VOLUME 25.4 I - Ravi Zacharias · WALK WITH RAVI In Walking from East to West, Ravi Zacharias...

JUSTTHINKINGTHE MAGAZINE OF RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

VOLUME 25.4 I WWW.RZIM.ORG

Just Thinking is a teaching

resource of Ravi Zacharias

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exists to engender thoughtful

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Scripture, and the whole of life.

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TABLE of CONTENTSVOLUME 25.4

08Soaring JourneysThe world record attemptof a hot air balloon givesrise to thoughts by Jill Carattini on thewinding journey of faith.

30Through the Eyes of GodOnce “a creature of despair,”Ravi Zacharias shares howhe became a creature of hope—and the rapid changes thatensued were beyond his imagination.

26A Book of MemoriesAniu Kevichusa muses on the first Bible he owned,confessing, “For a long time, it just sat there, dead to meand I to it.”

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10Coming HomeIn an excerpt from Walkingfrom East to West, RaviZacharias reflects on hisearly life in India and itsdefining influence and calldecades later.

04A Growing ProcessMargaret Manning Shulldescribes how the simple giftof a plant put down roots inher heart and seeded a newway of life she had longviewed from a distance.

28No Better StoryWhether it is the longing forlove or purpose, the Bible canbest help us navigate what itmeans to be human, suggestsAndy Bannister.

WALK WITH RAVIIn Walking from East to West, Ravi Zacharias invites you to follow him on a journeythrough his life, revealing how he has become more convinced that Jesus Christ is

the one who came to give you life to the fullest.Available for purchase online at rzim.christianbook.com

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IN HIS POEM “On the Grasshopper and Cricket,” John Keats waxes,

The poetry of earth is never dead:When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead

The shade of “cooling trees” and the barefoot lush of new-mown grass draw meinexorably outside in summer, even in the high noon of “Hotlanta.” There’s a certainsteadiness in this season: school break, longer days, the expectation of vacation, fresh

peaches, tomatoes, and corn at roadside stands.Then again, summer sings of such surprises!

A spontaneous trip to the shore, a serendipitous celebration, a side trip for ice cream!

In the Just Thinking essays that follow, a neigh-bor’s simple gift turns Margaret Manning Shullfrom a garden observer to an avid gardener. A bookfrom his parents, now tattered and worn, inscribes itswords upon Aniu Kevichusa, whereas a book from agarbage pile introduces Ravi Zacharias to a worldunimaginable. As Ravi observes in this final 25thanniversary issue, “I am persuaded that God alone,

the Grand Weaver, knows our future and knits our lives…. Only God’s grace couldhave brought about this new life…. There simply was no other explanation.”

Alas, the brightness of summer inevitably gives way to autumn and winter. Yet, this constant remains, says Keats: the song of the grasshopper in “thehot sun” and the cricket “on a lone winter evening.” With each passing season,

“The poetry of earth is ceasing never.”“The grass withers and the flowers fall,” Scripture declares, “but the word of

our God endures forever” (Isaiah 40:8). With each passing season, this confidenceremains for those who know God:

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right pathsfor his name’s sake.

Danielle DuRantEditor

The Poetry of Earth

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 25.4 [3]

[4] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

AS THE SUMMER arrives each year, Irevisit many fond memories shared withfamily. I recall fishing outings with myolder brother and grandfather. Livingnear Lake Erie, my grandfather wouldthrill us with stories of his great fishingadventures with Northern Pike andMuskie. They were great fighters andwould continue that fight long after theyhad been pulled from the water andthrown into the boat.

My own fishing career, if you couldcall it that, was far less dramatic than mygrandfather’s adventures. My career beganat Lake Pymatuning. Whenever wecame to visit in the summers, my grand-father would take my older brother andme to fish in this kinder, gentler lake.Unfortunately, I was never successfulenough as an angler to know the thrill ofcatching many fish. What I was success-ful at was hooking someone in the boat!Both my brother and I bear the scars offishing hooks in our arms and legs.

A GrowingProcessBy Margaret Manning Shull


I had watched for years asmy mother worked in hergarden and I appreciatedthe interplay of color andtexture. But I didn’t knowthe first thing about caringfor a garden, and as far as I was concerned, thosedetails were best left up to my mother.


Summer also brings to mind mymother’s garden. I had watched for yearsas my mother worked in her garden and I appreciated the interplay of color andtexture created by the various flowers,trees, and shrubs. But I didn’t know thefirst thing about the process of cultivatingor caring for a garden, and as far as I wasconcerned, the details involved in thatprocess were best left up to my mother.

But then I took up gardening—well, actually gardening seemed to takeme up. It all started very innocently whena friend gave me a cutting from her jadeplant. I knew nothing about plants. Butall of that changed when I received myjade cutting from my friend. She knewjust how to initiate me into the wondersof gardening without overwhelming mewith the details. Jade plants are succu-lents; it’s simply a plant that doesn’tneed a great deal of water or attention.In other words, it’s the perfect kind ofplant for a novice gardener.

I was amazed by how quickly thisone plant put down roots in my heart.Watching this little cutting grow tiny,threadlike roots, planting it in a potfilled with simulated desert soil, andexperiencing the wonder as it grew intothe small jade tree that it is today—overfifteen years later—amazed me at howsomething so small, so ordinary, couldbecome extraordinary.

I can tell you that it didn’t takelong before I began to try my hand atplants that required more attention andcare: African violets, cyclamen, gerberadaisies, tomatoes, peas, lettuce, and awhole assortment of garden flora andfauna. I grew enchanted by the varietyof color, texture, and arrangement eachnew species added to my garden. Ilearned about specific care regimens,their particular pests, the differencebetween a partial-sun and partial-shadeplant, and how soil acidity impacts thecolor of certain types of plants.

As a gardener, nothing is morerewarding to me than reaping the benefitsof my labor, whether a lovely bouquet offlowers or the bounty of my fruit andvegetable gardens. When a summer’ssoil, sun, and rain are just right, every-thing grows, blooms, and produces abountiful harvest.

But, as I soon learned after a fewseasons of gardening, not everything isjust right.

Morning glory belongs to a familyof unique and tenacious plants. Whileoffering beautiful white or purple blos-soms, that beauty belies a more perni-cious and tenacious nature to spread andtake over one’s entire yard! Morningglory is a variety of bindweed, whichgrows from rhizomes—undergroundstorage structures that promote thespread of the weed. Hardy, tenacious,and opportunistic, the morning glorywill spread in such ways that it willdestroy every square inch of the garden.

Battling this plant nemesis in myown gardens has given me a new under-standing for the process involved in thecultivation and preservation of gardens.Digging deep to get up as many of therhizomes as possible takes commitment,hard work, and a great deal of time. Often,I look out over garden beds cleared ofany visible evidence of morning gloryafter my labor, only to look out the nextday and see new shoots where I had justcleared them.

With all of this back-breaking labor,it is easy to be tempted towards findingan easier way: A rock garden, perhaps,instead of a green one? Why in theworld would anyone be attracted to theinconvenience of going out and workinglong hours in the hot sun battling insects,weeds, and other pests for a garden?Why would I labor in the summer sunfor beauty or for bounty?

When I labor over my garden, or any project for that matter, I am


connected to a larger process, and notjust an end result. It was my knees thatbegan to ache from bending over, myhands that occasionally encountered astinging or biting insect of one kind oranother, my muscles that would crampmy fingers and hands from relentlessweeding and digging. Yet, taking noticeof this process makes me aware of myown tendency to desire convenience orto want to give up when things becomedifficult. Just as one might take forgranted the process that goes into get-ting good food on filled grocery shelves,I often want for the shortcut or theexpedience. Working hard to create conditions that enhance thriving for myflowers and vegetables in my own gardenconnects me to a part of the processthat is done on my behalf on a muchlarger scale. I think of all the people who labor on my behalf so that I mightenjoy the wonderful food on my groceryshelves. Going out and doing battle for my own garden reminds me that the process is just as important as theend product.

In many other regards, our busy-ness and commitment to convenienceoften keep us from engaging in vitalprocesses that inform us of our begin-ning and guide us to our end, just as theycontribute to a general amnesia aboutwhat it takes to put food on our tables.Our consumer conveniences often severus from vital connections; we forgetfrom whence we have come and wherewe are going. We look for the quick fixor the shortcut to the end goal, ratherthan journeying through many arduousprocesses essential to our growth anddevelopment as human persons.

How similarly people of faith oftenwish for the easy way or the convenienceof a “seven-step plan” for spiritualgrowth. And yet, Jesus’s frequent use ofagricultural imagery should not surpriseus. Some of the most beloved images

from Jesus’s conversations with his disci-ples evoke the vine and branches fromgrapevines and vineyards that likelyfilled the landscape. Growing grapesrequires a long process. It takes threeyears to establish a grape planting. Yet,even during the third season, only a lim-ited harvest may be expected from thevines. The first full crop normally takesbetween four to five years.

Perhaps this knowledge can givenew insight into the words of Jesus:

I am the vine; you are the branches...Remain in me, and I will remain inyou...no branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine...remain in mylove...I chose you and appointed you to goand bear fruit—fruit that will last.1

The spiritual life, like our develop-ment as human beings, is about theprocess. God, the Gardener, begins totend to the soil of our lives. Through theHoly Spirit’s work of sanctification, theweeds of sin are dug out, and branchesare pruned so that we can bear muchfruit. To be sure, some years the groundlies fallow or the harvest is lean. Just asin farming, the process of spiritualgrowth involves watching and waiting,tilling and cultivating the land, even hav-ing to persevere and dig deep to pull outyet another encroaching rhizome. Wewill bear the marks of weathered handsand feet, sore backs and tired knees.There are no short cuts for a bountifulharvest. But we trust the One whochose us and appointed us to bearfruit—that the process will producefruit that lasts.

Margaret Manning Shull is a member ofthe speaking and writing team at RaviZacharias International Ministries inBellingham, Washington.

1 See John 15:1-16.


ON MARCH 1, 1999, Bertrand Piccardand Brian Jones stepped into the gondolaof a hot air balloon and lifted off fromthe Swiss alpine village of Chateau d’Oex.Nineteen days, 21 hours, and 55 minuteslater, traveling 28,431 miles, they landedin the Egyptian desert. Their journey suc-cessfully marked the first nonstop flightaround the world in a balloon, earningthem the distinction of a world record, abook deal, and a million dollars from thesponsoring corporation. Their victoryphotograph now rests in the SmithsonianNational Air and Space Museum besidethe “Breitling Orbiter III” itself.

As with all successes in life, theaccomplishment of Jones and Piccard’sjourney is memorable. Like the trophieson our shelves or the moments weremember as crowning, the successfulpassage of the Breitling Orbiter III isthe story we celebrate—a story thatseems to begin at Chateau d’Oex andends in Egypt. But this trip, like mostmemorable achievements, was not quitethe linear move from start to finish weimagine it to be. In fact, the journey thatwould end with a world record actuallyhad three hopeful starting points andtwo frustrated finishes.

SoaringJourneys By Jill Carattini


The often miry course of personalgrowth and human development is similar.There is a reason Jesus seems to insult theparalytic with the basic question of desire.We indeed must first want to be well.

I have long understood this conceptpersonally. But thinking of this call forhelp as being inherently present withinthe human developmental process hasonly recently entered my perspective.What if every pang of trust or mistrust,every cry for autonomy or cry of shame,was the call of the human spirit to thatwhich is beyond it? What if our criesover mistrust or longings for trust existexplicitly because there is one who istrustworthy? Psychology and theologyprofessor James Loder offers this per-spective explicitly: “It is evident thathuman development is not the answer to anything of ultimate significance.Every answer it does provide only push-es the issue deeper, back to the ultimatequestion, ‘What is a lifetime?’ and ‘Whydo I live it?’”1

Such are the questions we wrestlewith in the twists and turns, stops andsuccesses through the journey called life.How incredibly helpful to suspect thereis a reason we ask all along. What if Godis not merely the God who comes near inthe midst of the pain of adolescence orthe cries of an adult for understandingbut also our very Creator who leads andguides us through certain paths? What if it is not merely, as one developmentalpsychologist writes, the “capacities of thehuman psyche” that “make spiritualitypossible,” but it is the Spirit of God whomakes the human psyche capable ofknowing God?2 “You did not choose me,”said Jesus, “but I chose you” (John 15:16).

As its name suggests, the BreitlingOrbiter III was built upon two previousattempts. The original Breitling Orbiterlaunched in January of 1997. Only a fewhours after take-off, the balloon was

forced to land when the crew was over-come by kerosene fumes from a leakingvalve. One year later, the Breitling OrbiterII stayed in the air nine days longer thanits counterpart, managing to navigatefrom Switzerland to Burma. To the dis-may of all, their flight was cut short whenthey were refused permission to use theairspace over China. Yet from the finishline of 1999, there is little doubt that theseearly setbacks contributed to the devel-opment of the system and strategy thatwould allow Piccard and Jones to finallypilot their balloon across the Pacific.

Whether our days are marked byvictory or by crisis, by progress or the callto turn around and try again, the Spiritgoes with us, reinforcing that God hasbeen there all along. To discover thatthere is a face inherently present behindmany of the failures we long to forget, aSpirit within our celebrations of success,and a voice that speaks over and above allthat has indelibly marked our journeys,is to experience the restorative hope andjoy of the Creator who intended us todiscover Him all along.

The words of the psalmist describewaking to this knowledge: “It was not by their sword that they won the land,nor did their arm bring them victory; itwas your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you loved them”(Psalm 44:3).

What if our days are really markedwith the intention of one who loves us?What if our winding and soaring journeysare a means to the face of God?

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Sliceof Infinity at Ravi Zacharias InternationalMinistries in Alpharetta, Georgia.

1 James Loder, The Logic of the Spirit (SanFrancisco: Jossey Bass, Inc, 1998), 106.2 Ben Campbell Johnson, Pastoral Spirituality(Philadelphia: Westminster Press: 1988), 26.©

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Growing up in India, Ravi Zacharias lived in a neighborhood amid a jumble of sounds, sights, and scents. More than a half century later, he walks the streetswhere he was born, where memoriescome alive with a wave of nostalgia. This is where it all began.

Coming HomeBy Ravi Zacharias

On


One of my earliest memoriesis of the old man on mystreet, a mystic who woreonly a loincloth. He wastall, with matted hair and

piercing eyes, quite fearsome to look at.Mud was caked all over his bony frame,his face was scarred by deep gashes thatwere self-inflicted from his religiousdevotion, and his skin was burned byconstant exposure to the torrid heat ofthe midday sun. “How did he come tolook like this?” I wondered as a boy.“What had he done to himself?”

I found out soon enough. Two orthree times each week he would appearon our street; then, almost like a coiledrope unwinding, he would lie down onthat filthy road and begin his routine.Cow dung and dog droppings litteredthe path, to say nothing of the stones orsharp objects that cluttered it as well,yet he would roll down the length of thestreet with a howl that sounded as if itcame from the depths of a cavern.

“Govinda! Govinda! Govinda!”I had no clue what his cry was

about—I only knew it terrified me.It was an astonishing sight to a

five-year-old, and I recall scampering tomy mother and asking her, “What is hedoing? What is he doing?”

“He’s OK,” she replied. “Just ignorehim.”

“But what is he doing?” I wouldimplore. “Why is he doing it?”

“He’s calling to his god!” she said.That did not quench my curiosity.

But I did not pursue it as long as he con-

tinued to roll away from me, and hisvoice became a faint but haunting soundin the distance: “Govinda!”

The old mystic was only one of thestriking sights on our street, a place thatteemed with life in my eyes. On thatstreet, I believed I saw everything thatliving represented. The world there wasfilled with sounds and screams and, yes,smells of different kinds. Silence was ata premium. Every morning at sunrise,any seeming quietness was broken bythe shouts of the street vendors, hawk-ing the items they were selling. “Onions!Milk! Vegetables! Knife sharpeners!”When these sellers came to our door,they would look through our open butbarred windows. There was no privacyto speak of. We stepped outside ontothe street, and the road itself was so narrow that a car couldn’t pass throughbut only hand-pulled or cycle rickshaws.Outside were stray animals and people,each about some pursuit. Sometimes itwas a beggar at the door, sometimes aleprous hand reaching for a handout witha plea for compassion. Life with all itshurts and pains squinted at you, squattedbefore you, and stared you down daily.This was the street where I grew up.

Life in our neighborhood was livedout amid this jumble of sounds, sights,and scents. There, on the street everyday, friends played soccer or cricket.Laughter, cries, angry outbursts—all theemotions were in evidence. Around thecorner, a small shop sold potato-crispsnacks and spicy Indian treats, and thebest thing you could do was go into the

Taken from Walking from East to West by RaviZacharias. Copyright © 2006 by Ravi Zacharias. Used by permission of The Zondervan Corporation.


shop and have your uncle or your friendbuy you a treat of some kind. Flavorswere in the air—the smell of oil heatedto its peak, frying food of some kind—and taking it all in was an all-day activity,with someone buying a morsel or twoand munching on it as they went ontheir way. From sunrise to sunset, peopleof every stripe and need passed by.

Then at dusk, when the streetlampscame on, students came out of theirhomes to continue their studies underlamplight. In some homes, there was noelectricity; in others, parents sent theirchildren outside to study under thestreetlamps to conserve electricity.There was often a tussle as to whoclaimed a lamppost first. Once that wassettled, the fortunate student sat withhis back resting against the post. Mostof his scalp was shaved except for anarea called the bodi, and he tied this partto the lamppost behind him. That way,whenever he began to doze off and nodforward, the pull on his hair kept himawake. This was the discipline of studyin those days.

Now, more than a half century later,as I again walk the street where I wasborn, memories come alive with a waveof nostalgia. I find it hard to believe thisis where I had my beginnings.

The narrow lane has been widenedand paved. Still, it would be an adventureto try to wedge a larger car in here. Yettaxi drivers do it regularly and intrepidly,and as you watch you wonder if the metalshrinks when they approach an objectthat seems too close to avoid a scrape. AnIndian friend of mine says that wheneverhe’s asked if India has a Disney World,he answers, “No, we just take a taxi ride.That is breathtaking enough.”

The first time I brought my wifehere, we couldn’t get to the door of thehouse on this street where I was bornand to which we returned to spend ourvacations. A water buffalo had stopped

in front of the door. That was twentyyears ago, and I was completely over-whelmed then. The memories comeflooding back so quickly and sharply: the neem tree in the backyard that weused as a wicket for our cricket games;the window to the room where mywhole family slept; a kitchen with a claycoal fire in which to do all the cooking—the hot Indian flatbreads that wouldcome out of the oven puffing fresh andmake you hungry just by their smell, the curries that were lip-smacking good,the delicacies that to this day charm my imagination.

What a world that was for me as a youngster!

This house where I spent many asummer belonged to my uncle andwas like our second home. It used

to be number 7, but now it is number 13,and above the doorpost a large eye hasbeen painted to ward off evil spirits. AHindu family lives here now, a lovelycouple with two young daughters, andI’ve made it a practice to visit themwhenever I come back to Chennai (the historic city formerly known to theworld as Madras in the state of TamilNadu, next to Kerala). The little girlshave fallen in love with my Canadianwife, Margie. Every time she accompa-nies me, they giggle excitedly. They loveher sandy-blonde hair and delightedlysay, “Oh, Auntie, Auntie, I love your blue eyes!”

This simple little house is likemost others on the street, very small,made up of four rooms, each measuringabout ten feet by ten. Even these smallrooms are carefully compartmentalized.There may be a stove next to a bed, thatsort of thing. In fact, when my familyreturned here to visit, your bed was achair, a desk, or whatever you wanted tomake it for the moment. During thoselong summer stays, there were twelve of


us altogether, including our relatives,squeezed into this tiny place. But we neveronce thought of complaining. This waslife, and this is the way we grew up.

I am sitting with the present ownersin a room that has been further dividedinto two. He and his brother have had afalling-out and have divided the houseinto these two compartments. Eachfamily now uses two rooms. The girlsprobably sleep on the floor, just as mysiblings and I did fifty years ago. Their

mother offers me tea—there is alwaysthe beautiful custom of tea in India.This, too, takes me back. It is a marvelto sit here drinking tea with this familyin the house that was my uncle’s yearsago. They plead with me to stay for ameal, but much to their disappointmentI have an appointment elsewhere, aspeaking engagement.

It is an August evening, and it is hot—around 100 degrees. I remember havingceiling fans that kept the air circulating,but there was little else to cool you. Yousimply got used to it. And there werevarious other ways to manage. We hadthatched-straw drapes—called khus-khus—that were woven together. You couldwater these homespun creations with ahose to moisten them, and then, as thebreeze blew through the thatched straw,it cooled things somewhat.

I have brought the two girls of thisfamily a bag full of gifts. Margie and Ialways prepare something for them athome before we come. And they’re alwaysappreciative that we think of them.

The father asks, “How was yourtrip? Why are you here this time?”

“I’m speaking in various placeshere in Chennai. Then I’ll be going up toDelhi in a few days.”

This man is a marketing directorfor a small firm, with a master’s degreethat he attained by going to night school.His English is broken, as is my Tamil, butbetween the two of us we make a sensi-ble conversation. The girls do fairly wellwith English; the mother speaks none atall. They know I live in the UnitedStates, and one of the girls ventures toask what city I live in.


“In Atlanta,” I say.They begin to tell me their dreams.

One wants to be a teacher, the other adoctor.

“A doctor,” I think, for I also was apremed student at one time.

The father tells me, in so manywords, that his greatest burden is for hischildren to get an education, because noneof his family did. Yet he doesn’t have thewherewithal to send the two girls to col-lege. “Anything you can do to help themget the best education in America orCanada is my heart’s deepest desire.”

I tell him we could help. Our min-istry provides scholarships toward edu-cation for families in need. His eyes getmoist, hoping that this dream for hischildren might come true.

The last time I was here I tried togive the father some money, but hewouldn’t take it. He said, “You gave tome last time, sir. I am just honored youhave come. That is enough for me, to seeyour face.”

So I handed it to one of the girlsinstead, telling her, “I want you each tohave a bicycle to ride to school.” Theybeamed with gratitude, and now theyride those bikes to school every day.

Later, the father and I discover inour conversation that this house wassold to his father by one of my uncles.Family ties run deep here, coloring virtu-ally every detail of life. I tell him thatjust a few doors down is the home thatmy mother’s family owned, the housewhere I was born.

That house was called “Dalmejiem.”The name was an acronym that includedevery member of my mother’s family:Devaram, the father; Agnes, the mother;Leela, the oldest daughter; Margaret;Elizabeth; James; my mother, Isabella;Ebenezer; and Manickam, the surname.

Now the girls are begging to showme the tree in their backyard. Withtheir mother’s permission, they lead

me to the very same neem tree that mycousins and I used as the wicket for ourcricket games. The girls tell me theyworship that tree for its antibiotic quali-ties. Every now and then, the motherlights a fire, and they hold a ceremony topay homage. They tell me that she goesto the temple every day. “Every day,Uncle, she goes there,” they assure me,calling me by the affectionate term that Indian youths use to address theirfamiliar elders.

Their mother’s eyes reveal the innerquest for piety, and my heart longs to tellher that God does not live in templesmade with human hands. I trust that thetime we spend together during my tripshere will present the right moment.

It is not for sentimental reasons thatI visit this family in my uncle’s formerhome. They are simply more of the

beautiful people of my homeland withwhom God has chosen that I cross paths.The truth is, I’m happiest when I’m withpeople such as these, people with whomI’m at ease. Here in my homeland I ammost free to be me, with no one to recognize me because of my profession.And I get to do what I love best—simplyto be with people. It reminds me of myyouth when I surrounded myself withfriends.

But the reality is, in the next monthI will be speaking before the UnitedNations on the opening day of theirassembly. I have been asked to addressthe ambassadors on the subject of“Navigating with Absolutes in aRelativistic World.” The contrastsbetween where I am now, in this humblehouse, and where I am going to be in amatter of weeks are too vast to fullyprocess. Yet, there is no doubt that Godprepared me for this life I now lead,connecting the varied and ironic threadsof my experience into a beautiful tapestryas He would see fit.


It is not a natural drive within meto appear in such a prominent place asthe United Nations. Yes, it is a privilegeI hold dear, and a sacred trust. But Inever would have wanted to engineersomething like this. That was my father’slife. Because of the position to which he rose in the government of India, mysiblings and I shook hands with primeministers and presidents. We met andmixed with international leaders; weeven entertained ambassadors and theirentourages. The wealthy and the power-ful are one side of India. Yet, I can’texplain why today I shrink from such a public life. I can only say that it has to do with the way the Lord has framedme. I truly do feel for a world in need.And I relate with ease to the ordinaryperson.

Even so, the last time I came hereto Chennai, to the very street of mybirth, a man came running out of hishouse and called me by name. “Raviji!Raviji!” he cried, using a term of rever-ence. “What are you doing here?” Hehad heard me speak in Amsterdam someyears before and now as I passed in frontof him, speaking to someone in Tamil,he was shocked to know that I under-stand his language, indeed, that this was the very street where I was born.

India is a nation with polarities ofincredible proportions. Some of theworld’s greatest minds come from

here, making great advances in medi-cine, philosophy, and in the world of theInternet and high technology. Yet in themidst of this, of course, is dire depriva-tion and longing for a better way of life.

In this subcontinent, the raw reali-ty of life stares you in the face. For thatvery reason, it has always been easy forme to see Jesus on these streets. Anytime I read the accounts in the Gospels,I can envision the Lord with the lameman in all his bare need on the side ofthe road, or the leprous body longing for

a touch. After all, that’s what I sawgrowing up, every day. Moreover, eachtime I read of the Lord walking in thestreets of Bethany or Jerusalem andtelling a parable, I see my Indian culture,which also deals in parables.

I see the tailor who sets up hismachine in the open air on the streetcorner, wedged between other craftsmenand craftswomen, shoe shiners, fabricmenders—all business-people who ekeout a living from wherever they can finda small, square space. The people hereknow how to manage with very little.Yet, sometimes I wonder how they makea living out of it. Theirs are lives full ofburdens and chores, and they’re so veryhard-pressed for money just to get by.Some are forced to set up home on theside of the road in a little shack. Otherslive on the streets in poverty, withouteven the advantage of a roof. And it’s virtually impossible for the lower classesto rise upward.

This unvarnished reality must beone reason why India is the largest producer of movies in the world. Themovies that are made here are the bestbarometer of humanity’s gnawing needfor an escape hatch. Through movies,you can escape to romance, to justice, to the fulfilling marriage you never had,to upholding the cause of the poor. Yet,in spite of the escapism that moviespromise, you can never escape the sharpedges of life in India. It’s always there togreet you as you exit the theater.

At the same time, there is also evident on these streets the very realresilience of the human spirit. Peoplemake a go of things with what they have.As I look from one side of the street to theother, I see those who will survive againstall odds and who have learned to cope.India also is a deeply artistic culture. Yousee it even in this muddled-up, mixed-up, mishmash of a marketplace, in theway a merchant hangs beads or arrangeshis cushions with a pleasing aesthetic.


Each time I walk the streets in myhomeland now, it’s a matter of goodnews/bad news to me. The good news is,I am able to see clear-eyed here—tobehold life and all its pain. The bad newsis, the pain is so overwhelming that Ican get desensitized to it, and one has to be careful of that. It’s why I keeptelling my children to never forget fromwhence they ultimately came.

As I walk my home street now, I’mhit with the reality that my own lifecame out of nothing. By the time I was ateenager, when my family returned hereon vacations to my mother’s home inChennai, in the South, from our homein Delhi in northern India, I realized howsmall her family’s house was and how littlemy cousins had. I would ask my mother,“Why are they so poor?” By then, com-ing to Chennai always reminded me ofthe meager side of our existence.

Now, whenever I return, I have ayearning in my soul to be a solution tothis. How can I help the very peoplewhose blood is in my veins? Their food,their language, their ragtag existencefrom day to day, their struggle to survive—all of that is in me.

I always bring an envelope withmoney I’ve saved up or set aside. At the beginning of the week, that envelope

is open to various needs. By the time Ileave, everything in it will be gone. In alittle over a week from now, I will gohome to a steady income and a comfort-able home, and, yes, a kind of sanitizedlife. But the ones I see struggling here I know cannot make it on their own.Sharing with these people some of what I have, and seeing the small bit of happiness it brings into their lives, is the privilege of a native son.


Sometimes we can convince our-selves that the answer to everything liesin economic well-being. Obviously, thisis a very important facet of life. Whenyou can afford a meal, a bed, a home foryour family, you can be content. But it doesnot ultimately solve the deepest questionsthat haunt you. That is where religion issupposed to help, to offer answers.

Whether we like to admit it or not,many religions of the world are concoct-ed to hold fear and control over people.Nobody likes to talk about this, but it’sthe way it is. The human psyche is vul-nerable because of its built-in fear offailure, and becomes an easy prey.

That’s the way I remember firstexperiencing religion—as somethinginvolving fear: A man rolling down thestreet, chanting the name of his god.Men and women with deep gashes intheir faces. Tales of goats being sacri-ficed in temples to procure answers toprayers. Each time I asked my motherabout these things, she explained, “Theydo it to worship their god.”

Worship? It was an empty word tome, steeped in some mysterious expres-sion that didn’t make ordinary sense. Itwas a magic wand to ward off tragedy.The one thing I learned from observingsuch rituals was a palpable sense of fear.Everything had to follow a certainsequence. If you didn’t do it right, some-thing bad was going to happen to you. IfI didn’t make my offering, what wouldbefall me? If I didn’t do this one thingcorrectly, what price would I have to payto some sharp, implacable divine being?Was all that just superstition born out of fear, dressed up into a system, andembedded into a culture?

There was one wonderful aspect of the religious world I grew up in thatheld my fascination—and that was itsstories. I loved the pictures; themythologies; and the ideas of rescue, ofwinning wars, of magical potions, of how

your mother could be saved by some godwho came down and carried her awayfrom harm. It was a bit of folklore here,a bit of drama there, a bit of religion, abit of historical fact, all mixed together.

I used to go with my friends andtheir families to watch the religiousplays at the festivals, and I became quitefond of them. To me, it wasn’t so muchreligious as that it was part of a family’sannual routine. Each year, when theHindu god Ram’s birthday came around,I went with my friends to see the playsthat reenacted stories about Ram. Iloved these dramas, because my littlebrother Ramesh was named after Ram.

My siblings and I got our firsttaste of Western religion whentwo Jehovah’s Witnesses came

knocking on our door one day. A Mr. andMrs. Smith appeared, telling my fatherthey wanted to teach us children to readand to know the Bible. They assured ourdad how very important this was.

So the Smiths came to our homeonce a week, and for the next year and ahalf they sat in our living room andtaught us for an hour or two at a time. Iremember reading the Witnesses’ bookLet God Be True and the magazines TheWatchtower and Awake. Most impressive,though, were the assemblies where theygathered groups and showed movies. Oneof these movies featured tens of thousandsof people attending a Jehovah’s Witnessesrally at Yankee Stadium in New York City.When my siblings and I saw that spectacle,we couldn’t help being awed by it.

Yet, in retrospect, it shows howeasily the human mind and heart can bemanipulated. Ours was a small familywith very little in comparison to mostfamilies in the West. And seeing thatmovie, with all those highly successful-looking people gathered in a magnificentstadium, my siblings’ hearts must haveraced as my heart did. I’m sure they also


From East to West

(clockwise from top left)

Ravi on his favorite means of transportation

Ravi (third from left) with Fred David (far left) andthe Youth for Christ team in India in the mid-1960s

The Zacharias family


thought, “This has to be true.” It madeus want to be part of such a great event,in a great city like New York.

So we continued to study with theSmiths until the day Mr. Smith came to the chapter on heaven in the book of Revelation. He stopped there andtold us that, according to Jehovah’sWitnesses’ teaching, only 144,000 peoplewere going to make it to paradise.

That hit me like a ton of bricks.Here my siblings and I had thought wewere becoming very spiritual. TheseWestern missionaries had sat with useach week, giving us homework andencouraging our studies. But now Iscratched my head over this news. Iasked Mr. Smith, “Only 144,000?”

“That’s right,” he said.“Sir, how many people are there in

your organization?”“Oh, we have many.”“Do you have more than 144,000?”“Oh yes.”“So even all of your people aren’t

going to make it to heaven?”I thought of the Smiths’ constant

praying, of all their efforts to reach moreand more people—and yet even they hadno way of knowing where they were goingafter death. So they certainly couldn’tassure me of where I might be going.

“Mr. Smith, before you came, I did-n’t know where I was going after I died,”I said. “But now, after all this study, I stilldon’t know where I’m going after I die.”

They probably sensed they were upagainst something difficult at that point.Or perhaps my outright shock over thiscurious point of doctrine registered withthem more deeply than normal. But not long afterward, the Smiths were succeeded by another couple, and whenthey sensed they were getting nowhere,they stopped coming to our house. Whoknows, in another six or eight months,maybe we would have been convinced by them. But at that stage, I told myself,

“I don’t much care for this. I’m donewith Christianity.”

I didn’t know that it wasn’t Christ-ianity I was rejecting, but I really had no idea how to distinguish one sect fromanother. At best, each of us was onlythinking pragmatically, “What is it that’sgoing to work for me?”

Like most of India, my mother wasvery spiritual and at the same timevery superstitious. In our home

hung a picture of Saint Philomena, aCatholic saint, because of a commitmentmy mom had made after my sisterShyamala (Sham to us) was diagnosedwith polio at five days old. The doctorgave Sham no hope of surviving, and indesperation my mother decided to senda gift to the Saint Philomena shrine inSouth India. She pledged that if my sisterwould get through this, my mother wouldgive money to the shrine faithfully.

Sham survived. In her younger yearsshe wore a crude knee brace from justabove the knee to her ankle and walkedwith a bit of a hop. (Today, after a surgery,she has only a slight limp that is virtuallyundetectable.) But what was mostimportant to my mother was that herdaughter’s life was spared. That is why,almost until the day Mom died, shefaithfully sent money to the SaintPhilomena shrine. It is also why my sister Sham was given the middle namePhilomena.

After that ordeal, our family wasbrought to the brink again years laterover our baby brother Ramesh. I espe-cially was very close to him, so it struckme hard when little Ramesh, only six orseven years old, became ill with doublepneumonia and typhoid. Very littlecould be done in those days for someonein his condition, and the doctors offeredus no hope.

I remember the evening my parentsdecided to take us to the hospital to visit


our brother in what we sensed might beour last time to see him. I was deeplyshaken when I witnessed what had hap-pened to Ramesh. He was shriveleddown to a bag of bones. I barely recog-nized him; he looked like a picture of astarved child. After seeing him, we allexpected that this would be the night hewould die.

My mother stayed at the hospitalwith my brother while my dad took ushome. We gathered for prayer in my par-ents’ bedroom around a picture of Jesusthat hung on the wall beside the pictureof Saint Philomena. I recall that nightclearly, on our knees in that room, myfather’s voice cracking as he prayed. Icouldn’t believe we were losing him. Mylittle brother was really dying.

One of the people my dad hadcalled to come and pray with us was acertain Pentecostal minister. Mr. Dennishad come to our house occasionally on hismotorbike to talk with my dad and praywith him. We used to make a lot of fun ofMr. Dennis and to joke behind his backbecause he always sang when he prayed.He simply broke out into song, and itsounded so odd to us. We were unkindbecause we had no clue what this was allabout, and our Hindu servants in thehouse reprimanded us for making fun.

But now, with my brother dying, I prayed as I never had, alongside Mr.Dennis and the others in the room thatnight. In a voice of deep reverence, thisman asked God for a touch of healing,for a miracle. There was nothing funnynow. I was moved to tears as he called onthe Lord to have mercy on my brother.

Meanwhile, the doctor had cometo my mother soon after we left the hos-pital. He uttered to her the worst newsof her life. “Sometime between midnightand 5:00 a.m.,” he said, “it will be over.”

My mother had not slept for severaldays. She had sat by Ramesh’s side theentire time. Now, as she faced the tor-

turous hours ahead, she was overcome withexhaustion. She simply couldn’t keep hereyes open. As the night wore on, she fellsound asleep at my brother’s bedside.

Hours later, my mother suddenlyshocked herself awake. When she real-ized what had happened, she feared theworst. The hour had long passed atwhich Ramesh was to have gone. Yetwhen she looked at my brother, she sawthat he was still breathing. In fact, hischest now rose and fell with a strongerrhythm than before. Something hadhappened during the night.

When morning came, my momsent a message to us that Ramesh waslooking stronger and better. None of uswere sure what this meant. But the samemessage came to us on the second day,then the third day, then the fourth. Ourbrother had made the turn, and hisstrength was restored.

In our family’s collective memory,this was one of our most definingmoments. I don’t know to what degreeMr. Dennis’s prayer consciously played arole in this monumental episode of ourhistory. But to me, there was somethingof God in it.

I don’t recall ever seeing Mr. Dennisagain, though I have often thought ofhim. He was a missionary living on a mea-ger salary, a living saint. Somebody musthave supported him. Why did he pick ourfamily to visit? Was this not God in theshadows, keeping watch over His own? Idid not think of it then, but I see it now.I made an association with the life ofprayer and calling in that man, and withthe miracle we all had witnessed—mybrother’s life had been spared.

Being back here in my mother’sbrother’s home brings me closer, Isense, to the reality of a sovereign

God. I can never forget that sovereigntybehind my life, and it brings to mind agreat Indian custom.


If you travel to the north of India,you will see the most magnificent sarisever made, and Varanasi is where thewedding saris are handwoven. The gold,the silver, the reds, the blues—all themarvelous colors threaded together arespectacular. These saris are usually madeby just two people—a father who sits ona platform and a son who sits two stepsdown from him. The father has all thespools of silk threads around him. As hebegins to pull the threads together, henods, and the son responds by movingthe shuttle from one side to the other.Then the process begins again, with thedad nodding and the son responding.Everything is done with a simple nodfrom the father. It’s a long, tediousprocess to watch. But if you come backin two or three weeks, you’ll see a mag-nificent pattern emerging.

This is an image I always remindmyself of: we may be moving the shuttle,but the design is in the mind of the Father.The son has no idea what pattern isemerging. He just responds to thefather’s nod.

Back here in my homeland, I seethe threads. My family, my home city,my spartan beginnings, a life havingcome out of nothing—I’m remindedagain that the threads are all beingpulled together.

This is the only explanation for thegreat irony in my being here now. Yousee, of all five siblings in my family, I hadthe unhappiest childhood. Yet I am theone who is most drawn to come back.

It’s unexplainable. All of my siblingsare natural leaders, and all live in Torontotoday. Each had the beginnings of his orher success and happiness sown here, inIndia. Ajit, the oldest, was an engineerwith IBM in the 1970s who later wenton to his own commercial success as anentrepreneur. You would think he’d wantto come back to the place where hismind was shaped, where all his dreams

and hopes and promises were formed.You would think the same of my youngerbrother, Ramesh, now a successful sur-geon, and my two sisters, Sham andPrem. I have no doubt they have thisdesire, but not one shares the deep, soul-wrenching, unshakable tug that Ifeel. Ramesh does tell me, “I want to go back sometime. But I want to do itwith you, Ravi.”

I’m the one who keeps comingback—and who wants to keep comingback. I have maintained the languageand the contacts, mainly by walkingthese streets. When I return and see thebuildings and the beauty and the people,I reminisce, “This is where my life wasshaped. This is where my calling began.And this is where I very nearly ended itall, out of my own despair.”

The sound of a voice crying out toGod, a voice that once spelled terror inmy heart, is now the very cry to which Irespond with a sense of privilege all overthe world. Still, to me, coming back is adip into an ocean too deep for me tofully fathom. The full story only the tapestry can explain.

One escape I had other than sportswas the movies. I enjoyed theWesterns, where the bad guy was

caught because the good guy had trackedhim down. I liked some of the old clas-sics, such as South Pacific, and I thoughtthe World War II movies were great—films such as The Guns of Navarone. I wasnever quite a fan of Hitchcock; I liked a strong story line more than a film thattried to scare you. And I really liked historical movies. For me, good enter-tainment fell back on history.

That’s why my favorites were Indianmovies. I loved the romance stories, whichwere portrayed with such innocence.There was never any kissing on-screen,just a chase around a tree to preserveIndian modesty. That was funny to us,


but it was intended to be very romantic.When an Indian comedian was asked togive the difference between love on theWestern screen and love on the Indianscreen, he answered in one word: “Trees.”

Mostly, I loved every movie thatapplauded the human spirit, which is atthe core of most Indian movies. The verybest of them was Mother India, which I saw in the 1960s. The story focuses on a family from a small village that was

struggling to make it in their worldwracked by tragedy, deprivation, andconflict. It is reflective of the larger picture of India’s struggle for survival asa people. It is truly a masterpiece, and Ido not believe it has been surpassed,even forty years later. Its story of theindomitable human spirit had such greatappeal to me, and I saw it again andagain. Mother India starred an actressnamed Nargis, who became famous after


that role, and her son in the film wasplayed by the actor Sunil Dutt, who alsobecame a famous matinee figure in India.The movie portrayed a significant agedifference between the pair, but in reallife they later married. I was in my youngteens when the movie was released.

Another one of our favorite escapeswas to a centuries-old place called the“Old Fort.” It had been an actual fortbuilt by the Persians in the 1500s, and itwas only a short bicycle ride from ourneighborhood. It provided a great placeto wander around, scale walls, and spyout from the minarets at the top. It wasalso a great place to find some deliciousfood on Saturdays, when vendors andhawkers set up their food stalls along theinner wall.

Even as I nibbled on snacks ofbread, potatoes, and chickpeas, historyagain made all the difference for me. Iloved knowing that the Old Fort hadbeen built by the Persians after theyattacked India. The Mughals also invadedand established India as a major centerfor themselves. I actually had to study allthat in history class. But I associated itwith the great food we got to eat,because it was during the Mughal periodthat Indian food became essentiallywhat it is today. The Mughals usedalmonds, cashews, and crèmes to mari-nate their foods, while India suppliedthe spices. Combined, it became knownas Mughlai food.

I also used to love riding my bikeup a steep hill into the fort and thencome tearing down at a furious pace.This was actually quite foolish, becausemost of the time my bike didn’t havebrakes that worked and it put both meand the motorized rickshaws and massesof people cluttering the road at risk.That was youth in the name of bravado—in reality, being foolish.

There is a memory, though, fromthat steep slope that I remember only too

well. One Saturday, I was on my way intothe Old Fort when an older man cameriding his bike out through the frontgate at a good speed. As he came downthe slope, his bike hit a stone, flippedover, and threw him to the pavement,cracking his head severely. I quickly dis-mounted because, in an instant, the manwas lying, totally unconscious, in awidening pool of blood.

I stood frozen, not knowing whatto do, while people casually passed himby. Some stared and tittered with embar-rassment, while others turned around asthey walked by. But nobody stopped tohelp. No one called for the police or formedical help——no one did anything. Notknowing what to do, I slowly remountedmy bike and moved on. Several minuteslater, I came back, and the man was stilllying there.

By this time, the blood had con-gealed, and those in the area were justmuttering, “He’s dead. They’ll come andpick him up.” I was horrified. I hadthought that an adult, someone whocould rise to the task of confronting this tragedy, would have stopped to help.But they hadn’t. It was an early taste oflife in the raw for me. I remember thethought registering with me that life was cheap.

Finally, in a daze I rode home andfrantically told the servants in the housewhat had happened. They told me thatsooner or later the police would bethere, not to worry. Years later, when Iread the story of the Good Samaritanfor the first time, I remembered that oldman and his horrendous accident, and Ithought how real such imagery from themind of the Lord was——people walkingby and leaving a dying man even moredestitute.


One of the memories from thosedays well sums up what wasgoing on inside me and who I

was really leaning on. I had a daily prac-tice that I wouldn’t have been able toexplain if anyone had asked me. But mymom often commented, even in myyoung adult years, that she rememberedthis too.

There was a bus stop at one of themain intersections near our home. As Ivisit that spot today, I see it is such abrief walk from our home, really just acouple of blocks away. But back then, itseemed like such a long way off.

My mother used to teach at a schoola short bus ride away, to help earn incomefor our family. She used to come homeevery day at about 3:45 in the afternoon.For some reason, out of all five kids, Iwas the one who would always wait out-side the front of our home until I saw herget off the bus. I wouldn’t let myself gointo the backyard to play or head off tomeet my friends at the park until I wascompletely certain that Mom was cominghome. She arrived almost spot-on-the-button every day at 3:45, so I knew I wassafe in predicting when I would see thebus rolling around. I could see it comingin the distance. And that’s when I toldmyself, “It’s OK. I’ll be able to go now.”

She was a very small woman andvery slightly built, barely five feet tall, soshe was easy for me to recognize fromthat distance. And only when I saw herstep down from the bus, clutch herpurse close to her, and start walkingtoward home did I feel everything wasOK. It is so ineradicably etched in mymemory that I can relive that scenevividly. She later told me she always wondered why I was the one who wouldwait there. But she must have known.

I did that until I was fourteen orfifteen. Although the reasons may beapparent now, I still don’t think I couldexplain exactly why I did it. At the time,

I might have felt I wanted to make sureshe was OK. I suppose I was afraid oflosing her, as she was my only hope in ayoung life stalked by failure and hauntedby shame.

My mother once brought anastrologer to our house to readour palms and tell us our future.

Actually, he was a sari seller who cameonce every few months, with a big trunksaddled on the back of his bicycle. Hewould customarily spread out a sheet onthe floor, unload the trunk, and displayhis beautiful saris for sale.

This man also claimed to be apalmist. He put on his old- fashioned,thick glasses, which dropped downhalfway over a nose that was constantlysniffling, and in turn held our palms inhis hand with total concentration. The“hmm’s” and “oh’s” and “ah’s” that issuedfrom him kept each of us riveted onwhat he was doing as we awaited hisfinal pronouncement. One after theother, we took our turn, and the futureshe read for each of the others were allpositive. But then he came to me, andthe first note of uncertainty was sound-ed as he kept shaking his head with badnews about to spill out. “Looking at yourfuture, Ravi Baba (Ravi, little boy), youwill not travel far or very much in yourlife,” he declared. “That’s what the lineson your hand tell me. There is no futurefor you abroad.”

To say that I was deeply disap-pointed is putting it mildly. The one goaleverybody had at that time in India’sfledgling economy since Independence wasto go abroad. Of course, I had no reasonto disbelieve this man, or for that matterto believe him. But it did plant anotherseed of uncertainty, however small….

Ravi Zacharias is Founder and Presidentof Ravi Zacharias InternationalMinistries.


that suddenly begins to appreciate Bachand Beethoven, the miracle of Christsuddenly made me alive to the truth,beauty, and goodness of the words there-in. I was now alive to him as he was to me.I could not put the Bible down, readingit, marking it, clasping it, preaching it,crying with it, and singing of it.

Reflecting on what this old Biblehas done for me, three words come tomind: informing, indwelling, and immers-ing. As I read and reread this Bible forthe first years of my Christian life, Ibegan to realize that its “new words”spoke of a “new world” through a newPerson who was suddenly real to me.This One was actually informing me ofanother world and another reality—a

TUCKED AWAY AMONG the many bookson my dusty shelf is the first Bible that Ireally owned and truly read—my NewInternational Version. This Bible notonly tells the story of God and the worldbut also my story; for, like me, it issmudged, smeared, speckled, soiled,stained, scratched, splodged, andscarred. (And that is just the letter “s”!)

This inexpensive Bible was actuallygiven to me by my parents before I becamea Christian. For a long time, it just satthere, dead to me and I to it. It was onlyafter an experience in November 1992that I picked it up and began to read.

And then—it was different! Notunlike a piece of rock that suddenlycomes to life, or a Labrador Retriever

A Book of MemoriesBy Aniu Kevichusa


world and a reality I never knew existed.This new world—of God and Satan,angels and demons, heaven and hell, sinand salvation, wisdom and folly, and ohso much more—was a world that I neverknew was there, let alone believed.

But like a new piece of informationin a crime mystery novel that suddenlychanges the narrative, plot, and meaningof the whole novel, the Bible’s new reali-ty supplied me information that enabledme to “read” the story and “see” themeaning, both of my life and the world,in a completely new and different way.This Person I encountered in the pagessupplied me vital information about themost basic questions of life: “Who amI?” “Where am I?” “What is wrong withme and the world?” “What is the solution?”“What is the meaning of life?” “Whereis the world heading?”

But this book went beyond inform-ing me. Through it, God also invited meto indwell its story and its world. Itslowly, yet no less startlingly, dawned onme that I was part of the biblical storythrough Christ. I was called to play mysmall part in the unfolding drama thatspanned from the creation story ofGenesis to the new creation of Revelation.

I began to realize that my task as a Christian was not just about beinginformed by the Bible and then correlat-ing that information with contemporarysituations. It was not simply a matter oflearning precepts, principles, and para-digms from the Bible and then applyingthem in present-day life. It was, rather, asummons to join the unravelling story ofthe world as told by the God of theBible, learning Christ’s internal logic,finding my place and playing my part inhis story, as he moves me towards thecoherent, hopeful end promised by God.

Like a nameless, faceless foot soldierin an epic war movie, I found myselfamong the rank-and-filers of the biblicalstory. God’s story, I realized, was our

story, my story. I may well be unknown byhumankind, but I am part of the plot andplan, counted by angels, known unto God.

This indwelling of the biblicalstory was neither easy nor early. It camethrough a slow, continual and intentionalimmersing of myself in the Bible. I hadto immerse myself in the Bible and theBible had to be immersed in me—readingand studying God’s vision chronologicallyand thematically; binding myself toreading and study plans; praying God’sprayers; crying God’s tears; singingGod’s songs; obeying God’s summons;and alas, repeating the story’s sins, and,yes, responding to its Savior and relyingon his Spirit.

Experienced musicians immersethemselves in the given musical score,and seasoned actors immerse themselvesin the playwright’s script. In a similarmanner, I realized that I am alsorequired to commit myself to a lifelongjourney of immersing myself in the bibli-cal script. It is only by “soaking” myselfin the Bible that I become intimatelyfamiliar with God’s voice and gain adeep, intuitive sense of the movementof Christ’s story. I am not just to under-line the Bible; it has to underline me. Its script has to underwrite me and itsscore has to underscore me. My blood-line has to be “Bibline.”

Through it all, it has been a scar-ring journey and wounding experience.Needless to say, I often falter and bungle.But I surprise myself that I am, some-how, still standing. Standing, because Ihave been held together by the lovingand healing hands of the Love that willnot let me go—not unlike the stickingplaster that adorns the spine of my oldNew International Version, just far morepersonal.

Kethoser (Aniu) Kevichusa is a member of the speaking team at Ravi ZachariasInternational Ministries in India.


NOVELIST AND PHILOSOPHER C. S. Lewisonce said something quite fascinating.He said that most people, if they havelearnt to really look deep into their ownhearts, realize that they want, theydesire, they long for something that cannot be had in this world. Faced withthe fact that the world can’t provide it—no matter how much freedom, how many possessions, how much sex—you’re faced with disappointment.

And when life disappoints, you cando one of four things: you can blame thethings that disappoint and try to findbetter ones; you can blame yourself andbeat yourself up; you can blame theworld and become cynical; or, saysLewis, you can realize that only if yourorientate the focus and energy of yourlife toward hope and toward God, willyou ever be truly satisfied. He wrote:

“If I find in myself a desire which noexperience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”1

What we need, I would suggest, issomething that can speak to all of this—somehow. To help us navigate what itmeans to be human, what it means totruly want or desire love or justice, ormeaning or purpose. Something thatcould address these themes now, some-thing that would be relevant, helpful,and revelatory.

It’s fascinating that these are allissues that the Bible addresses. Indeed,the Bible addresses them more deeply,more profoundly, I would argue, thananything else that I know. Isn’t that anastonishing claim for something as oldas the Bible? Well, maybe. But maybe it’s also the case that human beings

No Better StoryBy Andy Bannister

©2017 [CARLO GIAMBARRESI] C/O THEISPOT.COM

The Bible tells us that human beingshave incredible value and dignity.Only the Christian worldview paysyou that compliment, telling youthat God created you in his image.


haven’t fundamentally changed all thatmuch in several thousand years. Culturemay change; we may be better at dis-tracting ourselves in new and cleverways, but the fundamental questionsremain the same, through time andacross culture. What does it mean to be human? Who am I?

So what does the Bible have to tellus? Five things. First, the Bible tells usthat human beings were designed prima-rily for relationships. Yes, sex is good. Butrelationships are primary. We’re built,says the Bible, for a relationship withGod and a relationship with one another.That’s what life is primarily about.

Second, the Bible tells us thathuman beings have incredible value anddignity. The Bible puts it this way: “SoGod created human beings in his ownimage. In the image of God, he createdthem, male and female” (Genesis 1:27).Only the Christian worldview pays youthat compliment, telling you that Godcreated you in his image.

Third, the Bible tells us that thedignity God bestowed on us extends tochoice. There are real, meaningful choicesto be made, and the choices we makehave consequences. One consequence isthat we live in a moral universe. Nietzschewas wrong. There is good, there is evil,and each of us is affected by and caughtup in both.

Fourth, the Bible tells us that thereis such a thing as love, and that love isultimately defined by the character ofthe God who created us, a God whogoes to fantastically great lengths toreach out to us.

And fifth, the Bible tells us thatthere is a big story. And that big story isultimately a love story. A story of howthe creator God reaches toward each oneof us, with our hang-ups and our fears,our desires and our longings, reaching as far as death on the cross that we canbe reconciled with Him.

The idea of a “big story” is a curiousone for postmodern ears. Most of ushave been raised and taught to thinkthere are no big stories any more. Mybeliefs are my own, my story is my own,my journey my own. But maybe, justmaybe, we’ve been sold short.

In the movie The Matrix, which is a bit old now but nevertheless is one ofthe best portrayals of our postmodernworld that I know, there’s a fascinatingscene. The character Cypher, who isgiven the choice to escape the computer-generated fictional reality of the Matrix,decides instead to choose a life of pleas-ure and illusion over reality. He evendefends his choice. “You know, I knowthis steak doesn’t exist. I know that whenI put it into my mouth, the Matrix istelling my brain that it is juicy and deli-cious.… You know what I realize?” Hetakes a bite of steak. “Ignorance is bliss.”2

Perhaps some of us need to wakeup from our illusions of pleasure, posses-sions, friends, sex, drugs—whatever ourdistraction or fantasy—and realize thatreality is an awful lot bigger than that.

Is the Bible repressive? It certainlymight appear that way to postmoderneyes, but perhaps our eyes are a bitjaded. Is the Bible outdated? No. If anything, it’s never been more relevant.As Bono of U2 put it: “The goal is soul.”And if that’s true, we can have no betterguiding story than the Bible. A story that,if we follow it, can lead us home to theGod who created us, loves us, and is ableto meet all of our needs—for meaning,for purpose, and for identity.

Andy Bannister, PhD, is an adjunct speakerwith Ravi Zacharias InternationalMinistries in the United Kingdom.

1C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London:HarperCollins, 1952), 136.2 Cited in John Gray, Heresies (London: Granta,

2004), 52-55.

Through the Eyes of God

By Ravi Zacharias

Think Again

Ihave shared that my mother oncebrought an astrologer to our houseto read our palms and tell us our

future. Examining my hands, the sooth-sayer confidently pronounced that Iwould not travel far or much in my life.“That’s what the lines on your hand tellme. There is no future for you abroad.”

I was deeply disappointed to hearthis, but oh, how mistaken he was! After45 years of spanning the globe andspeaking in countless countries, I ampersuaded that God alone, the GrandWeaver, knows our future and knits ourlives. He has brought lasting change notonly in my own life but in my family aswell. Sometimes this has happened seem-ingly instantaneously; hearing Jesus’swords in John 14:19, “Because I live, youalso will live,” literally brought me fromthe brink of death in a hospital room tonew life. Other times, such as in theremarkable conversion of my father years

later, many seeds were planted prior, butthe change was no less profound.

I recall, too, that I was never muchof a reader growing up, preferring towatch movies or discuss issues with peo-ple. I very rarely picked up a book out ofinterest. But then one evening in my lateteens, and a few months since coming toChrist on a bed of suicide, I walked outthe back door of our house and sawsomething lying on top of the garbageheap in the alley. As I looked closer, Isaw it was a book with no cover——an old,tattered copy of a volume I realized mydad must have thrown out.

Curious, I picked it up and read the title page: The Epistle to the Romans:A Commentary by a man named W. H.Griffith Thomas. I had no idea who thisauthor was, but my hunger was so fiercethat I immediately opened it and began toread. Over the next few days, I devouredthat book—of all things, a Bible com-


TRAVIS GITTHENS


mentary! It became a treasure, and I stillhave the tattered copy of that commen-tary in my possession.

Just like that, I was plunged into aworld I’d never known—the world ofreading. One of the first volumes I waspresented with was The Cross and theSwitchblade, an amazing story of the con-version of Nicky Cruz the gang leaderand of the work God was doing in thelives of such young people through theministry of David Wilkerson. I loved thebook so much that I began seeking outbiographies. I lapped up the stories ofWilliam Booth, founder of the SalvationArmy; David Brainerd, the missionary toAmerican Indians; and, most intriguingof all to me, C. T. Studd, the Englishcricketer who gave up everything tobecome a missionary. Studd had beenthe captain of Cambridge’s cricket team,had turned down an opportunity to playfor his country, and even refused hisfamily inheritance—all to help take thegospel into China and India.

As I read about these inspiring lives,the old adage became true for me: “Fire begets fire.” The standards theseChristians set by their examples raisedthe bar for me. Though I later learned,as I grew in my faith, that these saintlylives weren’t as perfect as their biogra-phers made them out to be, the basictruths were undoubtedly in place, andtheir examples stoked my consciousnessas to what the Christian life could be.

For the first time, I felt my mindbeing stretched—and I loved it. I real-ized that thinking could be fun, andwith that simple realization I was sentheadlong into the lifelong discipline ofreading.

I also cannot say enough about thesignificance of the role that Youth forChrist (YFC) played in those early daysof my conversion. On the day that Itried to take my life, it was these friendswho prayed for me. A man named FredDavid—sent, I would discover onlyrecently, by YFC Asia director JohnTeibe, another gift from God—broughta Bible to my hospital room (and, byproxy, the words that breathed eternallife into my broken body). Both beforeand after my suicide attempt, they showedme that I meant something and thatGod loved me as an individual. It wasmy relationships at YFC that gave mehope of coming back to a caring group.And it was they who, as time passed,gave me opportunities for leadership.

So there it all was, the unlikely strandsthat came together, weaving the smallpatch of fabric that was my conversion:a soft-spoken man who drew me to themessage of truth, a group waiting toshare the love of Christ with me in mytime of greatest need, a Bible brought tomy mother for me, and a passage ofScripture that sprouted in the moistureof God’s sovereign grace. It all cametogether for me in the hospital room,

The rapid changes taking place in me daily were beyond mypower to describe. Yet, from everything I had learned in my lifewith Christ, I knew that He had not just changed what I did butwhat I wanted to do. One day, I had been a creature of despair,irresponsibility, and failure. Then I became a creature of hope,diligent and accomplished in the things to which I set my hand.


but Youth for Christ is where those seedswere sown. I had now found a new homein my faith—and I could say I was finallyhome.

Along with everyone else, I wonderedhow such a turnaround could have takenplace, and so swiftly. The key was thatnow I looked at life through a window of meaning. And that was the one thingI had been desperately longing for: meaning. Now everything in my life waspacked with it: my studies had meaning,my family had meaning, my friendshipshad meaning, my sports had meaning.

All the things I had thought werethe causes of my despair—my failingstudies, my senseless wandering, myhopelessness—had actually been theresults of my despair. The Austrian con-centration camp survivor Viktor Franklwrote, “Without meaning, nothing elsematters. With meaning, everything elsefalls into place.” If you can’t see the why,you cannot live for the what. And assoon as I was able to answer the “why,”even my failures began to make sense.

The rapid changes taking place inme daily were beyond my power todescribe. Yet, from everything I hadlearned in my life with Christ, I knewthat He had not just changed what I didbut what I wanted to do. One day, I hadbeen a creature of despair, irresponsibility,and failure. Then I became a creature ofhope, diligent and accomplished in thethings to which I set my hand. To me,the reversal was staggering. Nobodyfully understood the dramatic transfor-mation on the inside. This was the workof God.

It was also a huge paradigm shift forme to suddenly see life—my own andothers’—through the eyes of God. Foryears, I had looked at life the way a kidmight work through a puzzling, new toy,taking it apart but not knowing how toput it back together again. He wonders,“What makes this thing tick?” So he

takes a screwdriver and tries to unpackit, but with each piece he removes, itmakes less sense.

Only Jesus could legitimately explainthe multifarious strands of human per-sonality locked within me. He couldexplain my emotional life, my actions,and my reactions. He could explain whyI longed for human touch, and why itwas actually the touch of soul that I wasultimately after. Without Christ, I stillwould have the gnawing undercurrentthat had run through everything in mylife and that had led me to the tragicchoice that very nearly brought me to an end.

Jesus wasn’t just the best option tome; He was the only option. He providedthe skin of reason to the flesh and bonesof reality. His answers to life’s questionswere both unique and true. No one else answered the deepest questions ofthe soul the way He did. And becauseChristianity was true, it was emotionallyexperienced. There was no greaterexample of this than my own life.

The story of my early days was thatonly God’s grace could have broughtabout this new life for me. This was anew DNA, a new birth. There simply wasno other explanation. The songwriterGeorge Wade Robinson said it well:

Heav’n above is softer blue,Earth around is sweeter green!Something lives in every hueChristless eyes have never seen;Birds with gladder songs o’erflow,Flow’rs with deeper beauties shine,Since I know, as now I know,I am His, and He is mine.

Warm Regards,

Ravi

For more information or to make a contribution, please contact:

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries3755 Mansell RoadAlpharetta, Georgia 30022

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