Unexpected Blessings

Indian trains are famous or infamous for how packed out they can be. On a trip from Hyderabad to Pune, I was ready for anything, expecting the worst, hoping for a little less than the best. Standing on the platform, I saw the biggest and widest city train I’ve ever seen. Its width reminded me of the burritos I used to order while living in Chicago compared to the Taco Bell burritos. Next our train came and again, I prepared myself for the worst. I then found out that we were going to actually be in the AC cabin with the sleeper beds. Wow! My experience with sleeper bed compartments in Uzbekistan wasn’t that great. On that 14 hour trip from Samarkand to Khiva, myself and two friends found ourselves all the way to the back with the train personnel, who were frantically waking other personnel workers up to give us their beds. I slept in the personnel cabin, next to the control box while they waited for someone to vacate a bribed bed. I finally landed my own cabin at 2 or 3 a.m. So I was ready for anything when we stepped onto the train in Hyderabad. We lugged our bags into the train car, proceeded down the tiny corridor and finally turned into the vast and spacious compartment where we were to spend the next 10 hours. I was more than surprised, I was blessed. Being blessed is an experience like grace. You expect the worst and yet receive something so much better. There were four bunks and a huge cavity for us to move around in as well as the frosty AC to enjoy. There I began to thank the LORD for this great cabin, the AC, the unexpected spaciousness and the freedom to relax and get some much needed work done. I began to list off in my head all of things I wanted to accomplish within the next 10 hours and was looking forward to redeeming the time and getting some time to myself. What a blessing and not to mention the incredible AC. I had chosen to come to India for the two hottest months of the year. From the moment I arrived until I left, it was going to be hotter than any other time in this vast and extremely populated country. So the AC was blessing allowing me to hide away from the reality of what waited for me outside. The space was blessing me, the time redemption was blessing me, the chance to rest, the AC, etc… all blessings!

Then it happened! He came ever so quickly without any chance for me to protest. Before I could make alternate suggestions or show my self-absorbed body language, he was sitting across from the busy papers on my lap and the Bible by my side. In that moment I had a choice. What would I choose? I asked him half annoyed and half inquisitive, “Is that your seat?” He said, “Yeah!” Apparently his spot was across the aisle from us but it was on the upper section and not easily accessed, so he was compelled to join us in our seats while he wasn’t lying down in his compartment. I grudgingly contextualized my thoughts and remembered, I was in India. I wasn’t in London or Chicago, where a single look can establish a greater berth of personal space and comfort. I then had to answer my question, was I going to ignore a lost soul sitting across from me and work away or would I engage him in a conversation that could result in a presentation of the annoying Gospel? I’ve learned that the Gospel sometimes really annoys me. I really want the blessings that had been unexpectedly presented to me. I mean, how am I able to enjoy these unexpected blessings, if I have to give them up for the responsibility to share the Gospel with this lost man? I then did what I rarely do, I asked God for this man, for an opportunity to share. I put my papers down and poised myself to begin or receive a conversation with my Bible strategically placed. So we started…

He was in the army, I was traveling. He was a sailor, I was a Bible student. He was a sailing champion, I was a Bible teacher. He was from Bombay, I was from Chicago where I attended Bible School. His name was Pallav, mine was Nathan. He was 24, I was 28. He also wanted to meet the girls I was traveling with and in that I was tempted to think that he really didn’t want to talk with me anyways, so why should I give the effort. We chatted and the annoying thoughts kept passing through my head and began to invade my heart. Finally after about two hours, he was off to visit some others.

Ahhh, breathing room…I was actually glad that he left after stressing about how to enter him into a conversation about beliefs, religion and Jesus. Now I could relax, get some work done and take the evangelization pressure off. I ate some supper with my traveling friends, played a refreshing game of Yahtzee and then I settled in for some work on my computer. No sooner had I placed the MP3 player on my head to listen to teachings about Church Planting, then he, and now 3 others, showed up. I scrunched back into the corner with a look of disgust hiding behind my smile. I thought to myself, “if they are here to meet the girls and I’m the bridge then I don’t know what to do – aahhhhh….” Apparently they were all sailors with the Indian military and had just come from a sailing competition or something, blah, blah, blah and we were supposed to be interested and impressed. I settled in for another annoying and most likely long conversation. After hearing introductions and some small talk, the last blessing of the night came.

If my life was a movie, this would be the time when everyone stops moving and I would turn, face the camera and begin to speak to you about what I had just learned. I would let you know what God chose to show me and how I learned it through this whole process, but I don’t have video cameras following me around and I don’t have control over space and time. I can though bring you into a glimpse of how God’s glory shone through my annoyance and moved past my self-imposed limitations of self-absorption.

He pointed to the beaten and brown Bible on the small table in front of me, “So, we would like to hear about this book, since you are a teacher of it – tell us your favorite thing about it – no tell us your three favorite things from it.” Sitting with my proverbial mouth wide open, I quickly ran through the favorite parts of Scripture that have hit me over the past year, years, month, days, etc… I quietly consented and proceeded to my favorite story in the Bible, Hosea and the prostitute. I filled the narrative account as I tried to communicate the unfailing and disastrous love of God for his nation, his whoring wife, Israel. I then was able to relate that to us and how we chase after other gods and things in our lives and yet God pursues us with relenting love that passes beyond conventional wisdom and demands the very core of what love really is. I then scrambled to Roman 6:22 where the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal through Christ Jesus our LORD. I shared with him about how grace is a gift and goes beyond what is deserved, beyond mercy and actually gives freely that which is good when the opposite is deserved. In this I was able to relate a story of grace in my own life which my father showed me. It was during a time when I deserved a regular and justified punishment as a young boy (otherwise known as a spanking) and my father instead took the punishment for me. I told them all, no religion offers this. No faith will teach you that you deserve (wages) punishment but instead are given (free gift) something good and comforting and life transforming instead. Only the faith of the Old and New Testament, the faith that follows Jesus, does this. Then we jumped to John 14:6, a difficult one for Hindus, which they eventually confessed as their religion of choice. I did tell them that this was an easy prayer, but a total and whole life commitment. My friend asked, “So then what do we have to do?” I love that question. What do they have to do? Thanks to Paul, there are no formulas but the closest thing to them, a confession. Romans 10:9 and 10. Confessing with our mouths Jesus as Lord and believing with our hearts that God raised Him from the dead. After sharing with my new friends, they trailed off into their belief that many beliefs lead to God, etc… I shared with them how Jesus wasn’t only believable, kind and powerful but that He changed my life too. I’ve been learning that that is the key lately. Telling that a personal change happened in my life because of Jesus, not just that the Bible is true, that Jesus resurrection wasn’t false, that the Bible hasn’t been altered, but that my life has been altered. In that short exchange, my attitude was altered and now the annoyance was annulled because God used my unexpected blessing to show me that His idea of unexpected blessings can at times be very unexpected. In my experience, I would it happens most of the time. Be blessed but be careful! Thank you Lord for this incredible and humbling opportunity, please “bless” me as much as you want.

The story doesn’t end with a salvation but it does with the a changed attitude, a Gospel proclaimed and a new friend made.