God came down to the earth as Jesus Christ with one purpose - to pay the penalty for my sins and reconcile me to God. I surrendered my will to His that day in my heart. God was faithful to remind me of the words my father had drilled into my mind – “Son, always seek the truth and when you find it follow it”. AND NOW I FINALLY DID. These words from Jesus came to mind and have since become the hallmark for my life – “If you abide in my word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

My life, after this decision, took a dramatic turn that very day. I became a new person. God had placed in me a freedom and a peace that surpasses all human understanding and a passion to read the Bible. When I reached my work, I called Jaipaul and told him the good news of my new relationship with Jesus Christ and then I surprised him by telling him that God had called me to join with him in his ministry and be discipled, and that I was resigning from my position that day. My step of faith surprised Jaipaul. After hearing me out – he said if God leads, He will also provide. (as King David had written in the Bible) “I have been young, and [now] am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread”. That day I could not let go of the Bible. And when my boss confronted me about reading my Bible, I shared what had happened that morning and also got another opportunity to share this good news with his boss that afternoon. I left that job after two weeks and in obedience to God’s word and as an outward testimony of my inward commitment to God got baptized on August 28, 1994. My life over the last 10 years as a believer has had several ups and downs, but I have never lost that steadfast hope in the Lord Jesus and in His glorious Word – the Bible, which is completely sufficient to change me, counsel me and rekindle hope within me in any situation.

In closing, I am reminded of a verse which had caused me to have a ray of hope months ago before my life changed. It goes like this (God is speaking to his people): “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Being a follower of Jesus Christ has had its share of ups and downs. For almost two years since I became a believer, my parents refused to accept my new faith. After many days of prayer, the Lord Jesus finally restored my relationship with my parents. I was able to share my faith with them and even invited them to come and visit me in California. Also during my first few years as a Christian I was tormented by incessant dreams of my old faith and several visits to temples when I was a Hindu. After much prayer and beseeching the Lord Jesus, these dreams eventually vanished.

For a year after becoming a Christian, I had been praying for a home of my own, as I had been staying with my cousin. I knew I did not have the money to put as a down payment for a home, but I still prayed that the Lord Jesus would provide a place for me. After seeing several homes over a couple of months, I saw a house in Orange which I knew was the one, so I prayed and dedicated this home for the Lord’s work even before I knew that I would be able to own it. Due to circumstances orchestrated by God, I was able to buy this townhouse with no down payment. I just had to pay closing escrow costs of around $750. This was a miracle!

I stayed in this home for seven years, and kept an “open home”. I had several people stay in this home with me and have ministered to the needs of many through my local church.

I had made up my mind not to charge rent from people who stayed with me. One of them was Mark Anderson, who was a homeless person from our local church. I had the wonderful opportunity to know this person, disciple him and equip him to look for a job. Now Mark is happily married, has a full-time job, is getting educated, lives in a home and is involved in ministry in the local church.

I would like to give God all the glory and honor!

Devraj

devraju@yahoo.com

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