We were just heading out for our daily prayer walk through one of the slums just outside Kathmandu.
Most mornings in the slums,we all pile into a small school room that belongs to the ministry we’re partnering with, and we attempt to teach English to some of the neighborhood kids. Most of these kids are very young, so it’s not long before what starts out as “teaching English” turns into chasing them around the room and entertaining them while they tackle each other, and keeping the little ones from eating crayons and leftover fragments of popped balloons.
This day was a little different, though. This time, we arrived in the slums to discover that we were locked out of our little school room. After a few failed attempts to get into the room, we decided to go for a prayer walk instead as we did most mornings. Several of our usual kids had been waiting outside the school room for us, so when my team and I started walking, a couple of the children grabbed onto my hand and started walking with us. Before we knew it, my teammate, Brittany, and I were linking hands and forming a chain of children.
They tagged along with us for a while as we walked the dirt path along the river—lined with little tin shacks, an assortment of farm animals and stray dogs wandering free, and people going about their regular, every day life—until we got to the bridge. At that point, most of the children decided they’d gone far enough, so they turned around and began to walk home.
One little boy—Anil—however, remained standing with his feet planted next to me and his hand resting in mine while the rest of his friends faded off into the distance. I told him maybe he should go back with his friends, but he wouldn’t budge. I knew he couldn’t understand anything I said to him anyways, and clearly he’d made up his mind, so we decided to let him continue tagging along and we kept walking.
We walked up the hill and crossed the busy bridge to the other side of the river, then continued walking down some side streets where we eventually sat down on the sidewalk to pray. Wherever we went, Anil went too. He patiently followed along next to me, holding tightly onto my hand and not uttering a word or even so much as a single sound the whole way.
When we sat down on the side of the road, I motioned for Anil to sit next to me and he immediately plopped himself down without hesitation. My team and I sat there in silence for a long time. Occasionally Anil would glance around at us, observing silently. He looked over at one of my teammates, Jeff, who was praying with his hands folded in his lap, and Anil quickly followed suit–folding his hands in his lap the same way Jeff did. He was so content. He didn’t fuss or fidget; he didn’t ask any questions. He just sat there, perfectly content just to be in our company.
As I sat beside Anil, I couldn’t help but smile at the way he’d so beautifully demonstrated such child-like faith.
Anil had no idea what we were doing or where we were headed—we didn’t even speak the same language! And yet, he still chose to follow us. He trusted us wholeheartedly, and words had nothing to do with any of it. He grabbed my hand and allowed me to lead him without a single question or remark. He sat silently beside me with no expectations. He didn’t expect me to try to carry on a conversation with him, and he didn’t attempt to speak to me either—he was content just to be.
And that’s when it hit me: what Anil demonstrated for us in the slums that day is exactly what the Lord desires for us.
He wants us to know that sometimes it’s OK to simply be. It’s OK to be silent. The Lord asks us to “Be still and know that I am God.” We need to know that it’s OK to be silent, and we need to know it’s OK if we don’t hear anything from Him either! It doesn’t mean we’ve failed or we’re doing something wrong when we can’t hear an audible voice from the Lord—sometimes He just wants us to sit with Him the way Anil sat with me that morning in the slums.
Just as Anil was so content just to sit there with patient assurance and trust, that’s what the Lord desires for us too—He desires for us to be content just to be with Him while He sits with us in the slums, with nothing to gain but simply to be in the presence of the living God.
No expectations, no questions, no words, no begging for answers or striving to see the road ahead. No turning back. Just to be in His loving presence, because that should be more than enough.
