My Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Testimonies are usually short and
sweet, but mine might be as ‘big’ as I am…it’ll go on perhaps
for two hours! Don’t worry; I am just kidding: I’ll finish it in
10-15 minutes!
My name is Inder Mohan Singh. I had
a foot-and-a-half long beard, had long hair and tied a turban till about
1996. I was born into a Sikh family of very devout and religious people,
made up mostly of physicians and Army officers.
I was the youngest, fattest and most
spoiled of four children, three male and a female! My two older brothers
and eldest sister had not studied in private schools (called public
schools in India!) but my father, a retired Army officer who had spent
42 months in Italy and Egypt during the Second World War, was determined
that I be educated in an English-medium school. St. Xavier’s School,
a Roman Catholic Jesuit institution in Delhi, had just opened and was
accepting students. I was one of those admitted there the
very first month, in January 1960, more than 48 years ago!
We used to be taken to the Sikh temple
regularly and we read the Sikh scriptures off and on (a copy of which
was kept ritualistically ‘adorned’ at our home)! However, in that
Roman Catholic School run by the formidable Jesuits, I was introduced
to the Person of JESUS CHRIST in the fourth grade, and I still recollect
a black-and-white picture of OUR LORD and Savior, a crown of thorns
pierced into His head, and congealed droplets of blood ALL over HIS
FACE!!
In the eighth grade, Gideon’s pocket-sized
Bibles were distributed to all of us after morning assembly in school.
I read a few chapters, but that was not a big deal for me….seemed
to be just a story, a fairy tale! We continued to learn in more depth
about JESUS from a book titled ‘The Saviour’ during our Moral Science
class periods in the ninth and tenth grades in School.
In 1968, when I was in the tenth grade,
my father fell very ill and was hospitalized. He had 16 units of blood
transfusion. I was desperate, so I read the Gideon’s Bible. (Strangely,
but providentially, I used to keep it in my pocket always!!) I
‘prayed’ to JESUS to save my father. JESUS HEARD MY PRAYER, saved
my father and I brought him home healed. However, like most tenth graders
would react, I think, I forgot the Savior after that!! There was no
long-term gratitude in my heart for JESUS! I went the wayward ways of
adolescence, teenage and youth, though that Gideon’s Bible still remained
in my pocket at all times.
I joined College, earned my Bachelor’s
and Master’s Degrees, experimented with liquor and similar intoxicants.
I did everything that was considered
‘WRONG’, and that many people during that phase of life usually
do; but I did go regularly to the Sikh temple, and even
completed certain 40-day prayers, visits and rituals. However, there
was no peace in the heart as it was just mechanical, without any personal
relationship with any deity, any ‘god’!
Many years later, while traveling
by train en route to Bangalore (many here might be familiar with G.
T. Express), and with the Gideon’s Bible still habitually in my pocket,
my life was literally ‘jolted’ because my compartment, and a few
others, derailed near Nagpur. I was unhurt, without even a scratch!!
Suddenly, I heard a voice that said ‘Be
a man’ (that,
by the way, was the motto of St. Xavier’s School at that time…esto vir). This was not an audible voice, but one
that emanated from my heart and soul! We carried on to Bangalore where,
at the train station, I met somebody who turned out to be my sixth grade
class teacher’s youngest brother from Agra. I did not mend my ways
in Bangalore, either, and continued to be my usual self for the week
that I was there. This man from Agra was a Roman Catholic; he got a
job in Delhi and we kept in touch, and talked about Jesus off and on!
My heart was still unreformed. I had not
‘become a man’ even though the
‘voice’ after that derailment had asked me to become!! I was still
very lukewarm in my search, in my behavior and in my attitude toward
God and man! But Yeshua had by then decided that He had had enough patience
with me! He persisted, pursued….and chased me in many ways, but I
did not respond; on March 17, 1978 (just a few days more than 20 years
ago), there was the first, and only,
tornado in Delhi. There was quite a bit of devastation just about half-a-mile
from where I lived in North Delhi.
That was the day of reckoning for
me: that was the day I believe that the GOOD LORD JESUS CHRIST stamped
me with his ‘seal’! I told my Catholic friend Ivan Smith that I
wanted to go to Church with him; in April 1978, I began going with him
to the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Connaught Place, New Delhi. That tornado
had scared the living daylights out of me!! I
had begun ‘becoming a man’, albeit
out of a sense of terror!! I began going to Church not only for the Sunday
Mass, but EVERY
DAY!!
However, that Cathedral is smack (no
pun intended!!) opposite one of the Sikhs’ most important shrines
in Delhi (Bangla Sahib Gurdwara). My parents got wind of my going to
church. My father was a prominent doctor at that time in North Delhi,
and his patients reported on me entering the church when they visited
that Sikh temple. My whole family took up arms against me!! How could a devout
Sikh’s son ‘go to church’? My brothers were hastily summoned from their
jobs. They tried to dissuade me from going to church. I refused, and
did not relent….in the end, I was willing to give them only the
‘concession’ that I would go to church after sunset, when it would
be dark, so that my relatives, friends and father’s patients would
have minimal chances of seeing me go to church!!
The Church Assistant Parish Priest
used to guide me, and I participated in the Charismatic Prayer Meetings.
However, the Parish Priest declined to baptize me for 13 years; I had
to make do with the ‘baptism of desire’. This Parish Priest was
of the old school, so to speak, and wanted to be completely, rather
overly, convinced that I really wanted to be baptized into the Catholic
Church. I was in virtual limbo, but the GOOD LORD heard my prayers and,
after thirteen years without holy communion, that parish priest
was transferred by the new Archbishop. The new Parish Priest, who is
now the Archbishop of the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, called us for
instructions only a very few times, and was convinced about our sincerity
because we successfully answered his queries
about the Bible and the basic tenets of the Roman Catholic Church.
Long story short, we were baptized
17 years ago, on Easter Sunday in 1991. We began going to Church even
more regularly, took Holy Communion and followed all the traditions
of the Catholic Church very ‘religiously’ (no pun intended!!) in
India till 1999 when we moved to the U. S. A. Here, too, we carried
on attending Mass weekly and, sometimes, daily. But that unnamed and
indescribable thirst and hunger in our hearts remained unsatisfied…because
all that we were following and doing were mostly traditional rituals,
attending ‘obligatory Sunday Mass, praying the rosary, chaplets and
doing ‘novenas’ and so on.
There was apparently not much of a
fellowship, Bible study or any personal relationship with Yeshua!! We
hungered for fellowship that is regular and anointed. During Christmas
2006, we attended a dinner on Christmas night at a friend’s place.
Her uncle had come from Baltimore that morning. We were with him and
his family that night for 3-4 hours, shared a meal with him when he
and his family came over a couple of days later to our home, said a
few prayers, and sang a few hymns together. He returned to Baltimore,
and from there in Feb. 2007, he introduced us by
‘phone to a lady who had given up Sikhism, and had accepted the LORD
JESUS about 5 years ago. Our contact with them was ONLY telephonic.
However, the GOOD LORD YESHUA planned
it in such a way that this former Sikh lady and her husband came to
visit us, without
ever having even seen our faces, in Aug. 2007. The Lord JESUS CHRIST sent complete
‘physical’ strangers,
who stayed with us for about just two nights, but who sowed the seed
of moving from tradition to a real relationship with our Heavenly Father!!
We decided that after their departure, we would go to different churches
on Sundays to see which one we liked the most! In the meantime, my wife
called up Pastor Philip Pala whom we had met twice or thrice before.
He and his wife Susie had spoken to
us about Jesus, but we had stubbornly refused to budge from the Catholic
tradition. Pastor Pala had met our son 5-6 years before at the K &
G Men’s store in Natick (now in Westwood). Pastor Pala had tried to
convince our son to join him in his Church, and move towards a personal
relationship with Jesus. Our son, on the other hand, had tried to bring
Pastor Pala into the Insurance and Financial Services business….but
each failed in his attempt at that time!!
As many of us realize, sooner or later,
that the Lord has His ‘plans’; and as the hymn goes, everything
happens ‘IN HIS TIME!! It
was meant to be that unknown,
unseen, unmet people were to come
from Baltimore, pray with us and
lead and guide us gently and
lovingly out of the grip of
tradition and habit into the liberating
personal relationship with Jesus Christ,
the CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS!!! It
was meant to be that instead
of going from one church to
another every Sunday to
‘choose’ the one that
‘appealed’ the most to us, my
wife was ‘led’ to call up
Pastor Pala who helped steer us
towards the proper path! Our Heavenly Father works ‘behind
the scenes’ and, as Paul Harvey would say, this is the rest of the
story!
We are now doing our best to get
past the baby steps of learning to walk with Jesus. The Holy Bible is
our source of strength and faith. We are becoming very regular in attending
Bible Study sessions, prayer meetings and services. There is an
inexplicable yearning in our hearts to meet with
fellow believers for prayers, praise and worship!!
The routine of attending Sunday Mass has been broken by the dynamic
ministries that have taken us under their wings, and that are teaching
us to fly high “on eagle’s wings” in our flight towards the one
true LORD and Savior JESUS CHRIST Who, by HIS obedient Sacrifice on
the cross, opened the PORTALS OF HEAVEN for ALL of us on earth. He died
for the redemption of the whole world, not just for a select few!!
The
‘flight’ to true contentment, patience, faith and fellowship is
long and turbulent; and we, too, ‘have miles to go before we sleep,
and have many promises to keep’!! It is not that problems, suffering
and irritations disappear the moment you become a Christian;
but the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit helps us to tackle them
head-on with confidence and fortitude. When even the Son of God, the spotless
Lamb of God, had to carry the load and suffer (and all because of our
past, present and future sins), who are we mere mortals to complain
of this problem, or that pain in the neck (or elsewhere!!)? Jesus Christ is sitting at the right hand
of God, ready to mediate for us if we ask, seek or knock in His Name; but it is WE that have to do the asking, seeking
and knocking, with the utmost confidence that whatever is good for us
will be done.
When we think, speak and act at the
prompting of the Holy Spirit, our path will NOT be hindered by insurmountable
obstacles: instead, it WILL be strewn with all that the Heavenly Father
decides is good for us. We
must learn to abandon ourselves to
His guidance for He ALWAYS
knows better than we do what is good for us now, and in the days and
years to come!! His plans
are far-sighted while ours demand instant gratification, and this is
why we must be aware, and BEWARE, of the wicked wiles and wayward ways of
the ‘lion that is always prowling around trying to devour us’. I
think I am becoming poetic, but the bitter truth is that satan never
sleeps, and spiritual warfare is perpetual as long as we are here on
this earth!!
If we are steadfast in our FAITH, the ULTIMATE VICTORY will DEFINITELY be ours because the Holy Bible says, “If GOD be for us, who can be against us?” and also that “NO weapon formed against us can prosper!”
Amen! And PRAISE THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!! Please pray that we can be a blessing for all whom we meet and that we become instruments in bringing all the lost sheep to the GOOD SHEPHERD LORD JESUS CHRIST’S fold!!
Hallelujah!!
Email: Inder@SAFNE.com / imsingh1211@hotmail.com