During this past month in Bangalore, I have had the honor of getting to know Sagar well. Sagar's story is inspiring in that it illustrates both satisfaction in Christ and daring faith. Here is some of his story…
Describe a little bit of what your life and beliefs were like before you became a Christian…
“As a child, I was a first Hindu, then later, for seven full years, I was into Buddhism. Some Indian culture follows a guru—so we learned meditations similar to Buddhism to find who out God is. We searched for God through meditation. So we did a course, a program, for that purpose that lasted one year. After doing that, I started working at that program for almost seven years and I learned most of the meditations that are connected with the spirit. There are meditations that are like seven points in the body. Each of the seven points has a certain power. Through that power, we felt that we can access God by gaining this power. After seven years of journeying, I felt only emptiness because there was no constant. We were always in search, but we do never find what we were looking for, so we felt empty. So, I gave up after seven full years what I was doing.
Later, I became an atheist. I thought, “There is no God”. Whatever we do, we live, we earn money, we gain status in society, we get married, and then we die one day. During this process, we need to enjoy life. Good or bad—enjoy your life. During this time, I was working for an IT company called Delphi, and it was a good company. I earned lots of money and started to drink and smoke and live life. I did all of this for between three and four years. I started to feel again that there was no purpose, however. There was no focus, no dream, and no desire. Once again, depression and emptiness came into my life. I thought, “Maybe this life doesn’t make any sense.”
Then what happened?
One day during these four years, one of my friends who is a Christian invited me to come to church to make new friends. She saw that my life was not so good, so she encouraged me to come to church. “I have tried many Gods already,” I thought, “What is the use of one more God? It doesn’t make any sense.” So I used to ignore her.
One day, she said, “Why don’t you come to a three day Christian camp. It will be free for you.” I went because it would allow me to have three days off from work. During the second day of the camp, however, they had a quiet time early in the morning. I didn’t have a Bible, but in a crowd of over 500 people, one man pointed me out and asked me to read a verse (Galatians 5:22), and it talked about the fruits of the spirit. I had to borrow a friend’s Bible next to me and get him to help me find the verse. It struck a chord with me as something different. I had been searching for these qualities and hadn’t found them in any other religions. I was told that Jesus would plant these qualities in you. After this, many thoughts were in my mind but I thought, “why don’t I try Jesus? If it doesn’t work, then it will just be one of the many Gods I have tried. At the worst, I will feel empty like before.”
After the camp, I started to go to the Bible studies. I didn’t always understand them fully, yet a thirst grew inside of me to understand who this Jesus was. When I first found this thirst, I left my family to search for it. I come from a Hindu family, and learning about Jesus would offend them greatly, so I knew I needed to leave. Every day while I was away (this lasted for about six months), I talked to my friends about Jesus.
One day in my room I had a dream. I was standing before a big crowd and I was preaching. I woke up and thought that there was something wrong—I am not called to be a missionary or anything like that. After a few weeks, when I was sleeping, I felt alone in my room, because my friends had gone away for a trip. I felt a presence in the room, though, and felt “Oh my God, something is wrong here.”
I started praying because I had seen my friends do this before. The presence grew stronger, though, and I became very, very scared. I then heard an audible voice tell me, “You need to quit your job and serve on the mission field.” It was a very big decision because I could not quit my job. I thought, I must quit being a Christian, because it cannot be done. The next day was Sunday, so I thought I would go to one last church service, pack my bags, and go home. The pastor was giving a sermon on William Carey, the famous missionary to India. The childhood of William Carey was similar to my life, and I felt convicted, as if the pastor was talking directly to me. The conviction grew more and more, and by the end of the service, I knew God was calling me to His service. I went home and my friend told me that DTS (Youth With A Mission’s Discipleship Training School) was starting very soon. I wanted to know that DTS was a way to know Jesus more. So, I went home and told my family everything—that I was quitting my job.
How did they react?
Once I finished telling them this, they had many accusing words and a big argument. They told me I was a fool. I wondered if maybe they were right. I took one week of fasting and I was praying. After one week, I went to my parents and said the exact same words as the week before. The next words from my family were, “Okay, do it, you can go do the course, then come back to the family.” God helped me to find favor in their eyes, and this was a surprise to me.
I finished DTS and came back home. By the end of DTS, I knew I was called to missions but I didn’t know where. I knew I wanted to start by working with YWAM, though, and the next step was to join YWAM as staff. I went home and told my family that I would quit my job permanently to work as staff. They told me “We do not know you anymore and you are not our son.” They packed my bags and threw them out of the door. I was convicted of the verse, however, that says, “Take up your cross daily and follow me,” (Luke 9:23). The spirit inside of me was strong, however, and I knew I wanted to follow Jesus. I took my bags and came to YWAM.
People at YWAM were asking me how I would support myself financially because I had to pay my staff fees. Amazingly, God has taken care of all of my needs financially and physically. Often times, I had only 100 rupees (about $2.00 USD) in my pocket. I would have no money for medicines or for transportation or anything. Random people would always come up to me, however, and hand me the exact amount of money I would need without me asking them first. God always provided.
This is my faith life. I have my dreams. I declare things by faith, and the money always comes after. Six months ago, my family asked me to come home for the first time since they kicked me out. Whenever I visit home, I talk about Jesus. I have been praying for 3 years for their salvation. Both my mother and my sister have accepted Bibles from me thankfully. That is my biggest burden right now, that my family knows Jesus.
How can we pray for you?
Pray for my family’s salvation. The second thing is that God has called me for missions but I do not know where. I need more faith to move forward wherever God calls me. Pray that I have that faith.
