The early 20th century, Indian Christian missionary, Sadhu Sundar Singh once said:
“From my many years experience, I can unhesitatingly say that the cross bears those who bear the cross.”
He knew what he was talking about.
A former Sikh, Singh converted to Christ as he was nearing suicide, and was both a relentless missionary for him, and relentlessly persecuted and completely rejected by his family and culture.
Through it all, he kept his focus on one thing alone — the person of Jesus.
John Stott writes that Singh once visited a Hindu college and faced a hostile lecturer, who asked him what Christianity could possibly provide that his former Sikhism could not.
“I have Christ,” he replied.
“Yes I know…. But what particular principle or doctrine have you found that you did not have before?”
“The particular thing I have found is Christ.”
Singh was an ascetic, who was repulsed by the Christianity of the West — not for its doctrine, but the lifestyle of its practitioners.
“It is of course true that people who live in India worship idols; but here in England people worship themselves, and that is still worse.
Idol-worshipers seek the truth, but people over here, so far as I can see, seek pleasure and comfort.”
Though a frail 40 year old, Singh took a final missionary trip to Tibet in 1929, and was never seen again, dying somewhere in the Himalayas.
