“You must have a capacity to receive, or even omnipotence can’t give” – C.S. Lewis
Every time I thought I had India figured out, something else would catch my attention that was different from my norm. Whether it was a sight, a smell, a sound, or even a situation, India always found a way to catch me off guard. The good news is that I always had a Father who would put me back on track.
I spent March and April in India, mostly in the city of Kolkata. More specifically, most of my time in Kolkata was spent hanging out with the locals on Miracle Street.
(This blog is about one of our afternoon interactions with the man who we interacted with most on Miracle Street. In order to protect his identity, the name I will give him in this blog is “Tim”)
One afternoon, my squad leader Jeremy and I were hanging out on Miracle Street at the laundry shop that Tim owned and his brothers worked at. Tim had taken us to his shop the first day we met him and we had been there several times after that.
It was getting close to middle of the afternoon when India is at its hottest which can be anywhere between 105 and 125 degrees Fahrenheit (heat index). Typically at this time of day most if not all locals stop working and either close their shops to eat lunch or literally sleep on mats in their shops.
“Why?”, you may ask, because it’s so dang hot outside and I’d do the same stinkin’ thing!
As Tim was closing the shop up to go eat lunch, we asked if we could join him. He allowed us to eat with him and we began to walk towards his home where we were going to eat.
So as we were walking it occurred to me that I had no idea where he lived. For some odd reason I had this idea that I knew where he lived based on the fact that I’ve known this man since the first week of March (it was mid-April at this point). I guess I thought I should’ve known where he lived based on our relationship and friendship.
We continued to walk and there was a large building that appeared and I thought, “I guess he lives there because I looks like an apartment complex”, but it turned out to be a hospital. There were other large buildings that looked like apartments, but it turned out he didn’t live there either.
We finally came to his “home” and when we arrived I honestly didn’t fully know how to process it in my mind. I seriously could not have been more wrong about his living situation.
Where he lived was under an overpass with his two brothers and his older brother’s wife. There was a tiny shack that was just a square hut and definitely wasn’t longer than ten feet on either side. It only had enough room for some supplies and one bed. Therefore, he slept outside of the hut on a wooden square box and used the overpass as his roof.
I was perplexed and shocked because here was our friend, who has a steady job with his laundry business that always has customers. He was our man of peace in Kolkata, who lived away from his family. Sure he lived with his brothers, but he had a wife and two kids that lived in a different city.
He lives away from them for a majority of the year in order to continue running the laundry business that had been passed down to him from his father. The laundry business is how he receives income in order for him to provide for his family.
So as I still had all these thoughts swirling through my mind, he asked us to sit down on this large wooden plank on the ground. We sat down and Tim provided lunch for us and it honestly may have been the largest serving of rice and dahl (a yellow soup) I have ever received in my life.
We ate using Indian etiquette which involves using your right hand (and your right hand only). We would use it to scoop the food up like a shovel does with gravel, and simply place it in our mouths. I must say it’s easier said than done with goopy rice mixed with dahl.
We were able to enjoy each other’s company and have good conversation while being blessed with Tim’s food and hospitality. In addition, I’m sure we freaked out a few of the local by-passers who would stop to just stare at us eating because we looked interesting. They must have thought, “why are there two Americans eating with their bare hands with an Indian underneath an overpass?”.
The three of us finished our meals, hung out for a while, then Jeremy and I went home where we had a bed, pillow, and a roof over our heads waiting for us.
It was while I was walking home and in the days afterwards that God began to speak to my heart about “receiving love”.
Now I know what some of you may be thinking. How can receiving love be hard? Well it can be very difficult given the situation and the fact that I’m not perfect.
There have been multiple times on the World Race where have I found myself thinking things such as: every appropriate situation that comes up I need to share the good news with people, I need to help every person I meet, and I need to GIVE everything I’ve learned from life experiences & God. Basically, I need to be the perfect Christian.
Now this just flat out isn’t possible to do, but sometimes my mind races and I want to be able to do so much in such little time given our duration of days in each country. I want to be able to GIVE, GIVE, GIVE to those who have never heard the Gospel and those who don’t have a relationship with Christ, but the simple truth is I can only do so much.
THE REST IS THE FATHER’S WORK
I can only speak for myself, but sometimes my mind is so focused on giving that I completely forget about receiving from others. In fact, I also forget to receive from the Father.
It sometimes catches me guard when people I feel I’m supposed to give to, end up being the ones giving me something. At first I think, “well this isn’t right is it?”, and then God steps in to say, “Alex, of course it’s right. In fact, it’s perfect!”.
Love is NOT a one way street because love goes both ways. In order for me to give love towards others whether it’s back in the United States or in India, I have to be able to receive more than anything. If I can’t receive love, then how in the heck am I going to be able to give it?!
I legit felt like a quarterback on a football team and God being the coach calls a wildcat formation for the next play. A wildcat formation is used to confuse the defense. Instead of me hiking the ball and throwing it to a wide receiver for a touchdown, God had me (the quarterback) line up outside, run a solid route, and catch the ball that the wide receiver threw to me.
In this situation in my life, Tim was the wide receiver who threw me the football that I the quarterback caught for a touchdown and it rocked my world.
I thought to myself, how could Tim who has so little, be able to give so much? This may have been next day’s meal for himself. He hardly has a home, his family is in a city that he only lives in a few weeks out of the year, and he only has enough money for the essentials in life (and maybe not even that). The answer finally hit me because it is so simple: TIM JUST WANTED TO BE HUMAN AND LOVE US.
I felt God in that moment tell me, “Alex, this love that you received from Tim is exactly how I want to love you and every single person on this planet.”
You see, God wants us to receive his love and receive His blessings that He has already offered to us. The Father loved us from the start and that has never changed. The fall of man is what separated us from Him and He wants us to receive His love and be back in His arms.
I said this once already, but I can’t say it enough! If we can’t receive the Father’s love for us who sent His one and only Son to die on the cross for our sins, then how are we to give His love out to others?
Days later we told him that we would purchase lunch for him, his brothers, and his brother’s wife. We also told Tim specifically to not make lunch for us and that we’ll be bringing chicken biryani, which by the way is the best some unreal chicken.
After we told them to not make food for us they still made us rice and dahl anyway out of the kindness of their hearts. Their love seemed to never end and that’s exactly how the Father’s love works for us. God’s love is eternal and there is never an end to how much He loves us.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” – John 3:16
