Growing up in the Church I didn't care much about what was being taught as you would expect of a child. It wasn't until I reached the late teens that I started to think about the difficult questions in life and spirituality.
Questions and Internal Strife
When I turned twenty I wrestled hard and stressed over a lot of life questions. One of the underlying thorns in my mind at the time that I had to get addressed was: "Is God actually Real? Like really real or is it fiction?
The immediate thought or word that came to mind when I finally admitted the issue to myself was this passage from the bible.
"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you", declares the Lord... (Jeremiah 29:13-14)
This verse that I recalled from the book of Jeremiah became key to me in answering my innermost burning question. If what the bible says about God is true and God cannot lie, then if I actually do what this verse says wholeheartedly then this word must come to pass in reality, and if it doesn't then I can come to a decisive conclusion that God's not real.
Contemplating all my experiences at the end of that year I faced a major decision. How was I am going to view and interpret the experiences that I went through that entire year? Even when these experiences clearly happened as fact, am I going to view and interpret them as God's answer to me or am I going to view them with doubt and dismiss them as mere flukes, rationalizing them as some psychological human experiences.
As I thought about it, another story I've read about popped into my mind. It is a story of how two U.S soldiers were captured by Japanese soldiers during World War 2 and both were locked in isolation for the remainder of the war. At the end of the war, one of the U.S soldiers already died while the other came out more physically, mentally, and spiritually fit than he ever was. When a journalist interviewed the soldier on how he survived, he told the journalist that he believed God placed him there for a purpose and that was to prepare him for an even greater mission once he was freed.
My journey in seeking God that year had me go through the entire spectrum of human emotions. Like attaining anything of lasting value there was a price that I had to pay. I learned that if one values the truth, it is necessary to not just go with the flow and believe what any religious organization tells you on one end or on the other end listen to what secular society and the culture tell you. One needs to make up one's own mind through honest and diligent personal search. As it is the most important journey in life that each one of us can make.
The immediate thought or word that came to mind when I finally admitted the issue to myself was this passage from the bible.
"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you", declares the Lord... (Jeremiah 29:13-14)
This verse that I recalled from the book of Jeremiah became key to me in answering my innermost burning question. If what the bible says about God is true and God cannot lie, then if I actually do what this verse says wholeheartedly then this word must come to pass in reality, and if it doesn't then I can come to a decisive conclusion that God's not real.
The Ultimatum
Coming to terms with my reasoning, I decided to give God an Ultimatum. I said, "God I will take you up on your word, and I will go all out in seeking you the best I possibly can for 1 year. If you can not show up in my life to be real within this 1 year then I'm going to conclude that you are just made up, not real, just a religious thing humans came up with and abandon the church, but if you do show up for real in my life than I will recommit myself to you." when I declared this ultimatum I wasn't expecting God to be a genie and to grant my every wish or to physically manifest in front of me. I was looking for what I call a "God experience", a real-life personal supernatural experience to validate his existence.
Every major character in the Bible had a God experience or a series of them. My reasoning is that if God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow as the Bible claims then the supernatural feats that God has done in the past written in the Bible should still be possible for me to experience in some form even today if I wholeheartedly seek him.
My Pilgrimage
After making my ultimatum to God I immediately put my complete attention into seeking after God, every single day for one year. I sought God in books, videos, and ancient scriptures, praying and meditating for hours (as God is a spirit according to the book of John) every day, going and inquiring at different places of worship, fasting meals, and going on solo walks early morning and at times late at night. I honestly did everything I could think of in terms of what I understood "seeking" to mean and to the best I could that entire year.
For the first few months, I didn't notice any real changes around me as I did this. However, as time went on a number of unusual occurrences started happening in my life. To name a couple: I would end up in the UK sometime that year by myself and meet someone who was diagnosed with lung cancer during her university years who told me how she got cured of the disease after a preacher called her out and declared that God was going to do a miracle on her. The next time she did a CT scan, the cancer was gone. I would also meet a missionary in the UK who shared with me how he was a devout Muslim that witnessed the physical manifestation of Jesus and how Jesus had saved him and called him to be a missionary. I would also witness spiritual healing up close, where a woman who had severe back problems due to a car crash a couple years ago was healed after being prayed for on the spot. These were just some of the unnatural experiences among many I experienced that year.
Human Nature
One particular phenomenon I noticed after witnessing these experiences that year is that over time doubt would re-creep back up within a part of my mind and I would re-question in my mind the experiences I previously had especially when I would go through tough stretches in my life.
After making my ultimatum to God I immediately put my complete attention into seeking after God, every single day for one year. I sought God in books, videos, and ancient scriptures, praying and meditating for hours (as God is a spirit according to the book of John) every day, going and inquiring at different places of worship, fasting meals, and going on solo walks early morning and at times late at night. I honestly did everything I could think of in terms of what I understood "seeking" to mean and to the best I could that entire year.
For the first few months, I didn't notice any real changes around me as I did this. However, as time went on a number of unusual occurrences started happening in my life. To name a couple: I would end up in the UK sometime that year by myself and meet someone who was diagnosed with lung cancer during her university years who told me how she got cured of the disease after a preacher called her out and declared that God was going to do a miracle on her. The next time she did a CT scan, the cancer was gone. I would also meet a missionary in the UK who shared with me how he was a devout Muslim that witnessed the physical manifestation of Jesus and how Jesus had saved him and called him to be a missionary. I would also witness spiritual healing up close, where a woman who had severe back problems due to a car crash a couple years ago was healed after being prayed for on the spot. These were just some of the unnatural experiences among many I experienced that year.
Human Nature
One particular phenomenon I noticed after witnessing these experiences that year is that over time doubt would re-creep back up within a part of my mind and I would re-question in my mind the experiences I previously had especially when I would go through tough stretches in my life.
As I was pondering on why doubt starts to creep into my mind over time, a story from the book of Matthew came to mind. It is the story where Jesus walks on water in the middle of a lake toward his disciples who were on a boat.
In the story, Peter wanted to validate if it really was Jesus walking on water by asking Jesus for permission to be able to come to him by walking on water as well. Jesus told him to come, so he stepped out of the boat and walked a number of steps on the water towards Jesus with no issues. However, when he noticed the heavy winds, fear, and doubt entered his mind and he began to sink.
As I recounted that story, I thought it was bizarre that Peter who had already stepped outside the boat, onto a lake and walked more than a number of steps on the water already, along with seeing Jesus in the flesh standing on water with him not far off would start to doubt just from some winds.
Reflecting back on my own doubts and from human behavior that I've observed in contrast with this story about Peter, it appears human beings seem to naturally drift towards doubt and disbelief and that we naturally always try to rationalize anything extraordinary or supernatural.
Contemplating all my experiences at the end of that year I faced a major decision. How was I am going to view and interpret the experiences that I went through that entire year? Even when these experiences clearly happened as fact, am I going to view and interpret them as God's answer to me or am I going to view them with doubt and dismiss them as mere flukes, rationalizing them as some psychological human experiences.
As I thought about it, another story I've read about popped into my mind. It is a story of how two U.S soldiers were captured by Japanese soldiers during World War 2 and both were locked in isolation for the remainder of the war. At the end of the war, one of the U.S soldiers already died while the other came out more physically, mentally, and spiritually fit than he ever was. When a journalist interviewed the soldier on how he survived, he told the journalist that he believed God placed him there for a purpose and that was to prepare him for an even greater mission once he was freed.
Having gone through what I went through that year and seeing the things I've witnessed you would think it would be a no-brainer on the decision I would make. However, the Bible details many occasions where Jesus performed miracles in front of people and they later doubted him including his disciples. I never understood why that was before, but having gone through something similar myself I now did. What I discovered is that due to our natural human tendency to lean towards doubt, no matter how many miracles one witnesses or God experiences one has one needs to still make a choice on faith. Therefore at the end of that year despite what was going on in my head or how I was feeling I made the decision to choose faith.
My Conclusion
My journey in seeking God that year had me go through the entire spectrum of human emotions. Like attaining anything of lasting value there was a price that I had to pay. I learned that if one values the truth, it is necessary to not just go with the flow and believe what any religious organization tells you on one end or on the other end listen to what secular society and the culture tell you. One needs to make up one's own mind through honest and diligent personal search. As it is the most important journey in life that each one of us can make.
"The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead.”
Act 17:24-31
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