Zara is a language teacher in my city. Each week she comes to my house for six hours of lessons, dressed in a steady rotation of national dresses and head scarves. Though she has three adult children and several grandchildren, I doubt she’s much older than 55. She was widowed at 35, but had studied English and with three young children, taught herself how to teach. For the last 15 years she has been teaching foreigners—mostly Workers—the language of her country.
For 15 years she has been teaching curriculums that include lessons on the gospel and stories of Jesus. Zara knows these stories well. She recently was watching the show The Chosen with a student, and would come to my lessons sharing about how much she enjoyed watching it and seeing the stories of Jesus come to life.
In my lesson last week, we got to talking about whether or not there were religions other than Islam in her country, which led to the opportunity to ask about her beliefs on how to get to heaven. She answered that at the end of life, a person's life will be judged and if the good outweighs the bad, and if they haven’t done anything really bad, mymkeen or it’s possible, they will have earned a place in heaven before God.
I told her this reminded me of a verse from the New Testament where Jesus tells his disciples He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and there is no other way to the Father except through Himself, and read it from my Bible app in the local language. Her response was that Jesus was simply emphasizing that God exists and that we must believe in Him.
I agreed it is surely important to believe there is a God, and roughly translated and shared A.W. Tozer’s quote “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” We began to talk about how strongly we believe that God exists and watches over all things. She shared with near giddiness how God has always provided for her— from being a young widowed mother with three children, to now being a successful and busy teacher, with children who have studied and are now working, and who is immensely blessed to have an apartment she rents and one to live in with her son and his family. She noted that in this country, it is extremely difficult to reach a point of such stability, and that each of these blessings have come from God.
It is so sweet to be able to have these conversations with Zara, to learn more about what she believes and to tell her how deeply God loves her, but it is also hard to know that she isn’t yet seeing the grace and freedom that Jesus offers. Even after 15 years of conversations about these things, she still believes she has to bear the weight of her sin, hoping that the good things she does will earn her a place with God.
I’m reminded of one of my favorite songs, Seasons by Hillsong Worship:
For all I know of seasons
Is that You take Your time
You could have saved us in a second
Instead, You sent a child
Praise the Lord for His patience with us, that He is not in a hurry, that He works all things intentionally in His timing, and that even when we don’t see the change we want to see, He is still working. Myself and Zara's other students continue to wait and pray while we trust that God is working. You can join me in prayer for Zara, that her heart would be softened and she would see Jesus as the way, truth, and life, and that the Lord would use me to point to the unending grace and love that is waiting for her in His arms.
Grace and love to you,
Evelyn