One of my favorite scenes from the Gospel is when Jesus Christ enters the boat of Simon Peter without asking his permission. Little did Peter know when he went out fishing that day, that he'd be called by God himself to be the rock on which he built his church - a pastor for all his people, for all of time. And that popes, centuries later, would be called successors of Saint Peter.
I don't know where God is calling me and if one day I will become a saint, but it is true that God did enter my life rather abruptly. I wasn't necessarily searching for God but when I think about it, it does seem as if he was searching for me all my life and when the right moment came, he did all he could to reveal himself to me.
It was the summer of 2015, I was still a student living in Paris's 9th arrondissement. The university term had ended. I had gone back home for month or two and was now back in Paris to find an internship for the coming semester. I was alone, I had time on my hands and my situation was somewhat precarious. Three things that greatly facilitated God's desire to find me.
Up until that point, I was the last person you could call religious or spiritual. I couldn't stand when people talked about God. And as introvert, the idea of belonging to any church was scary. My own experiences with Hinduism were terrible. My parents are decent people but I felt the only reason why anybody was a Hindu in my family was out of habit. I was inducted into Hinduism, apart from being born into the family, when I was about 13. I never received any proper catechism. I will stop there because my knowledge of Hinduism stops there. I don't enough about it to critique or praise it or to find parallels with Christianity. We rarely ever spoke about religion at home even though it seems God was everywhere with statues and images.
Back to Paris, summer of 2015, the idle months of July and August. I was bored in the very existential sense of that word. My attempts at finding an internship were failing and I was soon going to be evicted of my Paris apartment. Out of curiosity I started researching Christianity online. I didn't know one bit about Christian theology or any of the arguments put forth but I was curious about this religion I knew so little about. I read CS Lewis's Mere Christianity and listened to a few evangelical preachers online.
I wasn't convinced by the arguments but I grew more and more curious about this new religion that I had discovered. I decided to go to an Anglican Church and talk to the priest. I chose the Anglicans because I felt they were the more levelheaded of all Christian denominations and because I knew so little about the theological differences, I decided Anglican Church was the right one for me. At the very least, I could speak to the priest in English—which was a rare privilege in France.
I was still in the very early stages of my faith journey and I had more questions than answers but Jesus had definitely entered my boat. Like the disciples I didn't understand most of Jesus's teaching but he had kindled my curiosity and in the summer of 2015, he was occupying more and more of my thoughts.
My life was going to change radically. In just a few months after first researching Christianity online, my life would have changed completely. In my next post, I will talk about how God transformed my life in a matter of months and how I went from being curious about Christianity to becoming a Christian.
In today's reflection, St. Therese says, "For the sake of Jesus we took His cross, and for His sake let us persevere in it."
This seems to be very different from my story. I didn't take up Jesus's cross, at least not at the beginning of my faith journey. But it does ask to us persevere. And I believe God himself gives us the force to persevere in the quest to find him. It would have been very easy for me to be curious about Christianity one day and move on to another interesting topic the very next day. But once God enters our boat, he gives us the force to persevere even when things go badly.
In the next post, I will go into greater detail but little did I realize, that making the choice to follow Jesus meant giving up a lot. And yet, in retrospect, I am amazed how I was able to persevere in the midst of so much trouble, not to mention so much doubt and darkness. It was surely because of God's grace.
The lesson I learnt from this very first episode in my Christian faith journey is this—it is God who makes the first steps to come to us. Today is Palm Sunday and we can reflect on God's great sacrifice 2,000 years ago. I wouldn't be alive today if not for that sacrifice. Faith is not so much about pleasing God as it is about responding to God's love. Saying "Yes" to God is scary and is full of struggles but it is easy when God gives us the force and the strength to do it.
I don't know where God is calling me and if one day I will become a saint, but it is true that God did enter my life rather abruptly. I wasn't necessarily searching for God but when I think about it, it does seem as if he was searching for me all my life and when the right moment came, he did all he could to reveal himself to me.
It was the summer of 2015, I was still a student living in Paris's 9th arrondissement. The university term had ended. I had gone back home for month or two and was now back in Paris to find an internship for the coming semester. I was alone, I had time on my hands and my situation was somewhat precarious. Three things that greatly facilitated God's desire to find me.
Up until that point, I was the last person you could call religious or spiritual. I couldn't stand when people talked about God. And as introvert, the idea of belonging to any church was scary. My own experiences with Hinduism were terrible. My parents are decent people but I felt the only reason why anybody was a Hindu in my family was out of habit. I was inducted into Hinduism, apart from being born into the family, when I was about 13. I never received any proper catechism. I will stop there because my knowledge of Hinduism stops there. I don't enough about it to critique or praise it or to find parallels with Christianity. We rarely ever spoke about religion at home even though it seems God was everywhere with statues and images.
Back to Paris, summer of 2015, the idle months of July and August. I was bored in the very existential sense of that word. My attempts at finding an internship were failing and I was soon going to be evicted of my Paris apartment. Out of curiosity I started researching Christianity online. I didn't know one bit about Christian theology or any of the arguments put forth but I was curious about this religion I knew so little about. I read CS Lewis's Mere Christianity and listened to a few evangelical preachers online.
I wasn't convinced by the arguments but I grew more and more curious about this new religion that I had discovered. I decided to go to an Anglican Church and talk to the priest. I chose the Anglicans because I felt they were the more levelheaded of all Christian denominations and because I knew so little about the theological differences, I decided Anglican Church was the right one for me. At the very least, I could speak to the priest in English—which was a rare privilege in France.
I was still in the very early stages of my faith journey and I had more questions than answers but Jesus had definitely entered my boat. Like the disciples I didn't understand most of Jesus's teaching but he had kindled my curiosity and in the summer of 2015, he was occupying more and more of my thoughts.
My life was going to change radically. In just a few months after first researching Christianity online, my life would have changed completely. In my next post, I will talk about how God transformed my life in a matter of months and how I went from being curious about Christianity to becoming a Christian.
In today's reflection, St. Therese says, "For the sake of Jesus we took His cross, and for His sake let us persevere in it."
This seems to be very different from my story. I didn't take up Jesus's cross, at least not at the beginning of my faith journey. But it does ask to us persevere. And I believe God himself gives us the force to persevere in the quest to find him. It would have been very easy for me to be curious about Christianity one day and move on to another interesting topic the very next day. But once God enters our boat, he gives us the force to persevere even when things go badly.
In the next post, I will go into greater detail but little did I realize, that making the choice to follow Jesus meant giving up a lot. And yet, in retrospect, I am amazed how I was able to persevere in the midst of so much trouble, not to mention so much doubt and darkness. It was surely because of God's grace.
The lesson I learnt from this very first episode in my Christian faith journey is this—it is God who makes the first steps to come to us. Today is Palm Sunday and we can reflect on God's great sacrifice 2,000 years ago. I wouldn't be alive today if not for that sacrifice. Faith is not so much about pleasing God as it is about responding to God's love. Saying "Yes" to God is scary and is full of struggles but it is easy when God gives us the force and the strength to do it.
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