Retrospect
I was born on a military base near the suburbs of Seoul, where my father served as a professional soldier, in 1964 as the youngest among three children. Due to difficult financial situation of my family, I spent a childhood in unauthorized demolition area adjacent to a river, now turned to a beautiful rose park. Hard lives of the people living in the poor villages were channeled sometimes into a strong positive sympathy for each other, but most of the time, angers, accompanied by insults and violence. Almost every day, fighting, violence and bitter tears leaked out from every home, and these scenes were a natural part of the villagers' lives. My father also had a grudge, so he consumed alcohols almost every day, and the aforementioned incidents of the villagers were often recreated in our house. There was a frequent fight almost every night. On the day I carried my excellent report card from school, there was joy and peace in the house, which seems to have been a motivating factor for academic achievement in my young heart. However, there was not only sadness in this life, and unlike children now, in a free life without restrictions, I was able to enjoy the freedom to play with my friends every day. Especially since my house was located on the outskirts of Seoul, I grew close to nature while walking through rice fields, and mountains, coming in contact with insects, fish and wildflowers. The knowledge and love for nature, that I gathered during these days, became the basis for my life as a natural scientist.
After finishing middle school and entering high school, my father, who thought that he could not afford to send even me, the youngest, to college, wanted me to apply for a vocational high school. However, I went against my father’s will with a bold insistence that I would go on a scholarship. I was able to enter a liberal arts high school. Fortunately, by lottery, I was able to enter a decent high school with a somewhat prestigious appearance. I found out that my admissions grades, which were at the top in middle school, where there were a lot of poor children, were only in the middle of the high school where there were more children from more affluent backgrounds. I studied harder than others because I knew that there were not many opportunities given to me in a difficult family situation. Thanks to my efforts, my academic performance, which was in the middle class at the time of admission, showed rapid progress and improved, reaching the top rank in the class within one year, and by the time I graduated, it improved to competing for 1st and 2nd place in the whole school. The progress of my academic abilities through my efforts was noticed by the teachers, so I was always praised as a model student in front of the class. Now that I think about it, it seems that the influence was not only good for my self-formation. think that the harmful toxins of the self-confidence and elite consciousness based on the achievements achieved at this time contributed to making my personality self-righteous. My college entrance test score was quite good, so I got into the specific department of the College of Natural Sciences at Seoul National University, which I wanted, almost at the top. I also met my wife, who was attending the same university, and promised to get married. But at this time, my mother, who had always raised me with love, suddenly passed away from a heart attack, and there was a big shaking in my life. For the sake of my mother's rest, I visited the Buddhist temple where my mother sometimes went, and I went to catholic Cathedral a few times to see if there was an answer to death, but I could not find the answer to death anywhere. Around this time, I left for UC Berkleley to study abroad and successfully passed the national exam for studying abroad. In the early days of my studies, I was able to beat American students with good academic performance and receive a scholarship, and by the time I graduated, I was able to present my research results at a major conference in my field and receive the president's award, which is given only to a small number of students. I would like to introduce a funny story that happened just before studying abroad. Prior to marriage, for the mother-in-law who was zealous for Catholicism, I had an interview with the Catholic priest with my future wife and mother-in-law. I hardly cared about what the priest was saying, but when he finished speaking, he asked me to pledge to raise my children in a Catholic way. I argued with the priest for about an hour, saying why I had to make a vow for children for the choice, that they had to choose when they grew up. When I saw the expression on my mother-in-law's face, I started to think about it for a while. It's not like I don't lie during my life, and I made a false vow, thinking about how big it would be to add another lie to get married. After thinking about it, I wonder if God remembered even my heartless vows.
Around this time, several important things started to happen. I became close with other Korean students who had studied together, met them often and hung out together. However, my close friends slowly started to join immigrant churches one by one and started to withdraw from the Sunday fellowship they had spent with me. It was disappointing to me, and there was a church who were particularly zealous for evangelism. It was quite unpleasant for me to meet people from this evangelical church, holding me on the way and often forcing me into Christianity, which I couldn't accept. Since I had no interest in religion, I had a lot of quarrels with people who held out their religion whenever I had a chance, even though I avoided talking about it for four years. As the number of these encounters increased, my objections became systematized and I had about 20 arguments against Christianity. I can't remember all of them, but I remember one story we shared. Its contents are as follows: “ I do not know the God or the existence of God you are talking about. Even if the God you are talking about exists, I don't care. Because when I met your God, I can protest why I didn't believe. I will say this to the God you speak of. ‘I was not born into an environment where I could trust you. I was born into a Buddhist family, and I tried to live my life to the fullest in a given position. I didn't seek the world's money, and I wanted to uncover the mysteries of nature. I also love the people around me and want to help them.’ ” When I was talking to those who wanted to evangelize me, I had a strong fighting spirit, but when I was alone, I also had a weak side. The machine I was working on in my PhD was an expensive electron microscope, few in the US at the time. It was difficult for students to find time to use, so I often did experiments alone late at night when no one else was using the machine. As a result, I often had to develop films late at night in a dark room alone in an unoccupied building. Because I was born to be timid, sometimes scary thoughts caught my eye under the dark red light of a dark room. When fearful thoughts flooded into me for an hour or two when I was locked up due to film development, I used to memorize the Lord's Prayer that I had memorized at the church (I attended the church for a while because. I was unwittingly seduced by the candy given to me in the church when I was a child.). I guess I wanted to ask for the help of some good being to protect me from my fears. Also there was an important dream that I had a week before I made an important decision. It was a vivid dream that I remember everything. In my dream, a terrifying creature with only skeletons and bones was following me. I was so frightened that I turned around and started to run away, but in the distance in front of me I saw something like a giant. The giant was so great that his knees touched the clouds, and I could not see above his knees because of the thick clouds. In my dream, I thought that the skeleton and bones that were following me were Satan, and the huge being in front of me was Jesus. In my fear, I said, “I will believe in Jesus. Help me." I was able to wake up suddenly by shouting out loud. After waking up, although my fears didn't go away, when my consciousness returned, I said, "Ah. It’s a dog dream.” I shook off the fear in the dream.
A week after this happened, I went on a trip to LA for spring break and stayed at my uncle's house, who lived there and worked hard as a pastor. I had contact with my uncle several times before, but whenever he spoke to me about his Christian belief, I would pretend to listen and avoid the conversation. But then, in the aftermath of a nightmare, I asked about the existence of Satan. From this point on, many stories continued until late, leaving only me and my uncle. My uncle made almost semi-compulsory demands on me to get down on my knees and receive Jesus in prayer. I was accustomed to kneeling in front of adults, so my knees were bent, but I didn't want to pray, so I said the following. “I do not know whether there is a God or not. But people who believe in Jesus don't seem to have such a bad life. Also, if it is true that you go to heaven when you die, it is considered good. I agree with the claim that having faith in your heart can help you live. But I think that if you believe in God, you have to believe it because it really exists, and not with the vague hope of wanting to believe in something that doesn't exist.” In response, my uncle said that the existence of God can be proven, and showed me the following verses of the Bible. "Roman 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." Strangely, among the verses in the Bible, the verse that there is no excuse came to me strongly. Perhaps the God of Christianity would not accept the arguments that I had been arguing to the people, who had come to evangelize, about as to why I do not believe in Christianity. I thought for a moment whether there was something that appeared in my life and was clearly visible. At that moment, a few thoughts ran through my mind. First, I thought of the people who came to me to talk about Jesus. I wondered whether the words these people were trying to convey were representative of the Christian God. Then I remembered the scene where I memorized the Lord's Prayer whenever I was in fear. Maybe my soul was acknowledging God. Also, I was able to think about whether the images of Satan and Jesus I had seen in a vivid dream, that I had a few days ago, had a spiritual meaning. I did not understand everything because it was a thought in a short time, but I agreed to pray and prayed. My uncle told me to follow his prayers. I prayed, but I only later found out about the prayers I followed without knowing the meaning. The content was simply that I am a sinner who has rejected Jesus, that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus died on the cross and rose again for my sins, and that I will live the life of a follower of Jesus in the future. After praying without knowing the meaning, I remember praying like this in my own words. “God, I do not know whether you are or not. But I open my heart at this hour, if you are real, come to me.” It was around 2 or 3 in the morning when I finished this prayer, so I went to the family who was sleeping first, shook my wife to wake her up, and told to her that I had prayed, saying, “I prayed in Jesus.” But my wife said it was just fine after hearing what she heard in her half sleep, then turned around and fell asleep again. As I was lying on my bed and half asleep, I suddenly experienced a volley of light the size of a volleyball slowly descending from the ceiling and entering my left chest. The next day, I got up and learned more about the Bible from my uncle, the life of a disciple who followed Jesus, and the meaning of the incarnation.
In the process of returning to my home after the trip, what I felt was that, strangely, most of the 20 questions I had against Christianity were forgotten. It was the first time I attended a church my family already attended, and I heard the pastor's sermons from the perspective of a believer in Jesus for the first time in my life. After that sermon, the pastor invited those who wanted to devote themselves to Jesus to come to the stage. But even though the pastor was calling, in my heart I could feel someone else calling me from beyond the pastor, so I calmly went forward and prayed. My actions like this surprised many church members who knew me as a non-believer, and I received many congratulations after the service. At this time, I learned that they had been praying for me. When I came to know Jesus, I experienced a sudden change in my life. First, I thought that I should share Jesus with my friends who did not believe in Jesus. Although many of my friends were puzzled and avoided me little by little, some of them believed in Jesus and became friends with faith until now, after several decades. Also, I visited people almost every day for several years, witnessing Jesus. In those days, I made a couple of mistakes while witnessing Jesus due to the lack of good knowledge of Jesus and the gospel. I thought I needed to know more about the Bible, so I finished reading the entire Bible within 3 months after I prayed to believe in Jesus . After that, I have continued to read the Bible at least six times a year, even after 30 years of believing in Jesus. I wanted to know the Bible in its original language, so I had the opportunity to learn Hebrew and Greek and read the entire Bible in the original language four times. As my knowledge of the Bible increased, I was able to teach the Bible, and I was able to experience the grace of leading dozens of people to Jesus by sharing the Bible with those who have doubts about Jesus.
In addition to the blessing of sharing the Lord, I have been able to always experience the grace of Jesus to be with me and to bless the needs of my life and my family. I came to trust that the power of the Lord to overcome the power of dark spirits worked in me, and my fear of death turned into a joyful hope of meeting Jesus. As I write this, I am thankful again for the grace of Jesus, who made me pray and believe in the Lord by providing a grace to a undeserving sinner, who resisted Jesus because of ignorance. The most heartbreaking thing after believing in Jesus was that my mother died without knowing Jesus and that I did not have a chance to share Jesus with my mother. I am going to end my writing with the thought that I should share Jesus more diligently so that these sad things do not repeat to others. I pray that all who read this will believe in Jesus and be saved so that they will not only live a blessed life and go to heaven, but also become seeds of blessings for their families and precious souls around them.