Does God exist? When I was very little, I thought He did, probably because I heard one of my classmates say that He is the only being that never dies, but as I grew up I became less and less inclined to believe that there was a God. The problem that I had with accepting the existence of God was that I had never seen Him nor what He did. Therefore, I had no reason to believe in God. In high school, I learned about the scientific method and decided that that was the only rational way to find truth. Since science could not address the existence of God, I did not think that it was worth investigating. Then, a few years ago, I came to MIT, I started seeing Christianity being shown more openly than I had seen it before. Then, I remembered something that my high school biology teacher said: science does not prove anything. I thought that since science could not prove anything, then it could not prove or disprove the existence of God. Instead of thinking, "There is no God," I started thinking, "It is possible that there is a God." However, I never made any serious effort to find out for myself.
During my first semester at MIT, I took a class called Ideas of the World Order: Religion and Science. Through that class, I had a chance to read parts of the Bible. However, when I read it, I read it as an outside observer, I did not feel that the Bible had anything to say to me. To me, the Bible was just a set of interesting stories. I read about various events that I thought could not happen such as the pillar of fire that guided the Israelites out of Egypt and the miracles that Jesus performed. I had never seen anything that amazing and I thought that it was highly unlikely that such events could possibly have taken place, so I continued to dismiss Christianity as a good moral philosophy but one that lacked a factual foundation.
In the middle of my sophomore year, my friend Andrew invited me to the MIT Chinese Bible Fellowship's (CBF) Investigative Bible Discussion (IBD). He explained to me that the purpose of the discussions was for Christians to find out what non-Christians thought the Bible said. He said, "We [Christians and non-Christians] may not agree whether the Bible is true, but at least we can agree on what it says." I was under no obligation to believe in the Bible so I agreed to attend IBD. Through IBD, I learned about the Gospel and what it means to Christians. Before IBD, I learned some bits and pieces about Christianity from what I had seen, heard, or read. I knew that, according to the Bible, Jesus came to earth to die in order to forgive people's sins, and I had heard of the resurrection, but I knew nothing about the significance of these events to Christians. I learned about the clean and the unclean.
He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him `unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man `unclean.'" (Mark 7:20-23, NIV).
The IBD leaders asked the question, "What is clean and what is unclean?" and the only sensible answer that I could think of was that only God is clean and that all humans arere unclean. From that, I realized why Christ had to come to this world. I also learned that the resurrection showed people that Jesus Christ was a living God. It would not be very reassuring to be worshiping a god that died and whose body still exists in material form. It would make more sense to worship a God that could overcome death.
As a result of attending IBD, I gained a better understanding of Christian beliefs, but I still did not see how it could apply to me. During the last IBD session, my friend Winnie, an IBD leader, shared some of her experiences with God which included answered prayers and being at peace with God. The testimony sounded great, but I could not relate to her experiences since I had no concept of the existence of God. The leaders explained that people are separated from God and that the only way to reach God was through the sacrifice of Jesus. They said that without accepting Jesus, the only destination for people was hell which they defined as simply separation from God. I did not know what it meant to be with God so the thought of being separated from God did not have a big impact on my conscience. However, I was sure that if there was a God, then I certainly would not want to go to hell.
The spring semester began, and within a week or two, Chris, another IBD leader, met with me over dinner to talk about my thoughts on Christianity. I explained to him that my position on Christianity was that it might be true, but I could not accept the miracles of Jesus as fact. Then he replied, "But anything is possible with God" (in reference to Mark 10:27). I still could not accept Christianity as fact because I doubted the existence of God.
I continued in unbelief throughout that semester. I was taking a normal academic load, but I mistakenly decided to take a class that I was not ready for. It's official title is Introductory Digital Systems Laboratory, but it is commonly called "Digital Death Lab." Throughout the first half of the semester, I was struggling to keep up with that class. The day before spring vacation began, I finally had to admit that I could no longer handle that class, so I dropped it. After I dropped that class, I had only three classes to worry about, and I had no problem with those classes, so I had a lot more free time than I had before, including time to find out more about Christianity even though that was not something I thought of doing. During a study break, I was talking with Andrew. I mentioned to him that although I dropped "Digital Death Lab," I planned to take it again and succeed. Then he asked, "What's the point?" I did not have a good answer to that. Later in the conversation, he asked, "What the point of this life?" Again, I had no answer. At the end of our conversation, he invited me to CBF. It was near the end of the semester, so I attended only two CBF meetings that semester.
That semester, I began to sense something. I started to notice that there was something that made Christians different from other people. I got the feeling that Christians were happier than most people I had seen. Before I met people in CBF, my impression of Christianity was people following a prescribed set of rules and participating in special rituals. However, that semester I realized that the Christians that I had been around were not just Christians who practiced a set of rules, but Christians who were truly happy to be Christians. I happened to be in a class with Winnie, and before lecture, we would always talk, and she was always happy to talk to me. I found her to be very good company even though at the time I was not a Christian. After I attended CBF meetings that semester, I decided that Christianity might be something worth looking into, so I started reading the Bible.
After the semester ended, I went home. While I was home, I visited a church that some of my parents' friends attended. At that time, my younger brother was going to church. My parents, although they are not Christians, decided to send him to church so that he could get to know some friends, so while I was home, I went to church with him. I met my brother's Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Wu. She was happy to know that I was seeking and after service, we talked so that she could know what I thought about Christianity. She asked me, "Did you know that you are a sinner?" I had to think about that for a minute. It was a hard question to think about, but I responded by acknowledging that I was not perfect and that I always tried to make up for my mistakes. Later in the conversation, she said, "He [Jesus] didn't just die for me. He died for you too." That conversation tingled my nerves. I had a very hard time believing that Jesus, who was walking on the earth 2000 years ago, would know about me now and would die for my sins. For the first time, I saw my myself as a sinner.
I spent the following summer at MIT doing some research in electrical engineering. When I started working, I did not know many people that were staying at MIT for the summer, so I thought that besides work, I would not have much to do. However, I was wrong. It turned out that Andrew was also working at MIT for the summer. Furthermore, we happened to be working on the same floor, and he invited me to eat lunch with his friends and through him I got to know some more Christians. These people invited me to church (i.e.: CBCBG) and Inter-Collegiate Fellowship (ICF). That summer I was able to get to know Christianity as I never had before. I gradually became certain that the Christians that I knew had something in them that showed that they had been changed by their faith in Jesus Christ.
One weekend, I went home, and Mrs. Wu took the opportunity to do a Bible study with me. One of the passages that we studied was the first three chapters of Genesis. After studying that passage, I understood why Jesus came to earth. I was unsure about the validity of creation, but I understood that man was sinful simply by observing the evils that took place everyday.
However, I still had a hard time seeing truth in Christianity, so Andrew lent me a book: Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell. He recommended that I read the section of the book on the resurrection. He called that part of the book the "exciting part." I decided to start from the beginning, but I realized that reading the book from cover to cover would take me a long time. Since the resurrection was the most amazing of Jesus's miracles, I decided that if I could believe that the resurrection occurred, then I could believe that Jesus was, in fact, God and that he did, indeed, perform the miracles that the Bible tells about; if the miracles took place, then the source that describes them is probably trustworthy. I skipped to the section of the book on the resurrection. I realized that there was no logical way to explain that the resurrection did not take place. The historical records and evidence supported that Jesus rose from the dead. As a result, I ran out of reasons to doubt Christianity. For about two weeks, although I accepted that the resurrection took place, I could not bring myself to accept Christ as Lord and Savior. I knew that accepting Christ was the logical and correct thing to do, but I, for some reason, could not, so I waited to see if God would give me a sign to show me that He is real.
About two weeks later, I decided that it would be foolish to wait for a sign when I already knew the truth, so on July 29, 1995, ~9:30 PM, knowing the facts, I chose to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. After accepting Christ, I did not feel any sudden change, but I knew that I had just made a decision for life. I gradually began telling my Christian friends about my decision, and for the next two weeks, it seemed as if my friends were celebrating. I also found myself celebrating. I could not explain it, but I was very happy to have gotten to know Jesus Christ just as the jailer had been when he came to believe in Him (Acts 16:34).
However, life as a Christian has not always been easy. I expected some difficulties, and God has taught me some hard lessons. I knew that one cannot base his faith on feeling. About a month or two after my conversion, the euphoric feeling died away, but I have still been able to hold to my faith because I got to know Jesus through the facts about Him. There have been many times when I have not felt like a Christian in the sense that I am not able to feel God's presence. However, I have never had reason to doubt God since I know some facts about Him.
Perhaps the hardest lesson I learned was to depend on God in everything that I do, even things that I think I can do myself. That includes academics. Until last semester, I always depended on my own strength while in my studies. I was fine academically while I did not know God, so I had never thought of depending on God while studying. One week, I was stuck with a heavy workload -- heavier than I had ever handled. Before, I thought that I would never have to ask God to help me with my studies, but that week, I had no choice but to admit to myself and God that there was no way that I could handle the workload with my own strength, so I confessed my need for God's strength and trusted Him to help me get through the week, and I did not have much trouble handling the workload for the rest of the week. It was hard for me to confess a need for God's strength, but through that experience, I learned that God is trustworthy and, therefore, I can trust Him with any of my concerns.
Since then, God has shown me more and more reasons to trust Him. For example, He has enabled me to talk to my parents about Christianity in Chinese when I previously thought that I would not be able to witness even in English. Because I have gotten to know God's faithfulness, I do not stress out as much as I used to.
I have not noticed many big changes in myself that resulted from my conversion, and I know that I still have a lot to learn about being a disciple of Jesus Christ, but I know that God will help me become a good witness for Him.