Tears at a Train Window

“Wherefore watch ye, remembering that by the space of three years I ceased not to admonish every one night and day with tears.” — Acts 20:31 (ASV)

Most of the people Hyde led to Christ have no names in the records. One is known by his initials, J. N. He was a young Brahman, from the highest Hindu caste, who had gone to a mission school. When he started work he publicly confessed Christ, in the face of “the bitterest opposition” of his widowed mother and his relatives. Then his family changed tactics and started being kind to him. He went home, fell in with young men who led him into drink, and denied his Lord.

He was miserable, and he went to Hyde, “who received him as did the father his prodigal son.” He came to live with Hyde and came back to faith. Then the drink took hold of him again, and again. More than once he stole Hyde's clothes and sold them to buy liquor. Hyde told a friend with a smile, “I may not get up to you to the hills this summer, the Father evidently desires me to spend my hot weather in the plains, for I have no warm clothes left!”

One day a Christian woman working as a ticket collector at a railway station saw a missionary talking to a young man sitting in a train bound for Lahore. The young man was loud and almost abusive: “I am tired of this sort of thing. I am going to my boon companions and shall have a good time.” The missionary leaned into the carriage window, pleading with him in Christ's name, with tears running down his cheeks. The young man wouldn't listen. The train pulled out.

The next day she saw the same young man coming back. He looked up at her with a pale face. “I am going back to him,” he said. “I have not been able to sleep all night — I could not forget his tears.” He found Hyde in his room, praying. Hyde took him in his arms and said, “I have just been praying that God would send you back to me, and see, He has answered me!”

Another time, after J. N. had walked for two days to find him, Hyde made him lie down and rubbed his swollen feet. A Brahman did not expect a European missionary to touch his feet. Years later J. N. said, “I often see him in my dreams before me as of old.”

Hyde's patience drove some people mad. One cold night he knocked at an Indian evangelist's door to borrow a sheet. The evangelist snapped through the closed door that the drunk who had been staying with Hyde had run off with his blankets, and that Hyde put everyone out by doing things like this. Hyde's answer: “If the prodigal had come back to you, you would have taken a stick to him!”

Here's the honest part. J. N.'s story doesn't end neatly. About ten years after Hyde died, he was “much chastened,” but he still hadn't given up drink. That's where the record stops. Hyde's tears didn't end J. N.'s struggle. They kept him coming back.

Love doesn't always fix people, and fixing people isn't your job. But somebody in your life may need to see that you care about them more than about your pride. If someone you love is caught by drink, drugs or anything else that is taking them over, you don't have to carry it alone: talk to a parent, a pastor, a teacher, a doctor, or a helpline where you live. And if you're the one who keeps falling back, keep coming back. That's what J. N. did.

One thing to do this week: think of one person who has drifted away from God or from you. Send them a message this week with no lecture in it, just that you care about them and are praying for them. Then pray for them.