Winter (2007-2008)
One month before my university started I converted to Christianity. Why? I guess you could say my scientific and skeptical mind could no longer take it. Maybe I would try this Christianity out again, for real. If it isn't real, then I would have lost nothing. After all, one of the best ways to find out something isn't true is to test it out for myself.
And I remember that warm night in Singapore, no one (other than God) heard me utter a sincere conversion prayer. To be honest, I was quite disappointed that there was no applause, no thunder or no warm assurance that God did hear me. Was it too much to ask for pink lightning to flash across the sky, I pondered.
The story could end here, but I was not finished. I only had a juvenile understanding of God, but I still needed to understand Him more, and whether the Christian understanding of the world held water. So I read books like Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and The Reason for God by Timothy Keller.
But life did not get better after accepting Christ. I had a long intelluctual struggle (embarassingly, lasting over a year) with creationism and intelligent design, fell out with a Christian brother over a Singapore Society issue and relationship problems. And at times I wondered if God really cared about me. It was a chilling winter of personal struggles for me, one that rivalled my dark depression during the army.
But as I studied the Bible (and related texts, including the anti-Christian ones), I realised I could not honestly say Jesus was not God , did not exist or did not rise from the dead. The evidence for me was too overwhelming.But evidence could only bring me thus far. I had to commit. Who was Jesus? In the Apostle Peter's own worlds, I also said He was Christ (Mark 8).
And despite the hostile winter to me conversion, I stand, unashamed to say that I am Christian. But my journey in understanding God is not over. Like a relationship, it is still an ongoing journey. And I'm still travelling.
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