Prayers of Future Past

I want to tell you a crazy story. It’s crazy because it connects a picture taken in Tacoma, Washington, in 1954, to a baby dedication in a rural village in Southern India in 2011, which answers to a “chance-meeting” back in Tacoma in 2014. These three events are separated by a span of 60 years and a distance of over 7,000 miles. Yet they are connected in a way that declares something profound will happen many years from now. Intrigued?

Okay, first let’s time travel back to the town of my birth, Tacoma, Washington. In 1954, I was a pre-schooler at First Presbyterian Church where my family attended. Someone must have thought it would be good to take individual pictures of each “class,” and post them on the wall outside the nursery. I have no memory of this event, of course, but in later years I saw the photos. Each framed picture looked like a page from a high school annual with rows of little black and white portraits of me and my “classmates” with our names captioned below. As far as I know, they kept this process going for a number of years. I grew up and was married at “First Pres.” When Rochelle and I moved from Tacoma to LA in 1974, those pictures were still hanging on the wall.

Fast forward to 2011. Rochelle and I lived in Memphis, Tennessee, where I had served as a pastor for 30 years. In August, 2011, I went to India to minister in Jesus’ name to the Banjara people. The Banjara are the ancestors of the gypsies –  a vibrant, colorful, and eager people, earnest in their desire to hear from God (see picture above).

Because they are also a very spontaneous people, “going with the flow” was always in order. I was brought to a certain village to teach at a Bible conference on August 22. Several hundred people had gathered and I was introduced by my translator. Then he handed me a baby boy, perhaps a few weeks old! (In 40 years as a pastor in the States, no one has ever handed me their newborn son before the sermon!) My mind raced through my seminary training: What did the manual tell us to do when handed a “pre-sermon baby?” Thankfully, my translator informed me that the infant’s parents desired me to name their child and pray for him.

Now my mind really shifted into high gear – here’s what I was thinking: Rochelle and I took months to decide on names for our three children. They are expecting me to do this here, now, right on the spot? I don’t know any Banjari or Telegu names. Whatever name I give this boy is going to hang with him for life. Who knows, I might inadvertently name him the Banjari equivalent of “Sue.” This “boy named Sue” will probably curse me all his days!

I settled on a name about which I at least knew something and announced, “His name shall be David. David means ‘beloved.’ May he be especially loved by God for all of His days.” Then I led the people in prayer for little David. When I returned him to his parents, I pledged to consistently pray for him for the rest of my days.

Over the years, I have been faithful to my pledge and continue to pray for David Naik. My prayer card says, “Open his eyes to the knowledge that he is beloved by God. Open his heart to return that love.” I have also faithfully prayed that God would raise up a great champion for the cause of Christ among the Banjara and that David would be that champion. Although I have been back to India several times since, I have never again seen David. But I have prayed for him in faith that God sees him, is watching over him, and will answer my prayers. I am hopeful that I will someday meet David in heaven along with many Banjara who are the fruit of his service to the Lord.

Fast forward a few years to February, 2014. Although I live in Memphis, my sister (Wendy) and brother-in-law offered me the use of their summer home in Silverdale, Washington, for a writer’s retreat. I found the isolation helpful as I worked on a book on marriage. On one day, I wrote about praying for David Naik to illustrate how a couple can have impact on children other than their own. I stated, “David is not my son but I am praying for him as a son.” Recalling what happened in the village of Gurrapu, India, I thought, “I wonder if my prayers will really make a difference?”

A few days later, I attended Sunday services at “First Pres” in Tacoma with Wendy. I had last attended worship at First Pres over forty years earlier. It was fun to tour the building after the service, recognize a few faces, and see “how little had changed.” Wendy and I poked our heads into the kitchen. I introduced myself to a couple who were cleaning up from “the coffee hour” by saying, “Hi! I’m Jim Fleming.” When the woman heard my name, she said, “I prayed for you last week!” Yes, you heard her correctly! She said, “I prayed for you last week!”

I about fell out and, of course, asked her to explain. She told me that awhile back, she had been charged with cleaning up in the nursery area. She had removed the pictures of each class hanging on the walls, including my old “class of ’54!” She had toyed with the idea of simply throwing the pictures away, but hesitated, thinking something like this: “I can’t just throw these faces in the trash. These are people. I remember ‘Jim Fleming,’ too. He is probably alive somewhere, doing something. I’m going to use these pictures to pray for these people.” So, that’s how it happened that she had been praying for me a few days before I showed up 2,000 miles from my Memphis home, at a church I had last attended 40 years before, where the two of us “happened” to meet on this particular Sunday. The woman from First Pres who was praying for me probably did not know that my full name is David James Fleming. So it turns out that she, too, had been praying for a David.

I cannot prove this a miracle since such a chance encounter is statistically possible. But the odds are so impossibly small and the timing so profound, I find it far more plausible that the God of the details orchestrated such a moment. Exactly as I was wondering about the efficacy of my prayers for a child whom I will probably never see again, God connected the dots. He allowed me to learn how someone had been praying for me, even though separated by considerable time and great distance.

It was hard not to think I heard God chuckling as He whispered, “Just as I have done for you, David Fleming, so I will do for David Naik. Keep praying for him to become my Banjara champion. Years from now, if not in eternity, I will connect the dots and reveal the fruit of those prayers.”

Comments

[Grace]

Yesterday, Ezra (5) used a red pen to connect the dots of a complex dot-to-dot. When she failed to choose the correctly numbered route, the picture became obscure. She dropped the pen, marched over to me and announced, "I'm going back to my mother in Ethiopia!" I hugged her and answered, "I am your mother, Zenash is your birthmother and she loves you and wants you here. Some day we'll go back to visit, but for now we'll remember that dot-to-dots are better when done in pencil!" God is good to cover every dot-to-dot in "100% truth and 100% grace" as Jim Fleming says...yes, thousands of miles apart, covered in prayer, sons and daughters, mothers and birthmothers...children of God connected. There is no obscurity in His connected Kingdom. It is the daily lesson in our house. Thank you for this!