一个新基督徒的读经心得

Thank you Lord for loving me before I knew Him. This is the word I want to say most at the moment.

I made up my mind to believe in the Lord at the beginning of the year. Before that, I had been an on-and-off seeker for nearly thirty years. The first person to evangelize me was my brother, a professor of astronomy. I was also an academic professional in the early days, studying the Earth’s magnetic field and continental drift. I have explored the uplift of the Tibet Plateau and traced the demise of the ancient Tethys Sea. Like many scientific people in China, my brain was sealed with atheism very early on, and to be honest, it was very difficult to tear it off.

At the end of last year, I went to New Jersey to visit my brother and sister-in-law, during which time I attended a Sunday worship service. I had participated in the similar events before multiple times, but I didn’t really pay attentions then. This time was different. My sister-in-law was the sermon interpreter, so I had to listen carefully. The theme of the sermon was joy, but what impressed me the most was the interpretation of the scriptures about suffering. That was the first time I heard God’s words clearly, and I was amazed. Besides feeling the truths, I was also resonated. Although I didn’t memorize the scriptures, I did understand the theme – suffering is God’s blessing; God wants us to be happy even when we are experiencing sufferings. Looking back on my life, it has been like a roller coaster, with ups and downs, but, whether it is the highlight or the unbearable in the eyes of the world view, joy has always run through it. The resonance generated by listening to the sermon stimulated my desire to read the Bible. When the words “God so loved the world” appeared in front of my eyes in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, I was shocked. I just then realized that even those who do not believe in God are still loved by God. My life story that took place thirty years ago immediately became the evidence for my belief in the Lord. I saw that God used His love and wisdom to lead me through a rough but perfect path of life, and there were constant miracles at every turning point of that path. The gate of heaven has always been opening to the world, but I had been reluctant to approach it. I was really a stubborn sinner – while being surrounded by God’s blessings, I didn’t even realize and appreciate them.

Coincidentally, thirty-years-ago’s today was the day I defended my doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan. Before the celebration reception for my “success” was even over, I rushed to a Chinese restaurant in Canton to start my very fresh career. To use a fashionable saying, I was just like ancient Kong Yiji who took off his long gown. In order to obtain the medical insurance for my whole family, I soon found a second job at the University of Michigan Hospital to work part-time as an ICU Tech during night shifts. The title of technician more or less saved my face, but to put it bluntly, I was a nurse assistant with a PhD degree. The only technical skill I learnt was changing sheets with patients lying still on beds. While doing two very physical jobs, my wife and I were also thinking about starting a business. Without any money on hand, we had to limit our business to that requires no capitals. At that time, we lived in the Family Housing on the North Campus. There were many garbage bins around, where we could often find home electronics and appliances discarded by fellow students. Those became our source of “wealth”, as they could be sold for profit after repairing. My daughter is here today. At age three, she had become a good helper for our business. Those small items that cannot be reached from the outside of garbage bins were all rummaged out by her getting into the trash can. My daughter was very dedicated; she would ask every weekend, “are we still going to the trash can to buy TVs today?”

At the end of the year, the restaurant had a dinner party, and the boss gave each of us a fortune cookie. The words I got were “your fortune has changed completely as of today.” When I got home that night, I saw a fax. The fax machine was also picked out from the trash can. I was able to fix it, but no one seemed interested in it. So I set it up in the living room as a second telephone. We had just moved in then. After graduating, the school urged us to vacate the apartment. While we were anxious about not finding a cheap place to stay, suddenly, we received a notice of vacancy from a government subsidized housing, which was almost a year earlier than expected. The fax was a price list from a computer parts manufacturer, and our new phone number was coincidentally a fax number used by a computer retailer. The prices on the list made my eyes shine, and I saw a great business opportunity. A week later, my computer company was established. As for what happened afterwards, I will share with you if we have a chance.

On January 13th, when I was reading Chapter 14 of 1 Samuel, Jonathan’s name appeared. When I found out that Jonathan means “gift from God” in Hebrew, I did my resolution pray immediately because Jonathan is also my name. On the day when I first reported to the restaurant, the manager said that the interns should also wear a badge, so she found a badge for me to put on. It was left by a resigned employee, and engraved with the name, “Jonathan”.

I will be baptized in just moments. I am so grateful to God for allowing me to meet him, accept him, hear his words, and confess my sins before him. Obviously, God has a plan for each of our lives, and the wisdom in every plan is far beyond any human imagination. The arrangement for my experiences in restaurants and hospitals is a great testimony to the wisdom of God. It allowed me to get in touch with people from all walks of life in this new society. For a foreign scholar who dreamed of doing business here in the Sates, those experiences were precious assets. Sometimes God’s arrangements or answers may not be what we expected, but when we look back at our entire life decades later, we will marvel at how perfect and wise those arrangements and answers are. Proverbs 19:21 says: “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” Thank you Lord for loving me before I knew Him.

Thank you all.