I don't remember the date, or even just the year, I got baptized. It was in my house, and originally for my wife, though. While they were busy getting things ready upstairs in our master bathroom where the sacred ceremony would be conducted, I chatted with church elders downstairs about "why does one need to get through a ritual like this, if he knows deep down he believes already?" "Well, that's not how it works. You see, the Bible says..." Long story short, I figured at the end even though I don't see a strong reason for it, I don't have a strong one against it either, so why not "give it a try," as they suggested, and see what happens. So I got baptized in the same bathtub my wife did on that same day.
Nothing happened.
My "born-again" Christian life only began many years later, and in no dramatic fashion either, when I decided I had asked questions enough, done thinking enough, gone back and forth enough, since my youth, and I knew true religion is not philosophy or academic research, but commitment and actions based on that commitment to a truth you kind of know exists, vague and incomprehensible it may be.
So I told myself to make that commitment, started professing my beliefs outwardly, attending church regularly, joining groups and ministries... talking the talk and walking the walk, that's basically what I did, and that's when it worked. I felt my rubber hitting the road, screeching and reeling it might be, the smokes and sparks were pretty real for sure.
Not that I don't have doubts any more, but I tried to suppress them, because 1) I know my human intellect is limited, and 2) maybe this is God's way of taming my vain-glory pride that I know is the biggest sin of them all. Besides, you get liberated only if someone is holding it tight at the other end for you, don't you?
Until I got liberated again a few years later, realizing God doesn't really want to hold me back on some things that my limited human intellect finds puzzling, unnecessarily. Like:
* Though we humans are God's beloved creation, we are in no position to expect how we ought to be treated by him, or how the rest of the world has come into being. If evolution is a process God uses to mold the world and human beings to its current physical-spiritual form, it's in his absolute sovereignty to do so, even though it may hurt our feelings a bit, to think we are somehow related to those big ugly apes, just like when we found out Earth was not the center of the world a few centuries ago.
* Bible is a great reference book to God, but not God himself. It's the finger pointing to the moon, not the moon itself. Personally my favorite part of the Bible is still those books of Gospels, stories of Jesus and his teachings--what a true God-man he was and still is. And like some people say, the whole Bible is really just a love story told from God to man. Catch that spirit, and catch that man, and that's good enough for me. Not interested in finding out how far between two poles should be placed when ancient Israelis built their tabernacles, or how the world will end with what anti-Christ beast prophesied by what verse in what chapter of what book. Some people may find these interesting or meaningful, I don't. I'd rather get out and smell the roses, or hike in the awesome wilderness that's God's reference to himself too.
* Our words and terminologies are so limited and cumbersome and can cause misunderstandings even when they try to say the same thing. Protestants like to say (with a whiff of superiority air, maybe) that their salvation is an instant "imputation" while Catholics' a gradual "infusion"; worse yet, ours comes from free grace while theirs tries to gain it through hard works. But the fact is we all struggle to keep our daily walk with God (a process called "sanctification" in Protestantese), even after we know we are unconditionally accepted and loved by him, and from what I see, many great Catholic saints' "works" are just fervent and relentless efforts to get closer to the Lord they love ever so dearly, far from wanting to gain anything in return at all.
I can go on and list more personal beliefs of mine like these, but I don't want to, because they are not important, just some static concepts I conclude based on my observations and logical thinking so far, not the real faith that actually inspires and moves me daily.
What is the difference between faith and beliefs then? I can't say it better than someone already did:
"A way of faith, however, is not a dogged adherence to one point of view and to the belief systems and ritual traditions that express it. That would make it just ideology or sectarianism, not faith. Faith is a transformational journey that demands that we move in, through and beyond our frameworks of belief and external observances—not betraying or rejecting them but not being entrapped by their forms of expression either. St. Paul spoke of the Way of salvation as beginning and ending in faith. Faith is thus an open-endedness, from the very beginning of the human journey."
--- Fr. Laurence Freeman, Newsletter of the World Community for Christian Meditation
My faith is at work when I find I have the circumspection to stop arguing with my wife even though I think I am right; or go out to meet people I don't think I really like to meet and then find I genuinely like them; or seeing all the wars and disasters and inhumanity happening around the world and still know all's going to be well at the end.
May that faith increase day by day without end!
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