“Bhaiya!” screamed five-year-old Saroo! He tore up and down the moving train car calling out the Hindi word for “brother.” Outside the window, central Indian grasslands flashed past and the clicking rails marked the miles being driven between the panic-stricken boy and the only home he’d ever known. Saroo’s pockets were empty, his stomach not far behind, and his mind didn’t carry a street address. His single mom, two sisters and a brother all lived in a tiny mud brick house in central India that was rapidly vanishing.
Saroo and his older brother Guddu had gone everywhere together. Their mother Fatima, abandoned by her husband, scraped together just enough money by cleaning homes to put some food in her four kids’ mouths and pay her rent. The older kids provided the rest by begging, scrounging and stealing. To support the family, Saroo and Guddu specialized in diving under the seats in the old Indian trains that traversed their neighborhood finding dropped coins and scraps of food. His brother had said he’d be “right back.” Saroo had fallen asleep on a bench in a train he’d been searching. Surely his brother would come back for him.
Empty Stomach,
Empty Heart
Twelve hours later Saroo’s train finally rolled into the massive central station in Calcutta. Somewhere out into the teaming millions of Bengali-speaking residents bobbed a little tear-streaked Hindi-speaking boy. He only remembered the name of a town near his own, Burhanpur, so he hopped train after train heading out of town hoping to find it. In a week he gave up. His stomach was filled with its familiar hungry ache, but his heart had a fresh wound — one that might never heal. Perhaps pain gnaws at your heart too.
Within a month, a man who spoke a little Hindi was able to take him to a local prison for protection. There the deformed faces of strangers — kids without legs or arms — stared back. Deep in his heart, unspoken in Hindi, unformed in words, sending its tentacles throughout his being, crept a question for his mother Fatima: Are you looking for me? If you are experiencing that same unspoken question, then I have a secret for you. God says, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:1010For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10)). That means that Jesus Christ, who deeply loves you, is looking for you.
Officials from a local child-welfare group combed the prison regularly for adoptable children. Six months after his rolling prison had carried him away from Burhanpur, the officials brought him a little red photo album saying, “This is your new family. They will love you.” Inside smiled a red curly-haired woman and her husband standing in front of a brick home surrounded by a flower bed. Another photo showed the Qantas airplane that would carry him to Hobart in the Australian state of Tasmania.
Burning Questions
Soon Saroo found himself sitting in a comfortable air-conditioned bedroom. On the bed sat a stuffed koala, on the wall hung a map of India, in his head rattled a few words of English and the ever-present mystery of his past. “Even though I was with people I trusted, my new family, I still wanted to know how my family was: Will I ever see them again? Is my brother still alive?”
Jesus Christ said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:22In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (John 14:2)). He went ahead of us to the cross of Calvary. There He paid the massive penalty for sin — punishment by a holy God — so that He could offer to take any who will believe on Him to the Father’s house. But like little Saroo — despite evidence of love — it’s pretty natural to have a ton of questions about God swirling in the brain and heart. Philip, who spent several years as a close associate of the Lord Jesus, said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father” (John 14:88Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. (John 14:8)), when he heard about the way to the Father’s house. You can read how Jesus firmly and gently answered him in John 14.
Years later in 2009, out of college, late at night, Saroo hunkered over his flickering laptop. For the first time he had a fast Internet connection and Google Earth spun up as he zoomed in on his Hobart house. The detail was fantastic, and then it hit him: Could he find the mud-brick, tin-roofed home a continent, a life, a culture away? If only he could get back to ... to ... Brahmapur? Badarpur? Bharatpur? B-something-pur? Then he could find his way back to the mud-brick house.
Give Up?
He picked up where he had left off so many years before — “riding” the rails out of Calcutta. And he got the same old result. After weeks of frustrating evenings, he dropped the search and returned to normal life. But Saroo couldn’t quit permanently. He thought, If you give up now, you’ll always be thinking later on, on your deathbed: Why didn’t I keep trying or at least put more effort into it?
Finally logic began to creep into his thoughts. He calculated the rough time he’d been on the train — about 12 hours. He added in the time from B-something-pur to the village where he’d lived. Soon he had some estimates on how fast Indian trains traveled in the 1980s. When he’d eliminated areas of the country that didn’t speak Hindi, he hunkered back for more late nights over the keyboard. He began to systematically hunt for a bridge he remembered near a big industrial tank beside the railway station in, in ... B-something-pur. Intensely he clicked back out across the miles and down the railroad heading away from Calcutta. Around 1 a.m. his heart rate surged as he registered the sight of a bridge he remembered. Tensely he checked the corner of the screen for the town name — Burhanpur stared back at him.
In February of 2012, tired from 20 hours of travel, he began the final mile of navigating by memory, left here, right there, past a café where he’d sold Chai tea. In his mind burned the question he’d wanted to ask his mother Fatima, Did you look for me? Soon he stood before the mud-brick house with the tin roof — a lock barred the door of the battered, abandoned house. Hearing the names Guddu and Fatima, a neighbor lady simply said, “They don’t live here anymore.”
God, by contrast, never moves. He can always be found by someone willing to acknowledge their sin and His remedy. God says, “Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:1313And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)).
Answers
But another neighbor studied a photo of little Saroo when he’d first come to Australia and listened to the names “Guddu” and “Fatima.” He vanished, and then he returned and led Saroo, not to the arms of the beautiful young woman he’d seen in his dreams for 24 years — but to an old woman. Fatima saw the scar on his forehead where she’d bandaged him when he fell while being chased by a wild dog and the family dimple on the chin. Soon they were in one another’s arms.
They would have talked, but Saroo only spoke Aussie English and Fatima only Hindi. They spoke in cuddles, hugs and through an interpreter. Fatima had searched for him for months, hopping trains and heading out to every surrounding town within a couple hours’ distance, asking questions, searching. And Guddu? Guddu was gone. One month after Saroo had vanished, the police had knocked at the door. Guddu had been found dead on the train tracks — killed by a train. Saroo texted back home to Hobart, The questions I wanted answered have been answered. There are no dead ends. ... I hope you know that you guys are first with me, which will never change. Love you.
And your search? your answers? your home? Searching God’s Word diligently will help you to find many answers. You’ll discover, with honesty, where you’ve refused to follow God and His divine direction in your life. You’ll also find two tremendous truths ...
If you’re honest, you’ll discover that you deeply need the Lord Jesus Christ, who has come from heaven to find you, wash you clean from your sin, and take you home with Himself. When you know you’ve been found by Him, then you’ll also know that you’re on your way home — to God the Father’s house — not to a place of peace on earth that can’t be found.
Is it hard to find God? Well, not really. Find out more in The Million-Dollar Message.