My Spiritual Journey

It seems that God does not want to disappoint those who seriously think about life and explore the truth of God.

By Tan Qi

I read a book called Biblical Stories in the early 80s in China. I read the book because I wanted to know something about the book that plays an important role in Western society. I read it because I wanted to accumulate conversational subjects with my classmates or friends. But I never thought much about Biblical figures or Biblical events, and I treated them all as legends. In fact, I never took God's creation seriously because I had been brainwashed with atheism, materialism and evolutionism since childhood. I was determined to listen to the Party and fight for communism throughout my life. I respected my parents, elders, teachers and various levels of Party leaders and propaganda media. Their teachings had planted red seeds in my young heart.

Individualism is noble

Following the June 4^th event in 1989, I became skeptical about what I had heard and believed. So I turned to individualism.

This new "belief" originated from my past experience. In the early days, I didn't believe I was a smart kid, but I did believe that talent came from hard working. So I set a clear goal for myself. I seized every moment to study hard. My high school teacher called me a bookworm. Because of this, I was a straight A student from grade school through graduate school. I had good reputation in all the schools I attended.

So I enjoyed a glorious past. I went to college at 16 and I was selected to go to Italy for further education at 22. At 26, I got my Ph.D. degree in physics. At 28, I became an associate professor in China Science and Technology University. I won a lot of awards in research and teaching, including a grand prize from China Science Institute. I compiled textbooks; I received a grant from Germany as a senior visiting scholar; I came to America as a visiting scholar from China Science Institute. All the achievements and all the glories only intensified my desire for individualism.

Setback and success in America

I came to America in 1994 and I ran into a lot of setbacks and tests. In the night before I set out as planned, I received a fax informing me that the professor who invited me to America was not able to entertain my visit any more because he just got laid off. When I boarded the airplane, I did not have the dreams or excitement like everybody else. Instead I had fear and hopelessness. Flying in the sea of cloud, where was my landing place? For the first time in my life, I felt my inability to control my fate. One month later, I finally settled down as a visiting scholar in the material research lab in Illinois University. Once again I was determined to fight with my own might.

I encountered at least three challenges: to obtain a visa extension with a new research topic, to change my J-1 visa, and to obtain a research grant for a living. None of these was easy to accomplish and I had to pay for each one of them dearly. I had to change my research focus from physics to material. In the lab, I had to take care of everything myself: material preparation, microanalysis, testing and reporting. And I had to make significant achievement within a year in order to obtain permission for visa extension and research grant. I did it! But I also got chronic fatigue syndrome.

My first year of experience made me feel the limitation of my individual strength. And yet I wanted to challenge myself, tired as I was. I wanted to obtain an American Ph.D. degree to prove my ability. So I studied hard in my spare time. I passed the TOEFL and GRE tests and in a short time I was enrolled in graduate school. I could not go to school because of visa problems. So I drove to Canada three times and tried to obtain a student visa from American Consuls in three different cities. All three rejected my application. You can imagine my disappointment when I drove over ten hours on my way back. It was a torture!

I looked into the sky and asked why I couldn't even control my own fate. I cursed the American immigration officers! But no, I still didn't give up. And I never did. 1995 was the year when Canada opened up its immigration policy to receive a large amount of technology immigrants. So I emptied my pocket to come up with just enough application fees and attorney fees to start the application process. Very soon, I successfully landed in Canada as a permanent resident.

It was no challenge to obtain a Canadian green card. The real challenge was to get an American green card. Ambitious as I was, difficulty remained. At that time I was still a government-sponsored scholar who was obligated to return to my home school to work for a minimum of two years. They just granted me permission to defer returning for one year. How could I ask for exemption for the two-year service? In order to meet my ambitious goal, however, I went ahead and submitted my resignation to China Science and Technology University. I also had to pay almost ten thousand US dollars to them to cover various costs. I didn't have a lot of savings at that time. Whatever money I had came from the hard tips my wife earned from her labor in restaurants.

I finally obtained the exemption from China. Then 18 months later I officially became an F-1 student. In 1998, two years after I became a student, a true US engineering Ph.D. degree certificate came into my possession, along with first priority permanent residency. I also found a job as a senior researcher with handsome income at a material company in the West. Although I was physically exhausted, I was able to achieve so much in four years and I felt really proud of myself.

Why he is joyous and I am not

Arrogance did not last long and I inexplicably fell into new emptiness. Successful as I was, what was the next goal? In those struggling days, I was invited to Sunday worship services in American churches. My heart didn't really go with me though. I went because I wanted to know about American lifestyle. The church member who invited me also entertained me with lunches, for which I was very appreciative. I quickly lost interest, but not until I noticed that a lot of American people at church lived a joyous life independent of their social status and financial income. They were happy and entertaining. In contrast, some of the Chinese folks, including some real successful ones, appeared depressed, anxious and sorrowful. Why?

The second opportunity came to me in the form of a family gathering. A graduate student brought me to an evangelic event run by a group of Chinese from Taiwan, Mainland and Hong Kong. They didn't have a church, nor did they go to church. They had Bible study and worship on weekends. I lost interest right away because I didn't like their meetings.

Then came the third opportunity after two American students invited me. They spoke excellent Chinese. They knocked at my door, said they were Bible study members and invited me to join them. At that time I was busy working on my dissertation. So I sent them away. I also threw away the pamphlets they left to me.

The fourth opportunity for me was in the student's cafeteria. Some of scholars and us Chinese students worked in American student's cafeteria. One day we were having lunch together, when some of the Christians began to talk about their religious belief. I didn't pay much attention to it. My point was very clear: stop talking about it if you cannot prove the truthfulness of God. I thought I had been deceived once before regarding belief. So I wouldn't want that to happen again.

So opportunities came and went. And I didn't seize any of them.

Human nature is hard to change, but not impossible

When I went to Washington State alone to work after graduation, my wife stayed in Illinois to take summer classes. It was at that time she accepted the Lord. When she told me why she accepted the Lord, I clearly felt her world outlook had greatly changed. And so did her measure of value and even characters. Witnessing her transforming integrity, I had to re-evaluate her belief. If I had any doubt about the credibility of other Christians' transformations, what would I have to doubt about when these transformations were taking place in the person I knew the best? It is said that it is harder to change human nature than to change Mother Nature. There were several aspects of her personality that I didn't like but I couldn't really do anything about. After she believed in the Lord, all these disappeared. Was there really a supernatural power?

Soon, my wife transferred to a school in Pullman, a city close to where I lived. She stayed in the dorm and I took care of our son. Our living environment changed. I used to live a busy and tense life, but now I only needed to work 8 hours a day. While it was easy to complete my job assignment on time, I found it hard to accustom myself to the slow rhythm. And so a sense of loneliness crept into my heart. Indeed, all my American dreams had been realized and I did not know what to go after next. Was this what life was all about? As for my wife, she joined a local Chinese church. She often talked to me about Christ over the phone and she talked about what she knew about the Lord and things in the church. I was not interested in all this and sometimes I even challenged her with a few questions. I said believers were either weak or ailing or they had other problems. But people like me were tough and determined; we were physically fit and we enjoyed high moral standard. So we didn't need God.

Four troublesome things

Then happened a series of events that prompted me to get serious about belief.

First, my mother who lived far away in China had been paralyzed for several years. She also suffered from diabetes, gastralgia, cholelithiasis and other problems. Every day she was depressed and she lost her faith in life. A couple of times she even wanted to kill herself to terminate her hopeless life. We were all very worried. Then one day my wife called her and comforted her. She told her that Jesus brought the Good News to mankind, especially to those who were poor and painful, who were humble and weak and who were thankful. She asked her to believe in the Lord so as to receive joy, peace and eternal life. My mother did not show much interest at first. Then in the next several weeks my wife constantly prayed for her and asked the Lord to deliver her. When she called again, my mother told her she had believed in Jesus, who had once again wakened up her faith in life. She said that she hadn't had enough about peace and joy from Christian belief and that the Lord Jesus had not permitted her to die yet. How astonished and how excited I was! Several thousand miles away, how could there be such a miracle? What had changed my mother?

Second, one night my son suddenly cried like crazy, saying his feet hurt. I asked where it hurt, and he didn't know exactly. I asked him to bear with it and he said he couldn't. I didn't think it would help to send him to the hospital in the middle of the night. Then I remembered my wife had said that it might be useful to pray. Running out of options, I tried to kneel down at my son's bed and, with my hands on his feet, I prayed to the Lord: "Oh Lord, if you really exist, please have mercy on this kid and remove pain from his feet." As I was praying, my son fell asleep. The next morning I asked if he still felt the pain. He said no. I sighed. Was it coincidence? Or was it the result of my prayer?

Third, once I was watching CNN and saw the renowned host Larry King interviewing a person who was able to communicate with spirits. This person could communicate with spirits of the deceased and he could see the spirits and their whereabouts. A lot of audience called in and asked him to tell them the current whereabouts of their deceased loved ones. And they all believed his descriptions and answers. I supposed it could not have been just a commercial trick to broadcast such dialogs between the living and the deceased in the golden hours presided by a renowned TV host. Perhaps souls really existed? Perhaps death was not the end after all? All this required re-examination. So I began to read a lot of books and magazines, hoping to gain knowledge about the spiritual world. (Now I know that Christians do not agree with this kind of Larry King's show. But at that time the show did cause an impact on me.)

Fourth, I often had a hard time sleeping, as I was pretty vulnerable while dealing with disturbance of daily chores or psychological state. When pressure came, my quality of sleep was often poor. Strangely, if I read the Bible before bedtime, I would always fall asleep quickly and the quality of my sleep would be much improved. Other books didn't do the trick. I supposed the Bible might be carrying some kind of power? (Now I believe the reason may well be that the Bible talks about Heavenly Kingdom, which enables us to transcend worldly sorrows and to purify our souls so that we can relax and reach spiritual peace.)

I begin to lose ground

Whenever the subject of God appeared in a conversation, I often adopted the policy of "no interest and no discussion". Now that I had the experience mentioned above, I started to participate in church activities during weekends along with my wife in a neighboring city. The friendly atmosphere and the warm environment left me a good impression about church, and I became willing to join their activities. Later on, I went to one of their summer retreats, from which I learned a lot and I was able to find answers to many of my questions.

My skeptical attitude toward Christian testimonies was changed. I believed it would not do them any good and it would be meaningless for them if their testimonies were false. So what they said had to be true stories. Even so, my biggest problem was to prove the existence of God. Without sufficient proof, it seemed impossible for me to believe in the Lord.

Then came another miracle. It seems that God does not want to disappoint those who seriously think about life and explore the truth of God. It was a day of early summer in 1999. I went to my wife as usual to spend my weekend. It was a fishing day in the State of Iowa. They placed a lot of fish in the lake and a lot of people went fishing by the lake. I also went along with a group of Chinese students. The whole morning went by and I didn't catch a single fish. Those who went with me had much better luck than I did. So I became very frustrated. I thought I was pretty good at fishing. I felt pretty bad that I caught nothing.

After I came home, I was still very upset. After lunch, I decided to skip the Bible study activity in the afternoon. I grabbed my son and went back to the lake. On our way there, I promised my son that I would catch some fish for sure, big ones too. I also asked my son to pray so that the Lord would help us. It seemed God was playing a trick on me. No matter what kind of bait I used or what kind of position I was in, I still did not catch a single fish when evening came. And once again other people caught a lot of fish. I became more frustrated than ever. I even threw away my old fishing rod.

On my way home, I complained a lot about my bad luck. I even denied God's existence and God's faith. I said: "I sincerely prayed to you, but why did you not listen?" The only explanation is that you never really exist, or else I could not have been so unlucky. I was driving toward west against sunset. As I continued to complain, I surprisingly saw two clear rainbows on either side of the sun like a pair of parentheses. I was very surprised to see this because it was a clear day. It was impossible to explain where these rainbows came from; not even physicists like myself could give a good explanation.

My son and I continued to talk about the rainbows. A few moments later, the rainbows were gone. It was not until we returned home that I realized that, according to Chapter 9 of Genesis, rainbows were symbols of the covenants between God and men. Perhaps God purposely displayed rainbows to me because of my doubt and denial. It seemed He declared to me that man would not always succeed without God's grace. In order to save my lost soul, the loving God revealed Himself to me. (Later I learned that this kind of revelation was not uncommon. According to Alister McGrath in his I Think and I believe, Constantine, the Roman king, had a similar experience before a crucial battle. He saw a cross emerging from the sun with the words Conquer with this on it.

Double standard

This experience made me think once again why I refused to believe until I had proof of God's existence. Wouldn't faith lose its meaning if I had to see to believe? Didn't I believe in the unproven evolutionism for over thirty years? Would all existence have to be scientifically proven? As a scientific researcher, I understood the limitation of science. There were a lot of natural phenomena that science failed to explain or reproduce. Besides, scientific research was limited to physical world and it was incapable of explaining the spiritual world, which scientific equipment simply could not get to.

Furthermore, our spatial imagination was so limited that we were not able to imagine the unlimited God. While I frequently accepted unproven theorems and quoted unproven statistics to support my own scientific findings, I insisted in finding proof for truth of God. Wasn't this double standard? Not fair at all! In fact, we often adopted the method of simulation in scientific research. Then through experiment, we observed the behavior and reasoning to prove the correctness of the simulation. Why wouldn't I use the same mechanism to accept God? I should accept the Lord first. Then I should check myself and other Christians to prove the existence of God.

On the other hand, what was wrong with a religious belief anyway? What did I have to lose? Maybe the belief could fill the emptiness of my heart so that I could have peace and avoid anxiety. In case God should really exist and our souls should never die and there should really be final judgments, who would want to wait for eternal condemnation? As we read in I John 5:13: "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." Therefore, to believe in Jesus was to receive free blessings. Maybe I should give it a try.

As I was going back and forth in my mind, my college physics professor came to me. He was an overseas scholar and an old-timer Christian. He had a theologian degree and became a pastor. I was very surprised at this. One day when he was preaching in Pullman, he called my name: "Tan Qi, I was your teacher. The God I preach is true God who loves us. I will not deceive you!" So finally I made the tough and yet joyful decision. In July 1999 I accepted the Lord! I realize this is only my first step from an unbeliever to a believer. From now on, I must continually pursue God's will in my heaven journey.

The author was a teacher in China Science and Technology University. He now works in a high-tech company in New Mexico.

This article was provided by a Chinese Christian church in America.