Dear Xin Xin:

Thank you for your letter. You have asked a question uniquely Chinese in view of the various religious faiths of the world. I have written the following article as my answer to you and other interested friends.

At the beginning, they believed it was their parents who had put them there, and their parents should be on the other side of the ocean. Yet as they grew older, they realized they knew nothing of what was on the other side of the vast ocean, and they had no way and no road to get there. They could only use their hearts to wish and their minds to imagine what their parents were like.

As the years went by, no one could prove that they had parents despite their longing and wishing. So there was a child who, after using the method of "seeking with heart and mind" for a long time, declared: "There cannot be any parents!" He said: "You see, everything lives and dies. Then, nothing. So, nothing is the root of everything. We are no more than nothing!"

Then, there was another child who, after using the method of "seeking to prove with evidence" by traveling and exploring the entire island, declared: "it is foolish to think that we have parents!" He said: "It is the island and the beaches in front of us that gave birth to us and cause us to grow."

Yet another child, using the method of "scientific deduction", came to theconclusion: "Everything is moving, and every moving thing has energy, so energy is everything, and we are part of energy"

Despite all of these findings, they were still unsatisfied. They felt somehow they should have parents. And their parents should be more alive and intelligent than they were. Therefore, some of them began to imagine how their parents would have them behave if they were to finally meet. They established laws to follow, numerous rules and regulations to govern their behavior. They wrote book after book on what life should be about and how to live a good life, hoping their parents would approve of what they had done when they would one day meet. However, as time passed on, they didn't see any signs of their parents, and their doubts of ever getting to meet with parents deepened.

So this is the story of that group of children looking for their parents.

Finally, the father of the children actually sent someone to visit them on their island, because he saw that these children did not hear or understand his calls to them in their souls. They only knew how to invent ways to find him with their limited wisdom and became confused in doing so. They sank into fighting amongst themselves, indulging in pleasure seeking, daring one another to do wild things. The person that the father has sent is the son at his side, therefore, their brother. He bears with him their father's image and love. He said: "Our father is Spirit, you cannot see him or touch him. You can only communicate with him and worship him in spirit and in truth. He wants you to know it is he who has created you, who has been nurturing you, and who has always loved you. He wants you to repent and turn from your wicked ways. He wants you to love each other. To follow the rules and regulations you have created for yourselves is not the way to see the father. And you fail to carry them out anyway. I have come to take you to the father. If you only come to me and follow me, for I am the way to the father. All you need to do is believe what I have told you - the good news of the Gospel. In order for them to be able to believe, he performed a number of miracles to convince them of who he was. He even died and became alive again.

Now, about one third of the children on the island believed the good news and found a home in their souls for their father's love. They stopped fighting and began loving one another. So, this is the story of how their father came to rescue them from their disappointment and despair.

Obviously, thinking and wishing, practicing religion, doing good is man's way to reach God. Yet what God wants man to do is give up his own efforts and simply accept what God has prepared for him.

Man is limited; God is limitless. When man seeks God, he is depending on his limited ability; when God seeks man, he can become man as he is limitless in his ability.

When man seeks God, he ends up with no god or many gods. When God seeks man, he is the true God.

When man seeks God, he becomes the initiator, reversing his role in the relationship between man and God. For man's existence is not up to himself, but his creator.

When man seeks God, he comes from himself; what he accomplishes is at best fulfilling his own wisdom. When God seeks man, he comes from outside and gives man what man cannot give himself which is eternal life.

When man seeks God, he credits himself for seeking. When God seeks man, no man can take the credit.

When man seeks God, there is man's pride, a pride natural to man when he has not met God. When God seeks man, he requires thorough humility on the part of man; the core of that humility is to admit man is not God, and man cannot find God with his own ability.

It is inevitable for man to seek God. It is not man's fault to seek God, but man's goodness. It is also inevitable for man to miss the target because of man's limitations. It is beyond man's expectation and understanding when God seeks man. Only when God reveals to man who he really is, can man see himself as he really is - a sinner in need of God to lead him to goodness, beauty and truth.

Xie, Xuan Jun used to be my friend, now he is my brother. He is one of the authors of River Trilogy. He is very knowledgeable and has a great memory. He is also very studious. He is well-versed in both Chinese and Western culture, especially knowledgeable about Greek mythology and world religions. He is no stranger to the Bible, Koran, and the Buddhist scriptures. He said to my wife in Beijing that I should have invented my own religion upon hearing that I had become a Christian. He has been in the States for more than three years now. We talked about the Gospel no less than one hundred hours. He had been to church, Bible Studies, Christian retreats, even the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, yet no results whatsoever. He is smart, knowledgeable, eloquent, even poetic. No one was his equal. He maintained that it was not that he did not seek God, but if God did not want to seek him, all he could do was wait. Indeed! "Unless the Holy Spirit moves, no one can confess Jesus is Lord" -Bible. For every believer, it is seemingly that he has faith, actually it is God who gives faith. It is God's work in his heart. We are all people of little faith. How could we possibly believe a God whom we cannot see or touch, when we even doubt about things that we have seen?! So, when someone comes to faith, it is really because God works in him and causes him to believe. Therefore, Jesus said:"It is not that you have chosen me, but I who have chosen you." - the Bible.

There was a period of time when Xie Xuan Jun was having trouble breathing at night. He thought he might die each time it happened. But the doctor could not find out what was wrong with him. Once he called me very late at night and told me he was dying. His voice was weak and trembling. He said he was not afraid of anything but death. I talked to him about Jesus. He still could not believe, but was willing to listen and even felt better after we talked. About three months ago, he had a dream. In his dream, he was suffocating, and he was in the wilderness, alone. He thought he was surely dying this time. Suddenly, he saw a cross floating down from the sky that came to stand by his side (he sensed Jesus was there). The cross (Jesus) was embracing him tightly with both arms. Instantly, he was well. He felt his whole body loosen up and his heart was full of peace. When he woke up early in the morning, he saw a rainbow on the window curtain. He was stunned! Thereafter, he had trouble breathing a few more times. In his struggles, he thought of the dream, and he started to call on the name of Jesus loudly. Strangely, whenever he yelled out the name of Jesus, his breathing problem vanished. Several times after, he had to believe! He started to pray everyday. He started to read the Bible and books of theology. He became completely well. And, there were other supernatural happenings also. Now, he likes to begin a conversation with the sentence: "Ever since I have accepted Jesus as my savior...........".

We often shared about God's grace in our lives over the phone, sometimes for a few hours. He is not at all reticent about his faith. He tells every friend about the Gospel. He goes to church every Sunday morning without breakfast, so that the first thing he eats is the Lord's bread and the first thing he drinks is the Lord's cup. A good friend of ours recently told me that Xie Xuan Jun has totally changed. He has become humble and amicable from being arrogant and obstinate. His countenance is peaceful and joyful. He looks and acts like another person. He lives in a very small room and sleeps on a mat on the floor. He told me he would only do one thing for the rest of his life and that is praise God. He said he has already written tens of thousands of words praising God. And when I asked him to publish some of it, for his writing was so beautiful. He said not yet, for his words of praise were reserved only for God for the time being, lest the desire for publishing taint the purity of his praise. He said: "My sins were deep and heavy. Could I dare for a moment not to fear God?" He told me he cried to the point that he lost his voice when he confessed his sins before God. He could not stop crying over the phone when he told his wife and daughter of his conversion and led them to pray to thank God for his goodness to him."

Xuan Jun's wife has since become a believer also. The day she prayed to confess her sins in Beijing was the day the INS in America approved her and her daughter's applications for green cards long overdue.

Xie, Xuan Jun, no doubt, is a man of intelligence, knowledge, reason, and accomplishment. Yet he did not find God with these things. On the contrary, only when he faced life's crisis did his big head step aside, his weak heart tremble, his bare soul and bare need replace his intelligence and knowledge. That is when he was able to let God find him. And, the Holy pirit entered into his heart. The Holy Spirit is like water, always flowing to where it is low and empty. It is not that God only visits those who are sick and suffering, and going through adversity. If sickness and dversity do not humble a person, God still will not come to him. Man's condition on earth is basically temporary, helpless, limited, sinful and earth-bound. A man who is going through sickness and adversity merely more readily recognizes and admits his true condition.

This is the sorry state man is in today - self-deceiving ! When man denies God, he is like a child on the isolated island who could not find his father. Each becomes his own master and does what he thinks is right. The result is war, individualism, relativism, hedonism, etc.

There seem to be two people in a man. One is called Beauty, the other Ugly.Beauty likes peace, love, conscience, and justice. He comes from the spirit of God. Ugly likes pleasure, vanity, scheme, and self-gratification. He comes from the spirit of man. They quarrel often. More often than not, Ugly is the victor. Because Beauty has left his father God, the source of his strength, just like Antaios in Greek mythology left the earth, he has left the source of his power. Yet, Ugly is all from himself and for himself, he is highly motivated and full of schemes to overcome Beauty. Beauty tries to fight off Ugly, but he has lost his connection to the source of his strength, so he tends to "not do the good that he wants to do, but do the evil he does not want to do" -Romans 7:19 paraphrased. Under these circumstances, Beauty is no rival of Ugly. And, man cannot by himself overcome sin. He is a sinner, indeed!

However, some sinners do not want to surrender to sin. They try to keep Beauty alive in themselves by doing as much good as they can, suffering as much as they can, and studying and practicing religion as much as they can to overcome Ugly. These are religious people.

Then, there are those who recognize the source of strength to overcome Ugly is from the father God and accept it. Beauty, with the confidence of being on the side of the source of strength becomes very strong and overcomes Ugly in a mighty way. Those people are called the "saved".

I recently met two Christians who just arrived from mainland China. They said that a truly saved person who knows God personally would naturally tackle sin as the first step of repentance. The way they tackle sin is ruthless, without compromise. They startled and confused some of the Christians in this country -- Can we really overcome? Aren't we supposed to be weak? Isn't it unavoidable that we should sin? But, they say nothing is impossible for God to accomplish in a person who truly knows, fears and trusts God.

This is true faith, indeed!

*****