Almost thirty years ago, after defecting from a communist country, leaving behind everything I ever had (not so much in terms of the material possessions, but the relationships), I arrived in the United States as a political refugee in search of political liberty.
While living in the communist country, I was an unbeliever, but had not accepted the official communist teaching of materialism. An agnostic would be a fitting description of my worldview position. However, as an agnostic, my life had been miserable. In my experience, one cannot be truly an agnostic without experiencing swings from believing in the possibility of the Supreme Being, to the other means of filling the emptiness in the soul; and that was true of my life. The Lord, in His mercy, sent many Christians my way to witness to me of His goodness. However, I was too blinded by my desire for political liberty and could not understand the ultimate liberty from sin. Perhaps, the same way as the Hebrews, who were expecting the King, who would deliver them from political oppression of the Romans. For that reason, when the King arrived they were expecting political liberty and missed the point of being free from sin and could not understand the King of Salvation of the human soul from sin.
Despite living in a politically free society in the United States, I have experienced and have seen the futility of it all. On January 31, 1989, while I was traveling in my car in upstate New York, I listened to a tape with the text of Psalm 63. The song’s name is Better than Life, sung a cappella by a band named “Acappella.” Upon hearing words "Because your love is better than life," I experienced something comparable to a great internal explosion of fireworks of Love in my chest and body and my entire being. It had the same texture as being in love. As I wept, I knew that I did not have to look any further for the meaning of my life because a great burden had been lifted from my soul. I knew experientially that I was forgiven.
One could say that I have not come to believe or trust in some doctrine or system, but in the person of Jesus Christ. Simply, I have personally experienced the forgiveness of my sins. After I started to attend a church, I was introduced to the evangelical tradition. I have participated in many denominations and understand the Church as the eternal and invisible body of believers bonded together by the Holy Spirit. At the same time, there is also the visible part of the Church, which encompasses all those who adhere to the basic tenants of the Christian Creeds, whether they live by it or not.
Later, after my conversion, I was discipled by an Indian believer, an ordained priest, and eventually, after five years, went to study philosophy and religion at a Christian college. There, I experienced something of a fundamentalist interpretation of the believer's relationship to God, concentrating on keeping of the Law. I struggled with this because it did not match my personal experience. After graduating and moving to study more philosophy at a Christian graduate school, my relationship with God greatly improved, but more on an intellectual level. In my soul, I have longed for a deeper personal experience of God and have received that through study and the experience of spiritual formation. That practice had truly changed my spiritual life. My relationship with God has become much deeper than I could have ever envisioned.
