existentiality

I just returned from ocf. We were sharing about how each of us came to accept Jesus. Before that decision, each of us rejected Jesus in our own way. Yes, even those of us who were born into a Christian background.

Ever heard of the phrase, God has no grandchildren? To accept Jesus, to accept the gospel, to accept all that it is claiming to be - that is something not up to the parents or the family or even the background. It's a choice one has to make.

There's a wonderful couple with teenage children in ocf. The 14 year old son is this sweet bashful and unassumingly smart boy, haha. His mother shared how when he was 8, he apparently went thru a period where he was trying to make the gospel make sense to him. (He remembers vaguely about it but left it to his mum to tell us the whole story.)

She shared how he was crying badly at that stage, and saying things like 'how can the bible be true? how can it? how do you know the authors of the new testament didn't peep into what the authors of the old testament wrote about the prophecies, that's why the prophecies were fulfilled?'

And the part when he was so anguished over trying to make sense of it that he cried that "you (mum) and daddy and jiejie are all going to heaven but i'm going to hell".

Looking at him now, something tugged at my heart when I heard that. I can so imagine him going through all that (remember I said he's one intellectual guy). [sidenote: I think it must be so heartbreaking as Christian parents to have to watch your child go through such big issues! Yet knowing that you just really have to let the child know this God for himself personally... that there's no other shortcut to it.]

It really reminds me of how important it is to really know and understand what you believe in. For us as Christians, it is so so so important to know God intimately through spending time being with and hearing from Him. Otherwise when tough questions or circumstances arise, it will be just too easy to be swayed by deceptions and all.

Did you ever think that Christians became Christians because our families are already Christians, or that we anyhow hantam-ed a religion and happened to decide on this? I think it goes far beyond that. All humans wrestle with these existential and very tough questions at some point of time. The question is, does your answer satisfy you?