Why I’m Getting Baptized 30 Years On

Written By Kevin Chua, Malaysia

I’ve finally made up my mind to attend a baptism class; no one coerced me into doing it. A series of events over the past five years, and especially in recent months, have assured me of my faith and now, 30 years on, I’m ready to publicly declare it.

When I was a kid, my mother took me to Wesley Methodist Church in Malacca, a city in Malaysia, to attend Sunday school classes. She is a Methodist, while my late father was a Buddhist. Both were devout followers of their faiths. As the years passed, however, I didn’t feel the need to go to church anymore. I disliked being forced to wake up early every Sunday, and I felt that I didn’t know God well enough to want to go.

When I entered secondary school, I was taught that humans came into existence through millions of years of evolution, and that the universe and living things exist because of nature. I joined the Buddhist Society and found that it suited me well, as Buddhism does not believe in the existence of a creator God. I believed the scientific explanations about the existence of the universe and life, and so I followed Buddhism for nearly three decades.

I thought that I had finally found a belief that would bring peace to my heart—until something happened in 2010: my three-year marriage broke down.

I was lost. I had nothing to hang on to and no one to talk to. I bought books on how to cope with the divorce, but what they taught didn’t work on me. Something was missing.

Then I remembered that there was indeed someone who could save me: God. I told my mother one day: “Mom, I’m following you back to church.”

After a 30-year absence, I was welcomed “home” in the same, warm way by the same people. The only thing that had changed was their age. I started going to church regularly, and have been doing that for five years now.

I also found that the Bible is truly relevant to my life. And I found support in church members, who encouraged me by telling me that it was all right when bad things happened, and that things would be better. I was to trust in God and continue to have faith in Him.

About two months ago, something else happened that fully assured me of God’s existence. I lost my job and was severely short on funds. I prayed regularly over that period, but one night after attending a job interview, I decided to confess my sins to the Lord and ask Him to help me get a job. That was my first whole-hearted confession, in which I admitted my foolishness and ignorance, and asked forgiveness for drifting away from God. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much, but I was ready to let God handle it His way.

The next morning, I got a call from a school in Malacca offering me the teaching job I had applied for earlier. It was the best news I’d ever received, and I praised God immediately. It was truly God’s work, and I immediately called my aunts, who were Christians, to tell them that God had been listening and had answered my prayers.

That incident taught me that there certainly is a God. And while God may not answer all my prayers right away, He will help me when I am in trouble. God will answer prayers in His own time.

There’s no turning back this time. I have found God, and I’m ready to be a Christian.

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

Photo credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery / Foter / CC BY