Zamir Dhale, attends our church, but he is blind, deaf and mute! Just imagine his life! There are some of his friends who accompany him. However, they are only deaf and mute. We convey to them using the ‘Sign’ language! But it is very difficult to communicate to Zamir! Most people cannot and don’t. He completely relies on touch! However, it’s remarkable that despite his handicap, he has fought his way up to become an advocacy officer for an NGO, and he fights for the rights of the handicapped! He travels extensively across the nation and has received awards and accolades for his die-hard commitment and spirit. More incredible is that fact that he uses a laptop very comfortably and even accesses the internet (all these using Braille accessories)! He is the one who trained Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee for the movie ‘Black’! Not surprisingly however, he ascribes all of his achievements and success to Jesus Christ!
For Zamir, touch is everything! Not so much for us perhaps! We rely a lot on our other faculties too and touch doesn’t figure as top on the list as it does for Zamir! However, touch is very important for us, perhaps more than we think! Let me reason how!
Touch alone makes success and achievement meaningful!
Think about anything we have aspired to acquire or have! Did the sense of having got it descend until we actually had it in our own hands! Be it a bike or a mobile phone, we hadn’t got it until we had it in our hands! Think about someone famous having visited our city. If we got an opportunity to shake hands with that person and interact, would it not get inscribed into our memories for life! This inscription will be quite unlike the memory left behind minus touch! Think about a wedding. How we often endure all that happens in a ceremony just looking forward to that time when the couple will officially touch each other for the first time and take their vows! The congregation doesn’t mind standing up for it, and it gasps with earnest hope and wishes for the couple, as they don’t just behold each other any more, they hold each other too! It’s not a wedding without - the touch! Touch completes the process and takes any pursuit to its logical consequence. It completes the meaning. Without touch, we may have got it, but it doesn’t sink in! We go through our exams and pass it too, but holding the mark sheet or the degree certificate is another feeling altogether!
Touch also drives everything towards its purpose!
Think about anything that we humans have made. It responds to our touch. It may respond to other triggers, but touch is integral and vital to make that thing purposeful. Be it machines, instruments, equipments, gadgets etc. Without touch, they remain idle. Without touch, it takes the course of entropy and progresses towards ruin. But it’s almost as if, even inanimate things understand touch. Think of a house or a gadget unused for a long period of time! Doesn’t it delapidate? It does. Touch has something about it which we still don’t fully appreciate!
Looking at touch from the above perspective, I cannot but also derive and conclude about a God who almost desperately desires to touch us! We are his image and likeness and if touch is as important as it seems, I am sure, it’s a projection of God’s own characteristic. I mean, If He is out to get us, I am also sure, He doesn’t think He has got us, until He has touched us! No one can claim to belong to God without having been touched by Him!
So here we get an understanding of God, who really wants to touch us, more than we desire and want Him to touch us. But when God touches, life will shake up! If a maestro were to touch a piece of art, however worthless, his touch would lead it to become a masterpiece, but not before the entire original theme and design has changed! God is desperate to touch us, but are we ready for it. His first ever touch will remove your leprosy! Yes, spiritual leprosy. God doesn’t touch for the sake of touching. He touches to transform. He cannot tolerate sin, and His touch will shake one up away from his sinful and vain living.
Sadly we still consider His touch only as a hair-raising experience! When He takes charge as a maestro, He will break, melt and mold! He will cut and prune. He will change us to walk on the narrow way and enter through the narrow gate. He will change is to run a race without entanglements and fight a good fight with weapons that are not carnal but mighty through Him! Are we ready for it? We need to be. There is no option!
And oh! How I need His touch to be driven towards my purpose!
