As a pastor’s son, someone raised with Christianity, I actually had a lot of experience and contact with the Christian faith. But I wasn’t able to understand its teachings or the grace of God’s plan through Jesus dying on the cross. I would often challenge the teachings of Christianity and would be disappointed when I couldn’t find a satisfactory answer according to my standards.
But as time passed, and I matured, I would slowly come to understand the depth and values of Christianity. But this was not enough, as I would often have a lot of uncertainties in my head due to us humans not being on the same level as God and therefore, I was not able to understand anywhere even remotely close to what God does. “Since God is so much greater than us humans, it should be ridiculously easy for Him to trick us, no?” and “Why does God even need us if He is a superior being beyond what we can comprehend?” Such thoughts and doubts prevented me from being able to worship God wholeheartedly and set me off on an impossible journey to find answers for all of God’s mysteries.
Of course, looking back, it was foolish and laughable of me to pursue after answers to everything about the religion. Since it is not possible to understand even everything on earth, how could there be such understanding when it comes to heaven? It was truly a shame that thoughts such as these held me back during my youth and prevented me from whole heartedly devoting myself to the study of the Bible studies and the sermons I heard. Therefore, as more time went by and I grew up, I realized that is why faith is required in religions. Since humans will never be able to understand God completely, from just how great God’s love is for us, to his plans for human salvation, we need faith and trust when dedicating our lives to God. To pursue answers to every single question in my head is but a fool’s journey.
I once heard from someone that people would not find the need nor have the desperation for religion until they recognize the lack of meaning and the futility of life without such a God and eternal life. I thought at the time that I still had a lot to live for in my life, such as earthly goals and riches that I needed to obtain. That is why it was so surprising when I came to realize how Christianity is the only way out of this hell of a world in this past year.
During quarantine, many things happened, both inside my life and outside. On one hand, I was able to take advantage of the extra time I had to spend with my family and develop a strong relationship with my parents - stronger than it’s ever been in my life. On the other hand, numerous events were occurring throughout the world, events that made me recognize just how dark and worthless this world really is. The so-called “good deeds” and efforts of “good” people pale in comparison to the evil of human nature and makes it hard to be hopeful for the future of humanity.
It didn’t take long for me to realize just how hopeless and weak we humans are and how corrupted the world is. It takes a lot of good deeds to make a change for the better but just a few bad deeds to change the world for the worse. Everything that human kind builds is temporary, and all turns to dust after death.
But there are still good things in the world, as well as love in the world that make me want to believe that we have a purpose in life, even with all these things happening. The keyword here, though, is that everything is temporary. The bonds I’ve built with my family will be broken and gone after death. This thought alone made me want to look more into God’s plan for salvation and his promise of eternal life. But I could’ve never have imagined how many things clicked inside me after all these years, when I finally turned my attention to the Lord.
I came to realize that us humans have a godly side at times, times when we show love to each other, and other things that I could call “good”. But that is where the problem comes: We rarely reflect God’s qualities. We are merely broken vessels that can only reflect the light of the Lord a small portion of the time, with the rest sinning and reflecting that of the sinner’s image. As a kid, I was quite the trouble maker, despite my Christian upbringing. Even though I was familiar enough with the Bible to recite the entirety of the book of James from memory and have a general idea of what is good as opposed to what is sinful, I didn’t live the verses out. Like most boys at the age of 10, I was a big fan of video games - addicted even. I remember the way my dad used to limit how much time I should spend on gaming and how he would utilize apps to track my screen time in order to keep me in check. Although I understood that my dad was doing this for my benefit in the long run, I often craved for more time to spend on video games. This is why I started to sneak in gaming time whenever my parents were out and would find a way to clear my recorded screen time afterwards. I would do whatever it took to satisfy my addiction, which included a variety of deceptive methods, from setting up a camera somewhere camouflaged in my room to record my dad inputting the passwords for various electronic devices, to lying over and over again whenever I’m close to getting caught. At times, I would be overwhelmed with guilt building up inside of me and eventually, confessed to my mom (not my dad,who in my memory was much scarier than my mom) about my mischievous deeds. My mom would then, under my instructions, change the passwords of whatever device I played games on to something entirely new, which I would crack again through my own shady methods when my addiction got the best of me again. My experience can be entirely summarized by Romans 7:18-19 in the Bible: “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” I would often cry out to God like the Apostle Paul did: “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” Relying on myself, I couldn’t even break through the smallest of addictions, much less bigger ones that I would have to face once I grew up. This was something that even my 10-year old self recognized at the time. This is exactly why I needed salvation, or rather, some outside force that is infinitely stronger than myself, who can rescue me from the grasp of sin.
When I realized this, it became a lot easier to understand Jesus’s act of dying on the cross in our place to cleanse our sins and how great God’s grace is through the gospel, leading us to eternal life through him. The world is already hopeless without God, human efforts will never be enough to save us from this hell.
During quarantine, my family and I made sure to spend time every night on Bible devotions and prayers, something that I was willing to participate in but did not realize how big of an impact it will have on us. I heard from many people during quarantine that it was extremely difficult to stay in the same house day after day with the same people, to the point that it even created conflict between family members. That should also have been the case for our family, since I knew how hot-tempered we all were and that there was no way we could endure months of being stuck in the same house with each other for days on end. But needless to say, the daily devotions and prayers turned out to be crucial for our family, as it exposed our inner weaknesses, both in faith and in spirit. One of the biggest conflicts I’ve always had with my father is his way of disciplining me, which tends to be through force and strict authority - something that I despised and often fought back against. But as a result of me opening up daily to my family through our devotions, what should’ve been constant pointless arguments and conflicts turned into God humbling all of us through the work of the Holy Spirit. This in turn led to me and my dad to recognize our own faults in all areas and reaching out to God for help. And God answered our prayers, as problems between my family and I that had existed for years began to resolve through our combined efforts.
What should’ve been an unbearable hell due to quarantine taught all of us to take a step back and humble our souls in the face of conflict, and that is the work of God. Knowing myself and my dad, we’re great sinners that should never have been able to make such progress alone, much less during quarantine without an outside force. That force was God and the work of the Holy Spirit, as He strengthened all of us one miracle at a time. The Word of God in the Bible was glaringly bright and burned through my heart, helping me understand the true value of His teachings. And for the first time, I’m experiencing His grace for myself, more than ever before.
I witnessed the work of the Holy Spirit through my family and the changes in my own heart, and that is something that I can believe in, something that is entirely thanks to God and not myself or those around me. I am but a sinner, an imperfect image of God. I need God in my life and His plan for salvation is the only thing that I can hold on to in order to pull me out of this fallen world. God will wipe our tears through granting us eternal life in heaven, where I can be with my family, and most importantly, God Himself forever. Jesus died for me, he died in my place, and all I have to do is to believe in him and dedicate my life to him. That is the greatest truth I’ve ever heard in my entire life, more beautiful than anything I could ever dream of.
I’m more than happy to go be baptized. I am willing to die with Christ on the cross, to be rid of my old self and embrace my new life in Jesus Christ. I am willing to accept God’s amazing grace for me and to follow him till my death. Baptism does not mean that I will not have struggles in my faith in the future but marks the new beginning for a new chapter in my life, where I devote my life to Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
