Testimonies

Maybe I should share a little of my conversion story here. I got to know Christianity when I was in secondary school when some classmates introduced it to me, one of them is Anglican and I didn't get to know the denomination of the other one. They brought me to some of their sessions then after that asked me to make a decision between their churches. But they were 'selling' me their churches. That was when I first saw the disunity among Christians.

I decided to attend one of their prayer meeting session but the first thing they got me to do was say the sinner's prayer and told me I can consider myself to be Christian from then on. But I didn't consider myself to be so. I couldn't understand what they were praying there, maybe reflecting on some verses of the bible but I just wasn't interested and wasn't convinced. I left halfway during the second session.

Later on, I managed to find a King James Version (KJV) Bible which my aunt didn't use anymore and started reading it. I started with Genesis and gave up somewhere in the middle of the book. I found out about the Gospels later and read them and found that the teachings are pretty good. At a later point in life, I got into some newsgroups when Christianity is being discussed and I find that most Christians who argue there couldn't do so logically because they just passed off verses in the Bible they couldn't interprete as being written in a figurative way. And others could explain it in a way that is totally different in meaning. So I started to find verses in the Bible that could refute their claims and I was amazed at how easy that could be done.

At that point in time, I decided that there is truth in the Bible but just that the people couldn't understand it. After all, they are humans and are bound to make mistakes. So I gave God a chance and I started praying, still a bit sceptical, but giving in a little also. And it is pretty strange that it was then that I begin to really notice the Catholics around me and one day, a non-Christian friend told me she was attending the RCIA class at a Catholic church, so I got to find out more about the class and I managed to get a Catholic friend to enrol me in one of the classes.

The class introduced God, first by provoking our thoughts and curiosity, introduced Jesus and the church then later the Bible came into picture. Then I thought I would maybe have a chance to refute verses again, but this time I was wrong! There wasn't a chance for me at all because the doctrine allows the verses to support each other rather than become ambiguous. I was quite intrigued because only then I could actually read the Bible and the New Testaments literally mean what it was written.

From then on, I was pretty convinced that the Catholic Church is THE Church because the Doctrine and the Bible do not contradict. And I got baptised at the end of the class which ran for nearly a year. It was only then that I could call myself a Christian.

So, I am a pretty good contradiction for someone's claim that one must become a Protestant before he becomes a Catholic, because if I had not got to know the Catholic Church, I would not have become a Christian at all! Praise the Lord! Everyone can only try to convince people with the Bible but they will definitely stumble somewhere and make a fool of themselves. All we need is to believe that God being perfect will give us as perfect as possible something for us to get to Him and there must exist a correct interpretation of the Scripture and that's where the Catholic Church comes into picture, because the Scripture is a document of The Church.

I think most Protestants are people who are pretty satisfied with partial truths that they have and probably that's why they have lots and lots of Bible study sessions to really understand the Bible along the doctrine of their church. I think this will go on forever until they finally decided to allow God to touch them and lead them. Only then they are able to let go of their preconceived ideas and allow God to really show them who He is, through His Church.

Are we willing to let go of our pride and really allow God to lead us? Only when we do, then can we find a church that is able to truly demonstrate Jesus's humility. Eventually, it is us giving ourselves up to the Lord and come to serve, not to be served. "Here I am, Lord!"

God bless!
Saxon

(Saxon can be contacted at [email protected])