A boy, about 4 or 5 years of age was beating up the son of a neighbor. His father, who saw him do this, scolded him, called him back into the house and asked him “Why were you beating that boy?” The boy replied “He had hurled a mother’s abuse at me.” Enraged, the father said, “Then you should have given him two more blows” and got busy in his work. After a short while a middle-aged lady came screaming into his house, “Your son has made living in this neighborhood miserable; just look at his nerve, he has again come into our house, slapped my son twice and run away.” The father got very angry and yelled at his son “Hey you, why did you beat him again?” Innocently, the boy replied, “You only said that I should have given him two more blows, I did it.” Now the father was left groping for a way out.
I was that boy. Such was the environment I was brought up in, where being vain, proud, violent and abusive was the norm. There was a terrible gloom of death in my house. I had 5 brothers and sisters, none survived. I had just stepped into adolescence when my father also passed away.
I myself did not know why I was still alive and for what. I had received a lot of hostility from those who were my own, so I did not feel my own to be my own. There was nobody whom I could really call my own, the few that were, did not behave like relatives. Relationships were just for namesake, there was no depth in them, rather there was a lot of disaffection. I did not want to live. I often hated myself and tried to commit suicide many times. I would go to sleep with a sense of helplessness and frustration, but with a small ray of hope in tomorrow.
My tired and defeated self
Now desired a new life
Wanted a renewed freshness
Looked for a new happiness
This man living under the tag of a religion
Craved for deliverance
From circumstances, from addictions
From the bondage of bad habits
This one searched for redemption
In despair, tired of the old self
This one wanted something new
I wanted to be good but could not be (Romans 7:18). I used to think that I am right, and did not care about sin or curse. But things fell into place when someone said – ‘sin’, your sin is the reason for all your restiveness and frustration; this curse of sin can only be undone by the forgiveness of sin. Forgiveness, which only the Lord Jesus can give. A small prayer– “O Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner” turned things around for me. It was not my religion that changed, but it was my life that really underwent a sea change. I received a joy unspeakable and beyond all my imaginations.
My past is full of my dark deeds, and even today whenever I sin, I fall in my own eyes and detest myself. Don’t know why I sin? I know that I should not do it, still I do it; I don’t want to do it but something compels me to lose control and do it. Many a times I have made so many promises to the Lord, yet I still do what I should not. And yet, the blood of Jesus is still available to me, it cleanses me from all my sin even now. He has remained faithful towards me despite all my shortcomings and failures.
Today my body has gone frail and my body’s condition speaks its own age. All my qualifications have become inconsequential. I don’t even remember all that I had learnt or all that I had achieved. All I remember is that soon I will be departing from here. Now I live waiting for the time when my heart and its heartbeat will get disassociated, then everything will get left behind and my friends will wrap me in a white sheet and pack me off with the final farewell. I know that gradually my own will also forget me and I will remain only as a distant memory.
There was a time when a large crowd walked with me but today I see that many of them are no longer with me. Some lost the way, some changed and moved away while others fell away. But my God did not change, He has never left me nor forsaken me. There are some who lift me up by lifting up their hands to pray for me. It is because of their company that I still stand.
Written in the innocent blood of Christ
This message was for me
Behold! I make all things new
I don’t desire
A heaven that rains fire
I desire a new heaven and a new earth
Where love flourishes and abounds
Religion did not reach me to God
Religion that instigates massacres
And turns humans into cruel fiends
Such religion I don’t require
No religion shed its blood for me
Religion only sheds the blood of others
I want God not religion
The God who shed His blood for me
Every man is a living grave
Buried in him is humanity’s corpse
And man carries this dead weight around
No more for me men worse than ghouls
Now a new rejuvenated human being I want
In a world full of people
Every man is alone inside
A deathly silence shrieks within
Problems abound and fear stalks the heart
A new heart – free from fear is my cry
Everyday I have to fight with my nature. This game of ‘win or loose’ is being played in me for many years now, and my defeats have been more than my wins. But a hope still lives in me: my Lord will never leave me nor forsake me. With age many problems keep changing and worsening. Many worries also live and grow alongside. Hope still raises its head that everything will eventually be alright. Not everything that happens happens as we want it to be. But God’s Word assures us: “Everything works together for good.” There is goodness even in defeat. Every defeat reminds me that on my own I cannot go through even one day properly. So I keep my hands stretched out to the Lord “For when I am weak then I am strong.” This assurance from God’s Word still infuses strength in my life.
My complaints are not against God, only against myself. If I am distraught it is with my own self and my nature. So my request, please accept me only as a fallible human being, believing me to be anything more than this will be fraught with danger; anyone who considers me to be anything more will be mislead. I have never been able to do that which I wanted to do, never been able to live the way I wanted to live. God has blessed me with many things – respect, love and blessings but I have frittered away many of them; shame and remorse torments me – why did I do it? I now have only this prayer – Lord, the life that is left for me, let me not waste it.
All through my life I was habituated to receiving, now before I depart I want to give something. I want to give something that will fill the lives and hearts of people with joy.
I know my worth; I know that besides the Lord I am not worth anything. There is only one prayer that I have:
I have plumbed the depths of a fallen life
Those depths despair me, my plea to You
Hold on to me O Lord till soul and body part
Till then may I cling only to You
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