First prayer: Accepting Christ Jesus as my personal savior

It was April or May 1991. It has been about half years since I came to US to pursue my degree, and it was a very tough time in my life. I was facing a lot of challenges: Financial stressness, Language barrier, Set back in study, hard time to adapt to new life. Worst of all, I lost my “faith” in 1989, and did not know the meaning of living. I remember walking back to the dormitory 2:00 AM in a morning, in a lonely path in a Woods covered by a foot of snow, I looked up to the dark sky and wondered what’s the purpose of going through all these hardship; I remember driving in midnight into the nearby town, trying to find a church where I can talked to someone. (I did not know church would also be close at night.J ) I tried my best to cop with everything, and try my best to be good at anything，yet nothing could fill the emptiness inside my heart.

To be brief, I went to several churches, met with some Christian friends, asked tons of questions like those questions on this board, but did not make the breakthrough. But I clearly could sense the difference in their lives – their love, peace and harmony in their family.

So in a church retreat, (someone paid for my fee), they hold a special session for those none-believer student. They shared a great deal of their lives and struggles in becoming a believer. I found most of them did have “advanced education”, many of them held PhD degree. The pastor Pang himself received EE. PhD from UI Urbana-Champaign, his wife got MD there too, but they went to seminary school right afterward and became full time pastor. The EE department in UI Urbana-Champaign was top 10 at that time, I was not even qualify to apply (My TOFEL/GRE were not enough). I guessed I suddently becomed very “humble” that night.

After the session, he talked to two of us in person. We talked about the fundamental question that we are all sinners, and Jesus Christ is our only savior. I knew I was not perfect, and I wanted to have a new life, but I simply was not convinced there is a GOD, and I certainly did not want to believe a none-existing GOD just because I needed it. The pastor told me that there is no scientific way to prove the God exists; but you can ask God to show you HIS existence, because the bible says: “"God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." –John 4:24”.

In the end, when he challenged me : “IF there is a savior – Jesus Christ, are you willing to accept HIM?” I said “I am willing”. Just like the friends on this board, I was using the conditional IF. I figured that I was not lying and I got nothing to lose: IF there is NO God, this would be merely a scientific or psychology experiment that will prove there is no God; but IF there IS a GOD as good as they said, I am sure that’s what I wanted. The Pastor did warned us that our human should be careful about our attitude, we should be pleading for HIM to be mercy to reveal himself to us, not demand him to prove to us.

So he led two of us read my very first prayer, something like this: “Dear Father in heaven, Christ Jesus the only son, I, xxx, come before you, I pray before you. I know I am a sinner, and I know I have no hope to be saved by myself. IF YOU DO EXIST, please come into my heart, reveal yourself to me, (then) I, xxx, will be willing to accept you as my savior, cleansing my sin through your precious blood, so that I can become a new man, will sin no more; I will follow you, to the eternal life. In Jesus’ name, Amen”

Right the next day, the other student testified that he felt the difference, yet nothing magical happened on me. Even through I enjoyed going to church and read the bible, it still took me about one year to be sure that GOD DOES EXIST.