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My way to God
Eva Markova
In childhood I didn’t believe that God existed. First, because I was born in an unbelieving family and second, because during communism we were taught in school that there was no God. And I thought no one believed in God today. But one day I asked my grandmother if she believed in UFOs. And she, to my great surprise, answered, “No, I believe in God. That’s how I met my first believer. My grandmother showed me her prayer books, and I learned the Lord’s Prayer by heart. And one day, when I was about 12 years old, I thought I would try to pray. Maybe God would help me. As I prayed, I felt as if someone could hear me. There must be a God! And I thought, I can’t just mess with Him by praying once and that’s it. And so I started praying regularly-morning and evening.
Over time I came to the conclusion that as a believer I should go to church and be baptized. So I started attending services at church on Sundays and religious studies during the week in preparation for baptism. My baptism happened when I turned 15. I expected then that I would experience something wonderful that would fill the emptiness in my heart. But nothing like that happened. I stayed the same, and my baptism did not bring me any closer to God. I continued to pray to God, but He remained a stranger to me.
In seeking the truth
As a teenager, I felt very lonely.
I didn’t like the relationships in class, the gossip, hypocrisy and cruelty of my classmates. So I became very withdrawn and didn’t trust people. I thought a lot about the meaning of life and looked for perfection in relationships and in life in general. I read the Bible and considered myself a Christian. But at the same time, I was looking for the truth in other places as well. I did not understand the Bible in many ways, and there were even doubts about its validity. After all, people could have just made it all up!
Christians who held only the Bible to their faith, I thought, were limited. I myself had read other spiritual literature – esoteric literature. I believed in reincarnation (that one is born again and again on earth) and karma (law of retribution), and I saw the cause of my difficulties in my sins from past lives. I did yoga and other exercises in an effort to tune my energy and get rid of the bad energy. During this time, my emotions stabilized and I became more confident. I thought of myself as spiritual and in my heart disregarded other people who were not as spiritual as me.
In the depths of despair
But did yoga and all my exercises and books help me? No!
There were times when I found it very difficult. I felt inwardly broken, and was confused by all the opposing teachings in my books. I didn’t understand, for example, what significance Jesus had in all of this. If everyone bears the penalty for their own crimes and sins before God, then why did Jesus die? I tried to reach perfection in my own strength and not accumulate my sins anymore, but I realized that it was beyond me. Even though I didn’t want to, I still continued to sin and didn’t know how to love other people. God was far away for me then, and the emptiness in my heart remained. I longed for something. I wanted to know the truth and the meaning. Why am I here? Why am I living? What was my purpose? I didn’t want to be like one of my girlfriends who only picked out what she liked from these books. I wanted to know the Truth, which is independent of my desire, but which works for everyone, whether they want it or not.
One summer in August, during my last holidays in high school, I was in deep despair, and then I wrote in my diary the following words: “I can’t do this anymore, because I am missing something. Oh God, HELP ME!!! I have an aversion to everything, a great sense of futility and emptiness.” And God heard me…
The sunrise comes
In September, a new classmate came to our class who was as Christian as I had ever met.
She was cheerful and friendly and you could talk to her about anything, even my doubts. And she gave me answers to my questions. It amazed me when she told me how God answered her prayers. She firmly believed everything that was written in the Bible, and it was confirmed by her experience in life with God. And so I slowly began to understand that there was more to Christianity than I still thought.
God found me!
Later I met other Christians.
They were also very nice and friendly, and I really enjoyed their warm relationships and respect for each other. One day, after a Christian concert, which at first I had no intention of going to, a fellow believer told me about his journey to God. Like me, he had been practicing yoga, attending seminars and searching for the meaning of life for many years. But none of this filled his heart. It wasn’t until one day at a Christian meeting where people were praying for him that God touched him and let him experience his presence and filled him with unimaginable joy. As I listened to him, tears streamed down my face and I really wanted to know God and Jesus like this man did! I wanted God to touch me personally, too! And in that moment, God had already touched me.
This man, seeing my tears and thirst, offered to pray to me. First, he prayed to God for me himself and then called me to repeat after him the words of the prayer of repentance, which sounded something like this: “Lord Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross for my sins. Forgive me my sins and the fact that I have lived so far without You. I give you my life and accept you as my Savior and Lord. I give up my old way of life and want to live with You. Help me, please, and enter into my heart.”
And He went inside! As I prayed, God filled my heart, and I felt a joy like I had never felt before. I had found it! Or rather, it was God who found me! From that prayer, I was sure that God was alive, that Jesus was alive, that the Bible was God’s truthful word, and that I could trust for everything.
A new life – joy and sometimes sadness
It was like I was flying with happiness.
I started attending different Christian meetings in our town, enjoying my new relationship with God and my brothers and sisters in faith. But my parents were worried that I had become a fanatic and only allowed me to go to meetings of believers once a week, expecting that the fire that was starting to burn inside me would go out. But it didn’t. When I was alone at home reading the Bible, praying, communicating with God, and singing songs to Him, I felt the same presence of God again as I had that first time after the concert. My faith was not as dependent on people as it was on the living God Himself starting to live in me. The emptiness was gone. I now had a long-awaited meaning to my life, a purpose, and a deep peace in my heart that I had never even imagined before. I felt it even when my faith caused conflicts with my parents, which sometimes ended in tears. The people closest to me didn’t understand me. But that’s also part of being a Christian. Life with God is not always easy. The Christian has to give up much that the world offers, people often don’t understand him, but he does it knowing that God gives something much bigger and better. Here on earth God comforts, helps, gives strength to go on in difficult moments. And after death, He gives hope of eternal life with Him. Without Jesus, temporary life here on earth may seem pleasant, but when it is over, we will all have to stand before a holy God and give an account of how we have lived. And he who has not laid his sins before Jesus will face eternal punishment… But God doesn’t want that and offers life!
I realized that I cannot achieve perfection on my own, but there is a Perfect God who helps me become a better person. And I no longer consider that I am paying for my old sins with hardships, but I know that there is One who has already paid for them on the cross – Jesus. He gave me salvation, forgave me my sins and gave me new life as a gift, all I had to do was accept it – by faith. For me, the gift was entirely free, but for Jesus it was worth his blood. Why? Because He loves – and me, and you, and every person in the world!
20 years have passed since I gave my life to Jesus, and I have never regretted that I did it. Jesus is my greatest treasure and my greatest gain in life. Now I cannot see Jesus with my physical eyes, but I believe that one day I will see Him face to face, and my joy will last forever…
“Whom not having seen ye love; on whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” (1 Peter 1:8)
