[From Dww-work]… RAVI ZACHARIAS – HIS STORY
Ravi Zacharias was born in India.
“In India, you are what you are born into,” he began. “My father and mother were nominal Christians; in fact, the reason they were Christians was simply because they were not Buddhists, Muslims, or Hindus. I don’t recall ever hearing the gospel preached at my church, which was very liberal-minded.
“Just prior to my coming to Christ, my sisters were exposed to the gospel and made their commitment. I came to believe in Jesus in two stages. The first stage was when I heard the gospel publicly proclaimed in an auditorium when I was seventeen. I said to myself, ‘Something about this is true and I want it.’ I went forward and was counseled, but I did not really understand. The baggage was too much.
“At the time, I was under a lot of pressure in a culture where academic performance was of supreme importance. If you’re not at the top of the class, then you’re not going to succeed. I couldn’t cope with it. I also had a very strict father, and I struggled with that. I took a lot of punishment physically.
“So a few months later, I decided to end my own life. I was not depressed; my friends would have been shocked to hear suicide was on my mind. But for me, life had no meaning or purpose. I went to school one day and used the keys to the science lab to check out some poisons. I put them into a glass of water, gobbled it up, and collapsed on my knees.”
“My servant in the house rushed me to the hospital; if he were not there, I would be dead,” he continued. “They emptied all of the poisons out of me. As I lay in bed, a friend walked in with a New Testament and showed me John chapter 14. I couldn’t hold the book; my body was too dehydrated. My mother had to read it to me.
“There she was, reading where Jesus was talking to Thomas and saying, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ Then she came to verse 18, where Jesus tells his disciples, ‘Because I live, you also will live.’
“That verse touched my soul. I said in a prayer, ‘Jesus, I don’t know much about who you are, but you are telling me you’re the author of true life.’ I didn’t understand the concept of sin. In that culture, I couldn’t have. But what I did understand was that he was offering himself to me to give me life.
“So I said, ‘If you take me out of this hospital room, I will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth.’ And I walked out of that room five days later an absolutely brand new man. I began to study the Bible, and it dramatically changed my life. My brothers then came to follow Jesus, as did my parents before they died.
“I have traveled the world. I have searched high and low. I have found nothing that satisfies my mind, my heart, and the deepest longing of my soul like Jesus does. He is not only the way, the truth, and the life; he is personal to me. He is my way, and my truth, and my life–just as he can be for anyone who reaches out to him.”
(-Ravi Zacharias in The Case for Faith, by Lee Strobel, Zondervan, p. 165-166)
ZACHARIAS, RAVI; TESTIMONY; HINDUISM; RELIGIONS; INDIA