My Story
Keeping Cool in Kathmandu
I had an awesome experience with God that was a defining moment in my life and clarified something really important for me. It happened like this. My wife and I had flown into Kathmandu, Nepal expecting to be met by a friend. As we came out of the airport terminal and the doors closed behind us, we heard people saying that the airport had just been temporarily shut down. No flights would be allowed to arrive or leave. Our friend was no where to be seen, and looking out across the city, we saw huge plumes of smoke coming up from many places. Obviously something was not right.
Eventually our friend arrived on foot with the news that the city was rioting. Huge mobs were roaming the streets, so public transportation and taxis were non-existent. He told us that we would have to walk the five or six kilometers across to the other side of the city where he lived.
As we walked through the city streets with our luggage, mobs of people swirled around us, running here and there, destroying buildings, throwing furniture out of offices, and setting off fires. It suddenly occurred to me that it was very possible that I might die there in that place on the other side of the world from my home. And at the very same moment, I had a tremendous sense of peace that it would be okay to die there. It was more than just a feeling; it was a very keen awareness and assuredness that my life was indeed in God’s hands and that he would take me to be with him forever when the right moment came.
That sense of personal peace in the midst of incredible turmoil all around me was so amazingly real, that I was actually elated to be there and looked forward to whatever might be in store for me. The death issue had already been settled for me and I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that if I were to die there, I would live forever with God himself, in his very presence, be able to talk with him and know him totally and completely as he is, and that he would accept me.
So thinking of that, I would very much like to ask you something, if you wouldn’t mind. It is my great hope that you will have a long, happy and prosperous life, but just like we have to get off the bus at the end of a trip somewhere, someday our life as we know it now will come to an end. So here’s what’s on my mind: When that day comes, do you have complete assurance that you too will live forever with God? Or would you say that is something that you are still working on and are hoping to get settled?
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