Searching for the meaning of life

During this Thanksgiving season, while counting the blessings of family, friends and all the good things in life, my deep gratitude is especially given to those who guided me on my journey of seeking meanings and answers. Their patient and unreserved guidance had changed the course of my life and enriched it most greatly in both depth and breath.

It is said that every life has a story. Though my story may differ from yours, I believe no matter where we were born and in whichever cultural background we grew up, all of our stories are ultimately related to our searching (knowingly or unknowingly) for the identity of who we truly are and what the life is all about beside and beyond it’s obvious, visible and material form.

(1)

“What is indeed the meaning of life?” I started to ponder this question when I was in high school. Growing up in communist country, I was told that life was only an accidental product with no predetermined purpose. But somehow this materialistic view bothered me. Deep down in my heart, I wished this were not true. I tried to find possible answers from different aspects that were available to me at the time: books, friends as well as the experiences and understandings of others. Although all of those enhanced my understanding and helped me to look at life from different perspective, they didn’t answer the question to my satisfaction and didn’t completely comfort my agitated inner being.

In the spring of 1990, when I was trapped in Prague of Czechoslovakia alone, and life was at its lowest point. One evening while I was wandering in the street pointlessly, a group of students handed me a Bible. Though I didn’t believe in any religion, I read it anyway when I had nothing else to do. But I couldn’t comprehend it at all. One evening however, somehow one of these verses (Matthew 7:7) jumped out at me and I actually could understand its meaning: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” It sounded like a promise. How wonderful it would have been if it were truly a promise, I pondered: if I kept seeking, I might one day find. But by nature and training, I was a person with mathematical mind, anything not logically sound was hard to accept. Besides, atheism was instilled in me from very beginning and was held true for the past thirty years. It was impossible for me to say “I believe” overnight. Nevertheless religion became a topic that interested me and I started to observe the life of those who believed. In the class I was attending, there were two students from Egypt, who were faithful Muslims. They were openly practicing their faith: morning prayer, evening prayer, fasting, seemingly it’s a real thing. One day I got a chance in the lab to ask the young and intelligent student Magdy: “Magdy, you are very intelligent, plus you are a student of science, how could you believe in God with such sincerity? You know that science and religion can not coexist, as I have learned.” Magdy’s answer was much unexpected: “Because I am a student of science, so my belief is more sincere!” This was exactly opposite to the knowledge I acquired about science and religion. I encouraged him eagerly: “Tell me about it.” I didn’t realize that my request was about to have Magdy to begin a wonderful explanation from an unexpected angle, which in turn, would change my 30-year-long atheist mind.

Magdy said: “We are both chemists, we understand the second law of thermodynamics. It is stated that in a closed system, if there is no energy introduced from outside, the system can only develop spontaneously from relatively higher order to lower order till it reaches completely chaotic state. For example, a beautiful garden must have a diligent gardener, otherwise the garden will for sure be full of weeds; a home, if there is no one to clean, to organize, it will not spontaneously become neat and orderly; and if you see a line of footprints on desert, you will sure think someone has just passed by, and will not believe just because of wind blowing here, accidentally left the footprints on the sand. In summary, that is ‘where there is will, there is order, otherwise, there is only chaos.’ The same is also true for the universe. Through out the nature we have come to know so far, order is everywhere. In all directions we look, small or big, near or far, life or lifeless alike are governed by predetermined natural laws. If we consider the whole universe a closed system, in order to sustain the highly ordered state, there must be energy introduced from outside the universe. The One who is beyond the universe, who is constantly putting energy into the universe is the God I believed in.”

What a reasonable explanation, at least to me! I never knew the existence of God could be explained scientifically. Magdy’s vivid explanation made me feel that switching from an atheist to a believer was not impossible as I thought before and could be reasonable. I had been in the world of atheism searching for the meaning of life for the past 15 years, and had not been able to find answer. Perhaps, it’s time for me to honestly ask myself questions concerning my belief. I thought I was an atheist, was that what I’ve studied thoroughly and came to the conclusion myself? No, I was taught to be an atheist; I was never given an opportunity to choose. Magdy could explain the existence of God scientifically, but I’ve never thought about what was the proof of my atheist belief. If believing/not believing was only a choice of 50-50%, what should I choose? I’ve seen enough what could happen in a society where there was no God. Perhaps, even if it's just a 50-50% choice, I’d rather choose to believe. I’d like to see the other half of the world. Plus, Magdy's explanation was somewhat sensible to me, I could not just ignore it.

I asked Magdy one more question: “Magdy, where did you learn all of these things?”

Magdy replied seriously: “Have you ever heard of ‘Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom’?”

I decided that I was willing and ready to search after the wisdom from God!!

(2)

In the spring of 1991, I finally entered US, the land of the free. The opportunity was precious. With the little knowledge about God from Magdy, I dived myself into Chinese Christian Fellowship organized by students. I studied Bible with them diligently for months and learned many explanations from them as well. I realized by surprise that believing in God was not just a question of believing or not, believing in God was also implying who to believe, which religion to join, even which sects to belong to. This was beyond my comprehension. Honestly, I had nothing to be against Christianity. As matter of fact, I was baptized towards the end of my Bible study, becoming a Christian of my own choice. I believed that Christ was a way leading to God, but I just couldn’t convince myself that Christ was the only way. I was once an atheist, the world was only divided into two half: believing and not believing. A verse from Bible had once given me a leap of faith; the intelligent and warm-hearted Muslim Magdy had led me crossed the line from the non-believing world to the Kingdom of God; I had also shared an apartment with a girl from India for almost a year in Prague, and witnessed her worshiping her God with the same sincerity; and also from my own homeland China, I had learned a little about Buddhism. Were they not all Religions? Beside the different names, did they not all believe in the same God? I happened to become a Christian, just because it was the most popular religion in this country. Had I not come to US then, instead gone to Middle East, I’d have become a Muslim for sure. Oh, religion, I once thought believing in God was all that a religion was about, never expected such complication and confusion.

Although I had many concerns and confusions about religion, I still remembered the verse from Bible which had once gave me comfort and encouragement:

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” --- Matthew 7:7

I still believed that this verse was a promise to me: if I ask, I shall be answered.

After I finished studying Bible, I began to ask questions. My major concerns at the time could be summarized as follows:

* What’s the relationship between different religions? How could we know they didn’t believe in the same God?

* According to the current belief of Christianity, Christ was the only Son of God, never before and never after would be another One like Him. Why? If God is all powerful, HE surely could send many Christ-like Ones to mankind, Why not then?

* What’s the relationship between religion and science? Science as the sum of discovered natural laws and religion as the teachings from the Creator of our universe must have something in common, surely not contradict to each other as most have believed?

I started asking those questions in Chinese fellowship, in different Churches. And soon I realized that Christianity as a whole had very rigid doctrines. Any questions that were beyond the scope of these doctrines, they tended to avoid answering them. I knew then that in order to find answers, I must search outside Christianity.

One thing I never doubted that I should one day find answers. God would never fail anyone who asked Him.

(to be continued...)

Searching for the meaning of life (Part II)