Our Korean Catholic church has asked its members to write about their personal faith and will later publish a book of it. I submitted the following:
G.K. Chesterton once said, “Truth is sacred; and if you tell the truth too often nobody will believe it.” I offer these words as an apologia for my faith, not an apology for it, for I know the author and finisher of my faith.
Since elementary school, I had been looking for the kind of behavior people ought to practice like fair play, decency or morality. I went about carrying Diogenes’ lamp (if you will) searching for an honest human being. I was at an impasse.
Finally, college bound, I began to pursue something good using the wrong method, making no progress. The problem was that I had failed to practice the kind of behavior I expected from other people. It gnawed at me. I no longer had the strength or power to change, no better than an animal looking to unlearn its instincts. My self-conceit and self-will, which should have pushed me to change, also made me unable to do it. What was I to do? Needless to say, a deep depression set in, a great confusion. Why was I the way I was?
An elementary Sunday school teacher in Munich, Germany had once told to me, “Just ask Jesus to come into your heart, and He will.” Of course, in my inane exhaustive search for truth, if any similar simplicity had occurred to me before, it was summarily dismissed as ludicrous. One fine day in my 27th year, I sincerely spoke the words and was caught up in the “third heaven.” In one moment, I felt God put a bit of Himself in me, a voice speaking to my mind, “Come now, let us reason together: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”
When people ask me about religion, that is, what I believe in. I keep it simple and tell them “I believe Jesus is who He said He was.” I have that conviction by faith. And, when I’m asked what faith is, I quote the Bible book Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” I then ask, “Can you see the fact in this statement?” There is much in this world that we cannot see, yet there is evidence of its existence. For example, in organic chemistry, I cannot see how a particular electron goes to join the atom of another molecule, but I know it must do so to form a viable yield.
I announce that I am now a Catholic Christian. If one is a Christian, one doesn’t have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong through and through. We are free to think that all religions have in them at least some hint or trace of truth. I find that no matter what you are for or what you are against, you will find 50 million people opposing you, and perhaps, another 50 million people agreeing with you. We know the good that the Catholic Church has done and continues to do.
I have written in few words with plainness of speech. However, I know with certainty whom I have believed and I shall hold fast to the profession of my faith. Furthermore, I will attempt to go farther than the farthest. God will have all there is of me.
The author ([email protected]) published the novella “Beyond Harvard” and teaches English as a second language.
Source: Korea Times News
