Ravi Zacharias — Racial Division
The saying, "There is more to it than meets the eye" certainly applies to children affected by a congenital facial condition called "cleft palate." Beyond the obvious of a child's suffering socially because they look different than others their age are the physical problems they face because of cleft palate.
One is being able to feed themselves properly because of the lack of suction. Other challenges are high rates of middle ear infections that can cause hearing loss, which in turn can affect their ability to sound out words and learn to speak properly.
The encouraging fact about cleft palate is that children suffering with this condition can be totally healed through the skilled hands of a surgeon. The dramatic difference that can be seen in children who have had the surgery.
Well, you know it is fascinating and you're so right. This is part of the media game too. If the media can use that they will use it to advantage; they will go to form rather than substance and divide the nation. If you divide the nation you appeal to baser motives of hate and memory and all of that rather than the lure of the future, what is best and what guides us.
I come from a land that is terribly divided as well, in India; over 40 years now I've lived in the west. But if you go from the north to the south it is the same issue. One of the reasons many of them will leave those parts and come to America is because they think they will have a better chance and a better hope here. We've not given full credit to these parts of the world that do give a chance for people to succeed regardless of the color of their skin or the creed.
I have a friend in Russia, Christo Sarasin, he is a professor of theology. His wife Nancy is professor of Russian art, Harvard graduate Ph.D. She went to Russia to teach Russian art. Imagine that. And what she would do every morning on her way to work was sit in one of the Russian great art shops with an older man and just listen to him, have coffee with him every morning. Ask him questions, stories about the paintings.
One day as she was leaving he said, "Just a minute. I've never introduced you to my wife." And he goes over to the corner, looks up the stairs and asks his wife to come down. And he said to her, "I want you to come and meet this American woman with a Russian soul." I want you to meet this American woman with a Russian soul.
It is not what we look like that will ultimately win people. It is the soulishness that we truly convey to people. That is the imperative I have in this land for what it has given to me, the opportunity to honor my calling and to raise my family and to find peace and opportunity.
You'll never find a perfect nation anywhere but it is up to the church to where the soul that communicates to the other person and let them know our love for them is not superficial, it is not pragmatic, it is not utilitarian. It comes genuinely out of a love for God's creation.
I deeply appreciate what you're saying. The more messages our people hear in our churches that my identity is not in my color nor in my degrees, nor for that matter in my denomination or whatever, but my identity is in the essential worth that God has given to me and the privilege of a reflective splendor.
We are not reflecting the splendor of our race, we are reflecting the splendor of the living God. And the more preachers stand and teach the people, don't look upon yourself from the exterior; let your exterior be so contoured by the interior. And my brother, if more pastors like you would do that then the reverse racism today would not be there. We need to see ourselves as children of God.
I don't see myself as an Indian anymore. I see myself as a child of God who happened to be given the privilege of a birth in an Indian skin. And I'm a Son of God first and foremost, just happens to be that he gave me the medium brown complexion to go about and do it