God loves the world. Each of us is chosen by God, and we all have different experiences and stories behind our faith in God. Here are 40 stories and experiences behind people's faiths that I have heard and seen. Maybe the story behind your faith might be here.
While part 1 contains the stories of six Christians and part 2 shares other stories of five believers who encountered God in their hard times, the third episode tells amazing stories of people who believed in the Lord as a result of love and family influence.
13. He was ignorantly brought to the church and became a believer.
He was brought to the church by his mother 20 years ago when he was a child. It can be said that he was "ignorantly" brought to the church by his mother. As a child, he played while in the church, recited the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and sang a few hymns. But that was all superficial. He was not baptized and he did not believe. It was not until he started working in his 20s that he got baptized.
After becoming a believer, he was very enthusiastic and joined the Youth Fellowship of the church and the church choir. He often communicated and consulted with church pastors, wrote some lessons from Bible reading and published poems in the Christian media, participated in the fellowship to share lessons from Bible reading as well as some charity activities carried out by the church. His faith went from ignorance to understanding, and he was able to bring the people around him to the church. He also reached out to some brothers and sisters who were confused about their faith or encountered setbacks, enlightened and helped them with the words of the Bible and his own faith experiences. Sometimes, he helped some brothers and sisters solve practical problems in life and work.
When he was ready to get married, the premise of his love was: "I want to find a believer who shares the same beliefs as me." Thank God that he found his partner among the believers and had a wedding in the church. Today, the three members of the family live a happy life.
14. The love of believers convinced him of the Lord.
The man had three failed marriages, and by the time he was in his 60s, he was alone. He tried to get out of this loneliness. When he was young, he liked musical instruments and was good at playing the saxophone, so he joined some groups of musical players in society. But here he also felt confused. The members of the band fought and schemed against each other, even sabotaged each other; whenever things got serious, it would end up in an uproar. He felt as if instead of relief, he was plunged into a different kind of predicament.
He also had a close friend in the band, a Christian who, when he saw his situation, admonished him and took him to church. He knew that the Christian faith was about love, but he had not experienced it. He was also suspicious. To save his "face", he went to the church with his Christian friend.
When his friends introduced him to the pastor and the church band leader, they warmly welcomed him. Although he was not yet a believer, he was invited to join the church band, where he played and praised with other members. He felt that there was less strife and complexity in the church band than in the social band, and they were filled with love for God. It was in this atmosphere of love that he came to the church almost every day, practicing with others in ensembles, attending church meetings, listening to sermons, and participating in Christmas and other activities organized by the church. Some believers of the church band who knew that he was alone, sometimes brought him steamed stuffed bun, and glutinous rice (zongzi) during the Dragon Boat Festival.
It was in this atmosphere of love that he slowly believed in the Lord, and continued to be active in the church band. He is no longer depressed and lonely.
15. She quit a top executive job position to serve as a writer.
She studied journalism in college, and after graduation, she naturally joined a large media bureau in Shenzhen as a business reporter. Over the years, she got to know many businesspeople and acquired much business knowledge. So she was invited to a company to be a deputy general manager, a top executive, with an annual salary. She did very well in this position, which was quite appreciated by the head of the company.
However, as a member of a family of believers for three generations, she did not forget her belief. She consistently attended church meetings and paid attention to the ministry of the church. Finally, she decided to refuse the company's request to stay, and without hesitation, went to a Christian media as editor-in-chief.
Her colleagues all felt sorry for her and wrongly thought she was going to a new place where the salary was better (choosing money over career). The salary and welfare benefits were nothing compared to that of her former job; the salary and office conditions were poor, the workload was much, sometimes she had to work from dawn to dusk. She had to attend to a lot of readers online, edit and submit articles every day, which was relatively boring. None of this shook her devotion to serve.
She said with a smile: "I have never regretted it, I did not choose this service, the Lord chose me, and gave me this platform."
16. Multi-level Marketing (MLM) bankruptcy caused him to desperately return to the Lord.
He was a believer, but when he saw some people making a lot of money, he envied them and always dreamed of becoming rich himself. To "quickly get rich", he listened to a friend and travelled thousands of miles to join a "project investment" in a southern province. He put in 58,000 yuan for "investment", and after becoming a member, he continued to bring in more people, a kind of "pyramid" marketing. The more people he brought in, the higher his "level" and the higher his income.
When he attended an MLM meeting, he was influenced by the rich "elite" performance speech and the shout of the people at the meeting venue; it seemed like he would soon have a luxury car, a mansion and a lot of money. So he not only invested his own money but also fooled his relatives, classmates, and other people into "get rich" together.
Finally, he became penniless, alienated from his relatives, with no permanent residence, and shamelessly returned to his hometown in the north, relying on his temporary job at the local construction site to make a living.
After all, he was still a believer. In his dilemma, he thought of the church. So he went to the local church to give it a try.
The head pastor of the church warmly welcomed him because believers who had been persecuted by MLM schemes had come to the church for help before. The priest comforted him, and according to his condition, the church placed him in a nursing home and gave him a job as a security guard. This way, he had a permanent home and a job, and his mind was at peace. He confessed his sins before God, and during his spare time, he participated in the service group ministry and actively served the believers and the church. He drove cars, helped with house maintenance, also did some weak current electricity maintenance, etc., and was a "jack of all trades" who went wherever he was needed.
Before the Spring Festival that year, with the encouragement of his pastor, he returned to his hometown with the money he had saved. Everyone thought he would never come back, but he came back after the Spring Festival and brought his wife to serve together in church. He also donated household appliances such as washing machines and electric fans to the nursing homes in his locality. He deeply said: "God and the church saved me when I was at the end of the road, so I cannot bear to leave."
Later, with the encouragement of the church pastor, he did a sales job for an entity company. After working hard, he achieved remarkable results and his income was increased. He now drives his car for business, and it has become the church's "official vehicle".
To be continued…
(The article is originally published by Gospel Times.)
- Translated by Nonye Nancy
