From an early age, I was able to sing the International: “There has never been a savior, nor do we rely on gods or emperors… We depend on ourselves for our salvation.” As I sang those words, I was filled with revolutionary heroism as if I were truly the master of my fate. In high school, I chanced upon these words by the educationist Tao Xingzhi: “I sweat my own sweat, eat my own meals, and do my own work. No one is man enough to depend on others or on heaven.” I loved those words so much I copied them in my notebook.

When I started studying mathematics, physics, and chemistry, I had a crush on the intrinsic beauty of natural science. So I began to hold rationality and science as sacred and develop the dream of saving my motherland through science. The most precious years of my life were, in fact, spent on “scaling one peak after another in science.” Eliminating all the hurdles on the way forward, I entered a prestigious university in Beijing, began working in a research center, and even embarked on the courses as a doctoral candidate.

For many years, “communism plus personal struggle plus scientism” constituted what I believed to be a seamless system of my faith, a system no one could find anything wrong with.

But things started to change.

Born in a poor family with a blameless family background, endowed with excellent academic performance all along, I toed the line of the Communist Party without an iota of doubt. That a person of my background should have received a superb education was a credit to the great policy of the proletarian dictatorship, wasn’t it? I came as no surprise that I should cherish profound love for the Communist Party of China over a long period of time.

But around 1989, when communism failed first in eastern Europe, then in the Soviet Union, and then in the mainland of China, my faith in the inevitable victory of communism was shaken.

Like many intellectuals in China, I care about my country and my people. Following what happened in Beijing on June 4^th, 1989, I found myself lost in pain every time I thought of the broken dream of tens of thousands of people who had devoted all they had, including their lives, to the cause of communism. Their noble ideal came to a dead end after 50 or so years of struggle. What a tragedy that was! For a fairly long time, I was not able to accept that as a hard fact of life. I have never judged people simply by their success or failure, but I knew soberly that there must be a profound cause behind a complete and out-and-out failure. Thus the beautiful dream of communism was smashed in my mind.

Looking back, I thought myself “wronged.” Marxism was imposed on me when my mind was like a blank sheet of paper. There was neither time nor space for me to do any careful thinking. How naïve I was when I prided myself on being an atheist! I had never studied or done any research on atheism. No, never. I didn’t choose to believe in atheism because I had proven the non-existence of God; I just parroted what others had been saying.

Taking everything into consideration, I was a very fortunate person. While not overly intelligent, I nonetheless was the first college student, the first graduate and post-graduate and the first post-doctorate studying abroad in my village, no, in an area with a radius of scores of miles. My unusual success in academic study satisfied my vanity but honestly it didn’t bring me true, eternal joy or peace of mind or true happiness. I admit that science is truly beautiful and equally attractive – it was the attraction of the inner beauty of classic physics that put me on the path of scaling the heights of science.

But to be engaged in scientific study invariably involves dealing with people. By and by I came to see that scientists, people who occupied a noble and sacred position in my mind when I was a little boy, are not beyond desire for fame and profit nor beyond dirty means nor beyond pride and prejudice. Some conduct personal attacks, some tell lies, and some carry on factional fights. While Chinese scientists suffer from those maladies, their foreign counterparts are not much better. That, for all purposes, was a merciless blow to me, a young scientist fresh from college. But there was nothing I could do to change all that. I was literally powerless.

Gradually I came to see that science itself is not all powerful. History shows that science is but a tool in the hands of man. Science can be used to do good; it can also be used to do evil. Nuclear physics is a good example to show that science cannot solve the problem of man being good or evil. Furthermore, the material civilization made possible by the development of science and technology has become an enormous lure for many people, so much so that modern men will seek material possession at all costs: they have no time to contemplate the meaning of life and its purpose.

On an autumnal evening in 1995, two students came to my dormitory to “sell” the good news of the Bible as well as tapes. They invited me and my roommate to join them in a youth gathering organized by church every Friday evening. Touched by their sincerity and spurred on by curiosity, we accepted their invitation. For the first time in my life, I went to church on Friday evening. Far beyond my expectations, it changed my life, once and for all.

But don’t misunderstand me: no miracle happened that evening. What I actually experienced at church, namely, the solemn atmosphere, the piety of the Christian followers, and their friendliness, endeared me to the church. But judging by the message delivered from the altar and by the ideas they exchanged, they seemed to be living in a different world. It was a world far away from the world I lived in, too far away for me to reach. And so, at the time of departure, though I promised to join them again, I told myself that I could find no common language between them and me and that it would just be a waste of time trying to find one.

To my surprise, the two students came to me again when evening approached the next Friday. As I had noplausible reason to say no, I followed them to the church again. The talk given by the pastor was brief and right after that, some Christian followers came to me. They talked to me about the essentials of their faith and asked me if I had any questions. By then, I had almost finished my doctoral studies and my head had had no lack of Marxist doctrines and theories. Therefore, I proudly quoted some in refutation of their faith. They responded in an effort to change my mind, but they hardly succeeded. However, they words set me thinking, enabling me to see many of the “blind points” in what I believed in. I started to rethink what I knew very little about but irresponsibly labeled as “superstition” on account of my pride.

On the evening of October 17, 1995, I went to the youth gathering of that church. At the end of his sharing of messages, the pastor invited the people like us to go forward to join him in praying. Without my knowing it, I stepped forward. That evening, I accepted Jesus as my savior without resort to logic or reason – something unprecedented for me.

Shortly after I accepted Jesus as my savior, I was invited to attend a Bible study group. Most of its members were college students like me. The group leader, who alone had been a Christian for several years, was quite familiar with the Scriptures and shared many of his experiences with us. Once a week, we sat down to study a special topic in the Bible. For homework, we were asked to read related passages in the Bible and finish reading the New Testament within three months. Also we were asked to recite two verses in the Bible. We did all this in seriousness and never muddled along. Of all the members in the group, I had the most years of schooling and so I worked hard at homework even though the deadline for submitting my thesis paper was approaching. In three months, I read the New Testament twice, and recited more than 20 verses, something I had every reason to be proud of. For a new Christian, it was like delivering charcoal to a home on snowy days and sending rain in a land long parched by summer heat. I came to have a basic idea of the New Testament, and I knew what I believed in, why I believed, and how to show my faith.

God showed mercy on me, fully aware that though I had pledged to accept Jesus as my savior, I was, in essence, still a person whose motto is “Seeing is believing.” God knew that I needed to “see” him in my life to strengthen my faith. Shortly after I made the pledge, I was made to face a series of important challenges in my life such as writing the doctoral thesis, graduating from college, hunting for a job, looking for a wife, getting married, mutual accommodation between husband and wife, going abroad, and having the first child.

Unfortunately for me, in meeting those challenges, I often found my strength falling short of my expectations. When the time came for me to make a critical decision, I was frequently overwhelmed by doubts, never sure if my decision was wise or not.

Encouraged by other Christians, I tried to seek God’s blessings by praying. At the beginning I didn’t have much faith in the effect of praying, but God being merciful and faithful, he answered my prayers and I experienced God’s responses time and again, which brought me more peace of mind than I had expected. However, I know that my faith is not a mere spiritual support. My God is a God that is real and alive, full of love and mercy, and what is more, is very powerful. It is worthwhile for me to subject myself to him wholly and completely and follow his lead so as to be crafted, polished and used by him.

The university I studied in offers a staggering variety of courses in many different academic fields. It is, indeed, a palace of knowledge and wisdom where students have chances to study, with the help of their professors, human knowledge in its crystallization. For quite some time, I allowed myself to be immersed in the study of psychology, philosophy, and religion in addition to my own specialized subject. Even today, I would say that one can easily get lost in the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom.

But when I came to believe in Jesus, bathing myself in the light of God, I know what Lin Yutang meant when he said, “The sun has risen. Blow out all the candles!” Human wisdom is incomparably shallow and naïve beside God’s wisdom. As a man who has traversed along the road, let me offer this advice to those who are still lingering outside the church, “Don’t hesitate. You can come to me directly.”