April 18, 2013
2228
People today look around them and
formulate reasons why God does not exist — or rather why they refuse to believe
in Him, on a more personal level. When I
observe my surroundings, however, I cannot help but see reasons as to why I
must believe in His palpable existence.
I’m not sure where I should begin…
Perhaps I should begin at an early age.
Let us journey back into my post-toddler stage, 5-years-old in the
ghetto of Detroit, Michigan. It may be
difficult to imagine, but in 1995 it was still difficult for people to grasp
the diversity of being biracial, at least in the ghetto of Detroit, which was
my unfortunate predicament. It was a very
dangerous place for me to grow up.
Neither white nor black people accepted me because my father is white
and my mother half Puerto Rican and half black, making me a biracial anomaly;
so needless to say, my shortage of friends was not very substantial. From what I can remember, I can only recall
having one friend of whom I seldom saw.
So I was a very lonely child, in spite of my close connections I felt with
my older brother and my mother. (My
father worked a lot for the benefit of supporting the family, so I didn’t quite
have a connection with him, but I don’t blame him for it. In fact, I highly admire and respect him for
his hard work.) Anyway, what I recall
the most is getting beat up by a Caucasian 5th grader on the walk
home from school every day, as well as being called Hispanic and African racial
slurs. Mind you, I was a tiny
kindergartner (my small physique has been a curse for most of my life) compared
to this tall, much more menacing 5th grader, so I was completely
incapable of defending myself. However,
God was there for me even though I was oblivious to His presence. This was actually before I ever learnt of
God’s existence, and He was still there for me.
He assured that I was not harmed in any life-threatening ways, which
would’ve been very probable had He not been there. He was there for me because He has always had
an important plan for me ever since He created this earth. God eventually set my father up with a better
job in Pennsylvania in 1996, where we moved to for a year, then back to
Michigan in a safer area in the town of Canton in 1998. Then we moved to Canton’s neighbouring
community, Plymouth, in 2006. Throughout
twelve years of my life (1995-2007) I suffered through major depression, and it
was an insidious demon of the mind, growing worse and worse throughout
time. However, God was still there in
spite of my professed atheism during that time.
(Let me tell you: being atheist
in a Christian raised family is no easy task.
Although technically, I was agnostic because you cannot blame all your
problems on a Being that you claim doesn’t exist.)
At age sixteen my parents divorced,
and my depression and professed atheism sank even deeper. A year later in 2007 I somehow found the
fortitude to be saved through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the Messiah,
the Son of God. I have my father to
thank for that. Were it not for his
persistence in my attending church every Sunday, I would not have associated and
socialised with Christian peers and thus inspiring me to attend that year’s
Acquire the Fire (ATF) Battle Cry — an enormous Christian conference and
concerts for adolescents held annually in large cities around the country. This particular one was in Detroit during
March of 2007, and this is where I got saved.
The bands we got to see perform were P.O.D., Unhindered, Kutless, Hilsong
United, Superchick, Skillet, and other bands, including Philip Joel and Jeremy
Camp the following year. But it wasn’t
just concerts at this large event. A
famous pastor, Ron Luce, would preach in between worship times as well as there
being very well acted drama skits to portray a biblical message, all of which
contributed to my encouragement of being saved.
I find it beyond coincidental that I lost my faith in Detroit in 1995
(or more accurately the cause of never forming it) and regained it back in
Detroit in 2007; it’s what God had always intended it to be. However, I could have easily decided to
ignore the love from my Christian peers (ultimately God’s love, which I almost
did ignore), refused to go to church (which I did not want to attend on many
occasions but did anyway in obedience to my father), and I could have therefore
chosen to instead fill my heart with hatred and rebellion. Thanks be to God that I made the right
choice! I still have no idea why I went
through all the depression and heartache I suffered through, but perhaps I will
find the reason by the end of this entry, if not at a later time. Since that very moment I got saved, I have
been on a wild journey with God, and He has gotten me further than I ever
thought possible — achievements and blessings I never foresaw. Where therapy and Prozac medication has
failed, Jesus Christ prevailed. Therapy
was completely ineffective (I don’t discount therapy after my experience; it
just didn’t work for me, for it does not work for every patient, which is
actually rare). And the medication I had
to consume just made me worse, which only happens to 2% of people who take the
medication. The receiving of the Holy
Spirit is such a powerful and ineffable feeling — what I like to call “that
sweet emotion.” It will be the
understatement of a lifetime that I should say:
God is truly amazing.
People will ask me, “Why do bad
things happen to good people?” Usually,
I would rightly respond with, “No one is good,” paraphrasing from Luke
18:19. Besides, who are we to decide
who’s “good” and who’s “bad?” You can’t
really decide that unless you know every single aspect of the person — the
heart is different than their outward appearance, which is what God examines (I
Samuel 16:7). We always bring God down
to our level of thinking, but He is at a completely different vantage point
than we are (Isaiah 55:8-9), which for us is unattainable and
unfathomable. I think we would be more
right to ask why bad things happen to people in general, which we do but not
because of the realisation that not one is good. To only care about the well-being of “good” people
and ignoring that of “bad” people is inconsiderate. Each of our opinions of “good” versus “bad”
varies from person to person. Anyway,
let’s be more analytical about Jesus’ saying, “Not one is good.” Romans 8:28, We all know that all things work together for the good of those who
love God: those who are called according
to His purpose. But do YOU know
that? God can easily transform our bad
things into something good, but we have to believe and trust that He can. How do you think people become motivational
speakers after a tragic incident? I am
confident that God gives them their strength, even if they don’t admit it. Second Corinthians 1:4, He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort
those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves
received from God. God will comfort
us in our troubles, which gives us the ability and willingness and humbleness
to sympathise with and comfort others who’ve experienced the same thing, or
lesser things or even greater things.
In
a perfect world, good things will happen to all people all the time, but we
don’t live in a perfect world; everyone will inevitably face bad and terrible
tribulations from time to time, even excessively because of the sin in the
world as a result of Fall of Man. We
need to face and recognise this reality as opposed to dwelling in a wishful
thinking world that good things need to happen to everybody on this planet all
the time, especially “good” people. For
claiming to be in the “Age of Reason,” we sure do illustrate an over abundance
of fallacies. For the longest time I blamed
God for everything that had happened to me, and I blamed Him for my
depression. I blamed Him for twelve years! That’s an awfully long time to blame our
Almighty God for something that He wasn’t even responsible for, yet He still
forgave me and protected me. This is
when I realised that for atheists claiming to not believe in God, they sure do
blame Him for a lot of things and put many accusations upon Him.
Two years later, at age nineteen,
upon graduating high school I enlisted into the United States Army Bands as a
professional saxophone specialist. I
auditioned and passed in May of 2009 and signed my contract on June 16th;
left for basic training on February 11, 2010 and graduated early on April 23rd. On that same date left for AIT (Advanced
Individual Training) at the Armed Forces School of Music located on the
Littlecreek Joint Expeditionary Navy Base in Virginia Beach, Virginia and
graduated AIT on June 4th. I
deployed to the 2nd Infantry Division Band at Camp Red Cloud in
Uijeongbu, South Korea of the Gyeonggi-do province on July 13th; and
served my next and final duty station at Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma on
August 2, 2011 (and what a dump it was).
And now here I am today, honourably discharged from the army (I got home
January 5, 2013) and preparing to attend Concordia University in Ann Arbor,
Michigan to do my pre-seminary studies with a minor in theological languages
while pursuing a secondary degree in psychology. All of this happened in a span of just four
years. I’m 23-years-old now, and I
already had a full-fledged career and about to pursue another (technically two,
maybe three). I hope you see what I see
here: that from the beginning of my life
until now, God has been with me in seemingly impossible ways (and a lot more
left unmentioned that may later be unveiled in this memoir), and it is
absolutely breathtaking. It leaves me in
awe every time I ruminate upon it.
I began this entry with seeing
reasons as to why I must believe in and love God when I observe my
surroundings. Everything mentioned above
is that first reason why. I examine my
life from the beginning to where I’m at now and I cannot deny that there is a
God who is with me. Not everyone can
examine their life and draw the same conclusions I have; that isn’t the point
of this memoir entry. This is simply my
own personal beliefs due to my very specific life experiences. If God hasn’t been there for you, little
faith may be the reason and if this is you, you need to earnestly pray and
accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour and recommit your life to God, which is
achievable through baptism and/or self-discipline. I’m not saying this is definite, but it is very
probable. The other possibility is that
He actually is there; you’re just failing to recognise Him.
Keeping
all that in mind, my second reason is my family, more specifically my immediate
family. When I look at them or even
think of them — my mother, my father, my stepmother Deanna, my older brother
Daniel, and my younger sister Julia — I cannot help but be filled with so much
love and joy for them, even though my brother and sister are having a crisis of
faith at the moment. I still love them very
much and would sacrifice my life for them if I had to. Both my parents have sacrificed a lot for
this family, including their own happiness.
(The specifics of their sacrifices shall not be unveiled due to family
privacy and respect. Yes, even in this
memoir.) When I remember what my parents
have done for my siblings and me (even what they did before I was born), I
cannot help but feel immensely blessed to have such loving, caring, and
sacrificial parents. And seeing the
sincere efforts my stepmother puts into being there for us and loving us,
treating us as if we were her own but not trying to take the place of our
mother (for she is still around and active in our lives) while taking the time
to understand and know each of us, I feel immensely blessed to have her. I’m not sure if she knows this, but at some
point in my life I will let it be known to her when I’m comfortable enough to
do so. I’m not the type of person who
readily expresses their deep emotions like that. If I am to have my own children, I don’t know
if I can be half as good a father as my own father has been. Because of how fortunate and blessed I am to
have the family I have, I cannot deny that there is a God. As I’m sure you can already tell, I do not
hold the divorce against my parents either.
Most would hold it against their own, but my parents are truly happy
now, which makes me happy. It is simply
for the better. I was devastated, of
course, when I first received the news, but it didn’t take me long to realise
that they were becoming happier than they’ve ever been. This pretty much hit me when my father almost
broke down in tears (which is extremely rare of him) because he thought I hated
him, which was completely untrue, so I got over it; and due to the portrayal of
my actions at the time I can’t blame him for thinking that. Because of the divorce I have grown closer to
my father and continue to grow closer to him.
And because of the divorce I can sympathise with and comfort others
whose parents get divorced, especially since the divorce rate in America
continues to increase exponentially (remember II Corinthians 1:4).
My third and probably last reason
why I cannot deny that there is a God is the nature of this beautiful planet
that we live on. That may sound odd, but
that’s fitting because I’m an odd person.
When I go out and do photography (a great and expensive hobby of mine),
I observe the wild animals, the trees, the flowers, the sky, the mountains, the
hills, the waters, the stars, and the rest of the mysterious space. I see all of this and I just cannot accept
that everything — known and unknown — were created by sheer, dumb luck. Scientists call life a “lucky”
coincidence. Luck is the most
quintessential human delusion. I
ignorantly don’t believe in luck for the very reason people ignorantly don’t believe
in God: I can’t see it. “Luck” is gambling and black jack, which is
all just mathematical probability and exactly why mathematical geniuses can
cheat and learn to count cards. Anybody
with sense will know this if they’ve seen the production film, “Rain Man.” Slot machines, as an example of gambling,
also function mathematically, for a skilled mathematician can calculate the
likelihood of the machine selecting certain symbols. And “luck” is also something very fortunate
happening at a very abrupt moment in our lives without any warning (or “bad
luck” for the reverse effect), which is also mathematical probability when considering
the time of all the little things you
did (and/or opposing parties did) to get to that “lucky” or “unlucky” moment. This is not luck or bad luck; it is purely
mathematical whether it was affected by divine intervention or not. People utilise “luck” to replace the absence
of God in their lives.
I just refuse to believe
that everything I see and the rest of the universe that we can only speculate
upon were caused by some cosmic coincidence, but rather that there is an infinitely
intelligent and loving Creator who desires to know each and every one of us
intimately. To me, if God didn’t exist
and everything in existence were created by sheer, dumb luck, then what’s the
purpose in living? I have heard this
rationalisation by unbelievers and agnostics alike: “Well, life is what you make of it — doing
what makes you happy, cherishing those you love, and being a good person to the
best of your ability” (in a nutshell, that’s what they all similarly say). Okay, sure, that’s justifiable to an extent, but
once you die all of that will be forgotten throughout history and will no
longer matter — you will no longer
matter. You can only be remembered in
peoples’ memories for so long before your memory just fades into the obscurity
of history. Nowadays, only if you’re
famous or a celebrity will your memory last longer, but even they will be
forgotten. I can tell you right now that
the human race will not live forever, whether it’s because of Christ rapturing
His Church and those left behind still not choosing God after the end and being
dragged to Hell, or if the earth just decides that she can’t support life
anymore. This may sound depressing but
that’s because it is! Life without our
loving God is just far too depressing to even imagine. Because of how depressing that is I just
cannot accept that there is no loving Creator who deeply desires to adopt us
all as His children. Humans becoming a
fading memory just seems an impossible and purposeless fate; our fate is to
become God’s children through Christ and to dwell with Him in His kingdom for
all eternity. With God, you always matter for all of your earthly
life and all of eternity after this life.
Life as a believer is not an easy one, but did God ever tell us it would
be easy? No! He never said that. Anyone who expects the Christian life to be an
easy, soothe sailing life has believed a lie, and should they choose to believe
in and love Christ and come into the faith with these false and unrealistic expectations,
they will live a miserable Christian life when we are called to joy, praise,
faith, and hope. God, Jesus Christ, and
the apostles have taught time and time again that we must expect tribulations,
and plenty of them. Necessary
tribulations, too. If we think times
today are hard, just wait till after the Christians today (and those already
dead) disappear to Heaven, and those left behind (including the new believers
after the Rapture of Christ’s Church) will have to face tribulations that will
be a hundred times more sufferable, and that is no hyperbole. They’ll realise that they will desperately
need us to teach them and guide them after already having us, but we’ll be
gone. I’m not trying to scare anybody;
I’m just giving an urgent warning about something stringently realistic. If you’re scared, you probably should
be. Use that fear to desire Christ and
live for Him in servitude and that fear will quickly, if not instantly, turn
into peace and comfort. However, fear
God reverently, not penitently. Living a life in commitment to Christ is not
supposed to be a comfortable lifestyle; it’s supposed to be challenging and
difficult.
I want to conclude this entry with Hosea 4:1-3. It delineates perfectly how we are today: Hear
the word of the LORD, people of Israel, for the LORD has a case against the
inhabitants of the land: There is no truth, no faithful love, and no knowledge
of God in the land! Cursing, lying,
murder, stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows
another. For this reason, the land mourns,
and everyone who lives in it languishes, along with the wild animals and the
birds of the sky; even the fish of the sea disappear. Sounds a lot like us, doesn’t it? This is not a prophecy of modern times; it
was one of God’s cases against Israel.
This is an ancient time, yet in modern times we are identical to what Israel
was like for a time, and we like to think we’re predominant because of the
technology we now possess. This hilarity
amuses me. So those who complain about
how the world is today, it is nothing new!
The world has been like this for millennia. Human behaviour that sets itself apart from
God is unchangeable and primitive.
