MAYANK AGARWAL RANJI TRIPLE HUNDRED JIBE BY AN AUSSIE COMMENTATOR IN THE MELBOURNE TEST 2018 & IGNORING THE NAYSAYERS TO DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO / Duke Jeyaraj

India beat Australia in the Melbourne Test (Dec 26-30. 2018) to go 2-1 in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. One of the hot stories of this gripping test match revolved around what Australian commentator had said. Sidharth Monga wrote about that story this way: ‘On day one of the Test, O’Keeffe ran down debutant Mayank Agarwal’s Ranji Trophy triple-century, saying it must have come against the “‘Jalandhar Railways Canteen Staff”’. 27-year old Mayank’s reply did not come with his mouth. It came from his bat: On a difficult pitch, he returned with the scores of 76 in the first innings and 42 in the second innings to become the highest total scorer of runs in that Test. Not a bad achievement for a Test Debutant in a Test Match that featured Kohli, Pujara and Rahane.
Have people passed rasping remarks about you? You may have heard these heart-scorching words: “You are good for nothing!”/”Have you looked at your face?”/”You are absolutely a misfit here!” – so on and so forth! It happened to one of the leaders the Bible mentions. When Nehemiah led a team in rebuilding the broken walls of Jerusalem, this was what he was told by the local leaders: “What they are building–even a fox climbing up on it would break down their wall of stones” (Neh. 4:3)! If they had said, “If an elephant walks on the walls they rebuilt, it will fall” the remark may have been palatable. But they swapped “fox” for an “elephant” with a goal to stop the work of Nehemiah’s team! How did Nehemiah’s team react? Instead of talking back to those ‘sledgers’ (to use a cricket term), they sent up, prayers! The next verse, Nehemiah 4:4, goes this way: “Hear us, O God, for we are despised. Turn their scorn back upon their own heads, and let them be taken as plunder to a land of captivity. Do not cover up their iniquity or let their sin be blotted out from Your sight, for they have provoked the builders.” And thereafter returned back to their work of wall-rebuilding which was completed (Neh. 4:6; 6:1).
When you hear discouraging dialogues that involve you, you don’t have to retaliate using your mouth. Go to God in prayer. Speak frankly to Him. That will lighten your heart and strengthen you to complete what He has called you to do! It did so for Nehemiah! I did so for me.
A Christian Leader told me in 2005 when I resigned my job with his organization: “You will never make it in the ministry, Duke!” I did not respond back. I did not retort. I came home. I prayed. I fought back the tears kneeling in God’s presence. I left the matter to the Lord and went back to do the work God had given me – the founding of Grabbing the Google Generation from Gehenna Mission. To start with – then – in 2005, I was led to work in a call center. I took that step (though there was criticism for that too). I used the extra money I made then to start The Days of Your Youth magazine. Of course even then, God stirred the hearts of people – all Indian friends – to give and I didn’t have to use a single rupee of mine to do His work! That was the story of the start of G4 Mission…. In 2008, I quit my HSBC job. These last 10 years of doing fulltime work with the ministry we started have been very fulfilling for both Evan and I. We ignored the naysayers. We prayed. We got busy doing what God wanted us to do! You too can!
(Duke Jeyaraj is the founder of Grabbing the Google Generation from Gehenna Mission. Find out more at http://www.dukev.org)