I was born and raised in Canada as a Roman Catholic. At the age of nineteen I left the Catholic Church as I surmised that all outward religious rituals along with the pictures and statues that I venerated amounted to nothing and was meaningless to God. I reasoned, “Why does the great creator God need us to light candles and to pray towards statues and pictures on the wall?” To be frank, the only reason I would go to Catholic mass was because I was taught that if I miss mass and died, that would be a mortal sin and that would cause me to be sent to hell, a place where I did not want to go. Also, having observed much hypocrisy with the congregation and the priests, I felt everyone and everything was very common and not holy at all. Thus, I reasoned that God would not send me to hell because I do not make the sign of the cross and light candles. I left also because I did not want to be restricted. I wanted freedom. I wanted to see the world and discover things. I wanted to find the meaning to my own life.
Then from the age of nineteen to twenty seven I lived a life in my newfound freedom. I adapted a philosophy which basically states: ‘there is no such thing as good and bad; there is only experience – don’t try to harm people but try any experience once and if you like it do it again’. I wanted to find the meaning of my life in this way. But, this new philosophy and quest for meaning brought in a living that went astray and fell slowly into a kind of darkness. I had traveled to East Malaysia as a CUSO (Canadian University Services Overseas) volunteer and worked as a teacher in a high school. I thought that being a teacher, giving myself to a worthy cause would bring in the meaning to my human life. I tried to be an excellent teacher, to love the students – but the harder I tried to do good and be selfless, the more I found myself to be loose, unloving, self righteous and sinful. Outwardly many thought that I was a selfless person but inwardly I was a hypocrite, full of secret sinful desires and activity. By the age of twenty seven this ‘freedom’ philosophy had brought me to the edge of death and insanity. I lived in darkness, dabbling with other religions and philosophies, taking in substances and seeking enlightenment in them until finally I questioned my very sanity. I came under a tormenting sense of darkness, emptiness, depression and fear with a deep sense of guilt, condemnation and hopelessness. I desperately sought out the help of friends and finally the help of a psychiatrist. In my first meeting with him I immediately had the sinking sense deep within that neither this man nor any man could ever help me. The only way he could help would be to change the world and me. I was deeply convicted that I and the whole world was under a sentence of death and hopelessness beyond the rescue and help that any man could render.
Then, in the midst of my darkness the Light shined. The Lord Jesus appeared and caused me to realize that I was sinful and under God’s judgment. Someone had been praying for me. I was riding my motorcycle late one night when the Lord Jesus came to me and showed me that He died in my stead and that I only needed to receive Him. I opened up and barely said “OK Lord”. At that moment I received the forgiveness of sins and I knew that the living Jesus is the one reality, that He is the meaning to life – the peace, the joy, the happiness, and the love. He showed me that He is everything I need. Oh I was saved. How wonderful! Jesus came into me. He gave me the full assurance that I was saved and that I would be OK from then on. I was full of peace and joy. I told everyone. I even went back to the psychiatrist and told him that he was not needed because I had found God. Oh hallelujah! Jesus saved me from torment, from condemnation and guilt, from depression and fear. Not only so, He came into me. He enlivened me and filled me with Himself. I felt like flying. Oh “Jesus is real” I shouted to the passenger on my motorcycle. He too then believed. Jesus is wonderful and He can save everyone who opens to Him by calling “Lord Jesus”. He is a wonderful savior and He had become my life. Everything changed. I was born of God. I was a child of God.
Then after several months I seem to have come down from the clouds of joy and peace to realize that still within me there were problems related to my being – I could still sin and lose my temper. Though I loved God and read my bible, dropped all my sinful past, still I sensed the need for something more. I also was searching for a church, a place that I could call my spiritual home. I picked up the so called Pentecostal things – praying in tongues, laying my hands on the sick, casting out demons etc but the more I got into these things the more I sensed an emptiness within. I got confused and troubled within. Eventually I told the Lord that I didn’t want to follow Him anymore if this is all there is to the Christian life.
Then one day I came to a meeting unlike any meeting I had ever experienced. They had the joy and precious presence of the Lord that I had tasted and longed for again. It was really different. They cared for ‘experiencing the Lord’ and ‘enjoying the Lord’. They also had the real growth in the divine life. They were not centered on anything but the Lord Himself. I learned that the Lord is the Spirit within my spirit and that He wants to spread from my spirit into my soul and transform me. This was the truth that I needed. I began to experience the Lord by exercising my spirit by calling on His name and praying with His word. The meetings were full of light and truth and life. Oh I had found the deeper meaning to life. Now I know the process and the goal of the Christian life. I know now that I am properly running the race and not running in circles any more. Now, many years later I am still very joyful that I am in the Lord’s recovery of Christ as our life and the church as our living. I am being built up with other believers by meeting together in oneness with no other name except the name of Jesus and with no teaching except the teaching that God desires which will build up the Body of Christ, the church.
Praise the Lord.
RF
