My affinity for violence was rooted in something deeper.
In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God. (Psalm 10:4)
I took a leave of absence from my job in Jakarta and returned to Los Angeles to take some classes in the then-emerging world of digital filmmaking.
One of the first things I noticed upon my return to California was the dryness of the atmosphere in comparison to that of Indonesia. Not only was the climate dry, unlike the sweltering humidity of Jakarta, the spiritual atmosphere here felt dry, almost antiseptic.
Spiritually dry
As I settled into life in Southern California, I noticed myself swaying back towards skepticism of anything spiritual. I’d like to blame this on the spiritual dryness I felt, but the truth is that I was simply getting complacent.
I didn’t pray nearly as much as I used to overseas.
There, I was a stranger in a new land, finding my way through life with no one else to turn to but God.
I’d pray about anything and everything just to make it through each day, and I would express a sincere gratitude for simple things:
A sip of cold water on a sweltering day.
Getting home safely after a three-hour bus ride home from work.
Not getting robbed or killed and making it to bed each night.
I took nothing for granted.
But now, here I was, back home with my parents as I took computer classes. My life was getting cozy, comfortable, and predictable, and I just didn’t feel a need to pray as much.
I lost sight of my dependence on God.
We sometimes hear comments about how people find God in prison, but not on prom night– how those who hit rock-bottom find solace in faith, but those whose lives hum along without a hitch find no need to seek a higher power of any kind.
There is some truth to this. People do have a tendency to look for something greater than ourselves during times of trouble but quickly forget and take things for granted when life seems fine.
When the Israelites were being pursued by Pharaoh and the might of his forces (Exod. 14: 8-9), “they were terrified and cried out to the Lord” (v. 14:10), and after God parted the Red Sea to allow them to cross and escape the Egyptians (vv. 21-28), “the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant” (v.31).
But soon afterwards, when they were safe but impatiently waiting for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai, they turned away from the very God who saved them and began to worship a golden calf made out of their own earrings (Exod. 32: 2-4).
It’s such a human thing to do.
Complacency was not the only challenge I faced in my journey towards God.
Doubting Christ
As a design student in Los Angeles, I met scores of artsy types from all over the world, of different ages and ethnicities, representing a diversity of religious beliefs and spiritual practices. They were, for the most part, decent people who didn’t cause trouble and treated me kindly.
They were my friends.
And that’s what made it difficult for me to accept that Jesus is the only way to God (John 14:6) — if this were true, that would mean that many of the people I knew would face condemnation rather than salvation.
I wasn’t a Christian yet. Though I believed in the existence of God, I wasn’t convinced on the deity of Christ.
Articles I read contended that Jesus was either a myth or a real person who was no deity, but rather, a mystic who tried to lead the Jews astray. Others argued that Jesus was a rabbi who didn’t teach anything new, or a human being who attained Buddha-like enlightenment through self-denial and fasting.
I bought into the theory that the Bible was originally a collection of ancient Near Eastern myths and fables that were compiled as a guide to morality, not unlike Aesop’s Fables, and later repackaged as the word of God.
All of these arguments deny that Jesus is who He said He is: the Son of God, equal with God (Jn. 5:18), the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the Almighty who was, is, and is to come (Rev. 1:8).
However, I didn’t know this at the time, so I continued to look elsewhere for answers.
I began to question the experiences I had in Indonesia. Were they supernatural in origin, or did I simply have a heightened sensitivity to the vibes and energies around people and places?
Mystical Martial Arts
I began to read up on topics such as extrasensory perception, clairvoyance, and the “life force” known variously as prana, chi/qi, or ki, which I first heard about when I started practicing martial arts as a teenager.
I resumed my training, but no longer as simply a form of self-defense or exercise: I wanted to explore the mystical side of the arts to see if the life force known as qi had anything to do with what I had experienced overseas.
I looked into fighting styles that invoked the power of creatures such as the tiger, the snake, and the dragon, and incorporated these concepts into my own practice.
I started learning about the different types of qi and how to cultivate them through breathing and meditation techniques.
I read books on renowned martial arts masters and how they were influenced by Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, all of which I took a greater interest in.
I’m not about to suggest that all martial arts are bad. I don’t believe that self-defense is a sin.
David employed weaponry to defeat Goliath, albeit with God’s help (1 Sam. 17:49).
David’s mighty warriors were skilled with swords, spears, and clubs (2 Sam. 23:8-23).
The apostle Simon Peter carried a sword while he was with Jesus (Jn. 18:10), though Jesus rebuked him for using it (v. 11).
However, I do believe that I veered into spiritually risky territory when I ventured beyond the self-defense aspect of martial arts to explore the mystical/spiritual side, which is not part of the mainstream.
My proficiency in the martial arts grew to the point where my instructors allowed me to start teaching. One instructor said that I had “the killer instinct,” the variable that sets some martial artists apart from the rest of the crowd. I took pride in this — perhaps a little too much so.
I started to find my identity in my abilities, and having “the killer instinct” became a big part of who I was– at least, in the way I saw myself.
I never took this killer instinct outside of the training hall, but I did find other outlets for it. One of them was through action movies featuring scenes of bone-snapping, blood-splattering, hand-to-hand combat. The more outlandish the violence, the better: it horrifies me now that I once giggled with glee while watching an over-the-top death scene in a certain big-budget, Hollywood kung-fu film.
Desensitization gradually set in and action movies would no longer thrill me the way they used to, so I developed a taste for horror movies.
I wasn’t a big fan of slasher flicks– my preference was for stories of supernatural forces victimizing hapless human beings. Though these movies scared the sheets off of me, I could not turn away, and this craving for terror developed into an obsession with survival-horror video games, which not only allowed me to watch terrifying scenes on-screen, they immersed me into them.
I’d waste countless hours exploring haunted realms and hacking demonic warriors into oblivion with an over-sized sword.
“The killer instinct.” The more I fed it, the more voracious it became.
It was all in good fun, I thought.
It was just a game.
I wasn’t actually hurting anyone.
I saw myself as a “good person” — I never got into trouble, never took drugs, never got any traffic tickets for my first twenty-three years as a licensed driver.
I looked “good” on the outside, but no one saw what was going on inside.
I hated people. “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him” (1 John 3:15).
According to this, you don’t even need to commit the actual act in order to be a murderer.
Ever hate someone so much that you wished they were dead? Same as murder in Jesus’ eyes.
The bitterness that I held towards others, plus the pleasure I derived out of on-screen violence, even if it was just imaginary, pointed towards my own depravity.
I’m not blaming the martial arts for it, nor am I blaming the movies I watched or the video games I played.
None of these things were causes of my depravity; they were things that I enjoyed because I was depraved.
It was my own heart that was the problem.
Jesus said, “Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them… For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person” (Mark 7: 15, 21-23).
If these were on a Bingo card, I would have won three different ways already.
And yet, Jesus would not give up on me. Yes, He could see what was in my heart– and buried beneath all the junk was a genuine thirst to know God.
He knew this, and out of His mercy, grace, and kindness, He would send me on a detour that would eventually lead me to Him.
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Looking forward to next episode.