Two months ago, while I was in Australia, I met a man from Fiji named Irinali. Irinali was a gray-haired chaplain at a hospital in Cairns. I had gone to the hospital to pray for a sick aboriginal woman. While I was waiting outside her room, he shared his Fish n’ Chips with me. As we ate, I asked him about how he had become a Christian, and he shared this jaw-dropping testimony with me:
Our friend Irinali!
Irinali had been a wealthy property owner in Fiji. One day, he was eating by himself in a restaurant when an elderly man he had never seen before planted himself in the seat across from him. The old man looked him in the eyes, and said that God told him to go into the restaurant and tell the man seated by himself that He wanted him for His ministry. Irinali laughed at the old, seemingly crazy man. He was not a Christian, and was about to leave for a party celebrating the opening of a new property. He had no need for God.
Irinali left the restaurant, went to his party, got drunk, and crashed his car into a light pole on his way home. He woke up in the hospital three days later. He had broken almost all of his ribs, an arm both of his legs, and was wrapped head to toe in bandages. Irinali told me that as he sat in that hospital room, the elderly man’s words plagued his thoughts, “He wants you in His ministry.” Irinali prayed, “God, if you are real, please send that old man back to me.”
A few nights later, Irinali was at home, confined to his bed, when he heard a knock at his door. His wife hesitantly answered, and the old man was standing there. He said that God had woken him up in the middle of the night and told him to go to this address. Irinali laid on his bed in disbelief as the man, who he found out was a pastor, approached his side.
“Have you made your decision?”
“Sir, I already have. I believe in Jesus.”
The old pastor placed his hands onto Irinali’s chest and prayed for him to be healed. He told him to get out of his bed and walk. Irinali said that he stood to his feet and took his bandages off. All of his pain was completely gone, and the agony of breathing with broken ribs had disappeared.
Since then, Irinali has sold his business and spent the last thirty years serving the Lord in Fiji and Australia. He and his wife have three children, and the joy and passion he has for God is inspiring!
I recall this story as a monument.
Right now, I am sitting in an ungodly hot room in India. I am tired, coming off of being sick, and desperately wanting a renewed passion and love for the Lord. Stories like this remind me that at every moment God is alive, and SO worthy to be praised. Christianity should not be dry, but sometimes it just is. Sometimes, the life disappears from my time in the Word and prayer, my love for the Lord becomes stagnant, and my Christian walk is reduced to going through a set of religious motions.
God places monuments in our lives to call us out of these dry times. Many men of the Old Testament made pillars to serve this very purpose after they encountered God. We are fickle, forgetful human beings, and sometimes our circumstances distract us from who God is. Our passion for Him fades, our faith diminishes, and our joy seeps away. In these times, would we repent, stop waiting, remember who God is, and ask for Him to rekindle a burning flame in our souls!
I only have one life. I don’t want to waste it in complacency. Would my heart be able to cry out every day,
“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God!” – Ps. 42:1-2
