Needless to say, the Holy Spirit must have worked hard to make a person repent and accept Jesus of Nazareth as his Christ Savior and follow Him. At the same time, each individual must have special wish and motive depending on his individuality and circumstances around him. When I heard that about fifty Japanese youths, who were faced with the restoration movement of Meiji era and burning with the spirit of salvaging their country, swore to become Christians by signing with own blood, I admired and praised them for their great spirits; I could not stop sympathizing the necessary circumstances they were in, seeing statistics that many people started to pay undivided attention and indulged themselves in spiritual awakening because they began to reflect on previous wrongs committed and to contemplate future blessing around forty to fifty years old, well passed their prime ages, after enjoying pleasure for the most of their life.

However, my main motive was not noble ambition like those Japanese youths had had fifty years ago; moreover, I did not need to implore to cleanse previous wrongs I committed and to be blessed to go to heaven in the next world. I was not concerned about attaining Buddha hood after death; rather I considered it only as a problem in this world thoroughly. Such thing as becoming an angel or being burnt in blazing fire in the hell was not the most pressing matter rooted in the deepest place in my soul. My most concerning matter was how can I reach perfection even for one day in this life with my flesh and heart as they are at present time.

When I was learning Confucius’ teaching, ‘Aim to learn at fifteen, become independent at thirty, do not suspect the principles of matters at forty, understand the will of heaven at fifty, become a well-informed person in all matters at sixty, then you can do anything you want without violating rules at seventy,’ I decided to make it as a timetable of my life and I pledged in my heart to shorten ten years from Confucius’ timetable; day and night, I was anxious of thinking how to actualize my goal, ‘do anything I want without violating rules at sixty’. However, the more I became anxious, the more I sighed for the source of my anxiety; I do not cultivate virtue and I do not endeavor studying; aside from sixty, I did not foresee any hope to be near my goal, ‘do anything I want without violating rules’ even at eighty; when I was very much near the abyss of despair dangerously, a young evangelist told me about the good news of Christianity, which revived my new hope and courage once again. He witnessed, “It is not a matter of perfecting you at seventy, but now even a twenty years old youth can accomplish anything what he wants, as soon as he begins a religious life.” So I understood it as the best and the only way to actualize my life long wish, ‘do anything I want without violating rules’; How can it be excessive that I danced wildly in full of glee.

Since then, I began to try again; an effort to actualize Confucius’ moral quicker by borrowing ‘the power of the Holy Spirit’ as the Christian evangelist told me. Moreover, I realized a great difference in their seriousness between Confucius’ words, ‘A man who does nothing after seeing the good is a coward’ and Christ’s words, ‘The person who does not do the good he knows he should do, is guilty of sin (James 4: 17)’; comparing the precept of people, ‘Retaliate fairly and squarely to the one who reproach against you’ and the superhuman precept, ‘If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the left also’, it seemed like comparing the breath of a lotus pond and that of an ocean; considering two clauses in moral code, ‘do to others what you would have them do to you’ and ‘do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you’, I saw that Christian precept was much more far-reaching and noble, comparing with that of Confucius’, to a novice who did not know what Christianity was as a whole. As I found more far-reaching moral codes, my zeal toward Christianity was gradually heightened and sincere. The prospect of my pilgrimage toward the peak of moral codes was bright, feeling confident that I will actualize all words and clauses of wonderful sentences in the Sermon on the Mount.

At that time, I listened to a commentary of the Sermon on the Mount from a trustworthy Christian teacher, which shook the foundation of my view toward Christianity. This teacher denied my honest remarks that I had believed the purpose being Christianity was for each believer to practice more wonderful and solemn moral codes of Christianity, compared to those of Confucianism, to their perfection during their lifetime, and he pointed out that they were groundless in the Bible. Worrying that my disappointment would be great, the kind senior tried to comfort me by saying that there was a promise of sanctification in the next world. However, phrases like ‘after death’ or ‘in the next world’ could not comfort me, rather they made me despair or angry further. How could it be a comfort to me if a snake was offered when I asked for fish? Or, how would I be satisfied if scorpion was given when I asked for an egg? (Luke 11:11) What I wanted was neither ‘sanctification after death’ nor promise in the next world’; I wished to reach the state of perfection for one year or for even one day, while I am still living with my flesh as it was; I did not need any more than that and I was discontented with any less than that. If Christianity could not satisfy my need, I no longer needed to stay with it. But, I knew very well that returning to Confucianism meant repeating serious despair once again. Ah! My search for truth fell in a dilemma at this point; at the time when endeavor was turning to despair and agony to abandonment, I looked down myself once again. When I read the clause, ‘A man who does nothing after seeing the good is a coward’, I thought I could finally become a courageous man if I gradually cultivate and practice my mind, even though I am surely a man of little courage now.

What is courage? According to my previous conception, I regarded myself, through good training, becoming as courageous as Dae-won-goon who repelled French fleet triumphantly at one stroke at the Inchon Bay when French invaded. But when I learned the courage of Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, I listened to that of Stephen and Saint Paul, and looked up that of Christ Jesus, I discovered that my natural disposition did not include the least of such courage. “A man cannot serve two masters.” (Matthew 6:24) It is an obvious principle, but to practice it, we need the determination of Martin Luther who stood at Worms meeting, and the heroic spirit of Moses who led Israelites across the Red Sea: Oh! How can I discover these within me! “Therefore……do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear……Look at the birds of the air……See how the lilies of the field grow……But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness……” (Matthew 6: 25-34) Every clause is a reasonable principle, but it requires extraordinary courage to practice those principles. When I have to confess that I do not have a piece of shadow of this courage within me, how can I be satisfactory! It is true for me; I do not know of others.

I truly live serving two masters or three; I am anxious and panicky for my livelihood, just like the instinct of dogs or horses. I can see that I am worse than birds in the air or lilies in the fields. I was shocked to see that I sought first was neither his righteousness nor his kingdom, but only huge mass of avarice. The reason I was not practicing the good after seeing it was not because my courage was weak, but I did not have courage to comply to the good at all. In the past, I believed the doctrine of innate goodness and stood by my expectation that by nurturing the good nature of natural disposition, a resolution of one’s life in puniness determined at young age could be perfected big at old age. But by understanding my self more clearly, I found that I did not have any good nature within me and I am a pitiful mass of sins, lacking courage to practice good deeds. I had to completely abandon my ambition of reaching the state of perfection through self-culture. “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Roman 7:24) I had to appeal my urgency by quoting it. In the past, I boasted loftily that I could manage to swim across the Pacific Ocean from this side to the New World at the other side of it. But, now I was up against raging waves, and realizing that my life was a few more moments left, I had to call for a help in horror.

“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” (Roman 7:18) Uttering the same pathetic confession, the most humble and feeble sinner of all sinners surrendered to the face of the most holy, omnipotent king of all kings. So my motive of becoming a believer was to deny my self, to give up my self, almost reaching to a point to suicide, giving up self-culture or growth. Becoming weary of ethical self-culture and tired of coping with mental bankruptcy, I ran to the One who declared, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not to come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:31-32) Those are my steps how I ran toward Jesus.

(Message: We all have weakness or short-coming whether we realize it or not. To lead a successful life in peace, we need the grace and wisdom from Christ Jesus our Savior.)