Not So Arrogant

More thankfulness than arrogance in favorable conditions and more encouragement than desperation in unfavorable conditions.

By Dong Liang-jie

All deceitful

It was over ten years ago when I was first exposed to the Bible. It was 1988 when I first came to Beijing for further education. Due to the necessity of collecting background information of Western history of philosophy, I spent eight dollars for a copy of the Bible at a church in Beijing. It was a fine book with elegant paper quality, printing and binding. I felt funny, though, when I saw believers carrying their Bibles with excessive respect. I said to myself: "It is just a book. What does it have to be so respectable about?"

I quickly finished the book. Except for Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs and Proverbs, the whole book seemed to be full of nonsensical myths. As for the New Testament, I agreed that Jesus was a great person but I believed he also left behind a lot of rigid and stupid doctrines. I also had a strong negative attitude against churches because of the difficulties modern philosophers had to deal with when they faced the Religious Judgment Institute of the Middle Ages.

It was a summer evening in 1999 when I was first exposed to the Gospel. I went to pick up my wife and her classmate Lilly, who worked on their homework at school till one in the morning. I was surprised to see them in high spirit talking about religious belief despite the late hours. Lilly was a warm-hearted Christian and she wanted to seize the opportunity to preach to me. "Fanatic!" was my only answer to her.

The following Sunday, Lilly grabbed my wife to church. Whether it was female sentimentality or some supernatural force, my wife was greatly touched by the evangelic event. She even walked to the front and devoted herself to Christ. She didn't tell me this till much later because she knew I would have mocked her. Later on, she wanted to go to church again. I said: "What for? It is all deceitful anyway." My wife replied: "At least our son can find a lot of friends there." I couldn't say anything against that. So I drove them there.

Disguise wickedness with holiness

So I would go to the hills behind the church to read or listen to music while my wife attended the Sunday service at church. When the Sunday service was over, I would go to pick them up. If I went too early, I would go inside to hear the sermon. As the pastor was talking on the stage, I would laugh at him inside me: "Why so much talk? The Bible has been preached for hundreds of years. What's new?"

Later I went to the Fellowship gatherings too. To tell you the truth, I wasn't so much in for Bible study but to bring my son there because my wife had gone to Japan for practical training. I had to take care of my son and I had to find some activities for him to do and friends for him to make. At Bible study time, I wasn't humble at all. I often raised a lot of difficult and offending questions.

Gradually I changed. I began to realize I had a lot of prejudices against Christianity and these prejudices blocked my eyes. To name a couple: I held God responsible for all the sins church had committed in the past; I equated church's interpretation of the Bible to the truth of the Bible.

I came to realize that I couldn't really hold God responsible for all the sins that church had committed at the Middle Ages. The truth of the Bible had been distorted but the authority of the truth could not be altered. It was a common trick of sinners to disguise selfishness and wickedness with holiness. In contrast, the teachings of Jesus effectively anatomized human nature. Not only were his teachings never outdated, they were fresh for all ages.

Disasters hit

After a period of repeated meditations, I decided to accept the Lord with joy in October of 2000. My following two weeks were filled with peace and joy. They didn't last long, though. Disasters began to hit me one after another. Once again I fell back into confusion.

One evening just before the holidays in December, my son fell down on a piece of sharp iron at our door. The cut was right across his face and barely missed his eye. It was very scary. Then one week later, my son was yet to recover from the wound when I got a bad pain on the waist and I couldn't bend over. Then before I recovered, one of my eyes began to swell and my eyesight dropped from 1.2 down to 0.1. Medical exam failed to reveal any problem. The doctor only suggested that I would apply ice on it and I would go to a specialist if it got worse.

At that time I was not able to drive and I was not able to cook. Daily inconveniences did not bother me much as church brothers gave me a lot of help. But I began to complain in my heart: "I had never run into any of these problems before I accepted the Lord. So is it because of my belief that these disasters hit?"

One of my friends joked: "A new believer usually receives a lot of blessings. But why are you so unlucky?" I couldn't help reconsider the whole thing just a few days before the Christmas baptizing ceremony. I finally came to this conclusion: the God I believe is the God of justice and kindness. He is not like the evil spirits in Chinese mythologies who specialize in bringing disasters to people. So I decided to receive baptism on Christmas regardless of any interference. I would not turn back!

A lot of people witnessed my baptism on Christmas Day when I wore a pair of sunglasses and knelt down with difficulty because of my waist. It was a hot day. I felt both hot and tired thanks to a packed church and the thick vest I wore to protect my waist. Nevertheless, my waist was miraculously recovered the next day and so was my eye. On the third day, I was able to drive around the island with my friends.

I am a pretty rational person. And normally I am very unwilling to talk about miracles or wonders. Besides, I believe that religious faith cannot be based on miracles. With all that happened to me, one can easily come up with various interpretations. I myself, however, am very thankful because I believe God is especially graceful to me.

Not so arrogant

Following my baptism, my daily life is still full of difficulties. At the same time God also gives us plenty of grace. My faith brings me unprecedented confidence and peace toward life. I have more thankfulness than arrogance in favorable conditions and more encouragement than desperation in unfavorable conditions. In all circumstances, favorable or unfavorable, I always feel the peace God has given me. And this is so precious that no materialistic abundance can overshadow.

Before I accepted the Lord, I was a solitary individual. I might look like a gentleman, but my inner self was full of despair and cynicism. It is hard to imagine but I almost never had a good friend in the year I spent in Hawaii and I always treated myself as a passing visitor no matter what I did. I never bothered to converse with anyone. I never took anything or anyone seriously. I completely shut myself in the heart.

It is the Holy Spirit that opens up my heart so that I now have so many friends. My life becomes refreshed too because I happily place myself as part of the church congregation. During the Chinese New Year celebration, I even went up to the church stage and performed - something I had always thought to be ridiculous.

Whenever I think of my experience with the Lord, I feel this is spiritually the richest period of my life. Even though we are all visitors of this world, we would still have missed a lot if we had not realized the revelation of God.

The author was a journalist and he earned a Master's degree from Beijing People's University. Now he is in the graduate school of University of Hawaii.