Ep. 8: Welcome Home

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I was never into church, but there was something different about this one.

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thess. 5:16-18 NIV)

I tried to embrace my newly-single status and distract myself from the misery, diving back into my girlfriend-less nerd world of martial arts, movies, and toy-collecting. I did whatever I could to put my relationship with Soo behind me.

But I couldn’t.

We’d still call each other now and then to check in, but the tone of our conversations had changed. There was no joy in our voices; instead, there was bitterness, anger, and pain. Soo made mention of seeking a fresh start in another country. I contemplated a return to Jakarta to resume the career I had put on hold there.

The Christmas season rolled around. It was tough to find joy, but I would receive the most wonderful gift that year: Soo called to tell me that she had a talk with her parents, and they gave us their blessing to go ahead and proceed with plans for our wedding.

I couldn’t believe it.

I was so grateful to Soo and her parents that I resolved to take any job I could get in order to be a good provider for my family. I interviewed for a senior designer position at a company that prints large-scale graphics for buses and other vehicles. I didn’t get the job, but I sent the owner a card anyway to thank him for the opportunity to interview. A month later, he called me to tell me that it didn’t work out with the person he had hired, so he was offering me the role– not because I was the best designer, but because I was the only one who thanked him.

It wasn’t exactly the kind of glamorous multimedia job I’d been hoping for– it was a high-stress environment and the ink fumes really bothered me– but I wasn’t about to complain. I was thankful for the job, for a future with Soo, for God’s mercy and kindness towards me.

Soo and I started planning our big day and decided to have a Christian wedding ceremony. We needed a pastor to officiate, but the church we had been attending for a year didn’t seem like a good option, as I had become increasingly unhappy there, as the sermons were almost always about demons, end times, politics, or hell. “When are they going to talk about Jesus?” I’d complain self-righteously as we’d leave the service. “All they ever talk about is how people are going to die. Why don’t they ever talk about how we are supposed to live?”

“Stop complaining!” Soo put up with my whining for a few months but couldn’t take it anymore. “If you don’t like it here, then find us another church.”

“I will!” I declared.

I called my friend Tony, whom I had met in the design program. I knew he was a Christian because he’d sometimes mention that he goes to church. Tony never tried to preach to me, never handed me a tract, never wore T-shirts emblazoned with Christianese text. He may not have worn his faith on his sleeve, but he lived it: I had never seen Tony get angry or even upset. He always had this peace and this joy that I could never figure out. I used to think there might be something wrong with him– no normal person could possibly be that happy, at least in my mind. Anyway, I knew that Tony was a Christian, and he seemed to be a legitimate one, so I asked him where he went to church.

He gave me the name and address of the church, and said, “If you wanna come next Sunday, I’ll meet you guys there.”

“Great, thanks,” I replied. I hung up the phone and proclaimed to Soo, “We’re going to Tony’s church next Sunday.”

The church was located in a nondescript warehouse in the middle of an industrial park in Orange County, California. It was not at all what I expected a church to be like.

There were free Krispy Kreme™ donuts outside. So many people were connecting in the foyer, it felt like a hotel lobby during a convention. There were no pews in the sanctuary. Instead, there were chairs– a lot of them, perhaps a thousand. The room was dark, save for the array of spotlights firing multicolored beams across the stage as the worship band rocked the house. We followed the lyrics on video screens instead of in hymnals. I glanced around and saw that most of the congregation looked to be under the age of thirty. I started to wonder if this was all for real.

Then, the pastor took the stage and began to speak.

He preached from the Bible, but explained it in everyday language that I could easily grasp. He smiled while preaching and didn’t scowl once. And what really blew me away was when this pastor talked openly about the pain he had experienced in the past, and how God had redeemed that pain and called him to ministry.

He didn’t carry the holier-than-thou air that I’d come to expect from religious leaders, but instead, came across as a regular guy, a big brother-type. He wasn’t claiming to be superhuman. He was just a regular dude, one who chose to follow Christ and become a servant of His.

Seeing this gave me hope: If God could work in this guy’s life, maybe He could work in mine, too. It brought to mind that one morning commute in Jakarta a full decade earlier, when my coworker told me that if God could work through a murderer and fugitive like Moses, He could work through anyone.

Would God really ever work through someone like me? Could God really redeem a life like mine?

The service ended, and as people filed out of their seats, I could not budge from mine, for I was in tears, sobbing for reasons I couldn’t explain. It wasn’t because I was that moved by the message or by the rock concert-style worship music. I was weeping because that sense of praying in a vacuum– that feeling of God hiding His face from me, of my prayers going nowhere, of not being seen or heard by the Lord– was suddenly lifted, as if a veil over me had been torn off, allowing a sense of God’s peace, love, and acceptance to wash over me.

It was only a few years earlier that I had turned away from God. Yet, in His mercy, grace, and kindness, He allowed me to come back to Him.

I wept in my seat that day because I felt as though God were welcoming me home, into His embrace, like the father of the prodigal son.

Then, a still, small voice spoke to me deep inside my soul.

“You’re doing fine, son. Welcome home.”

I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.” So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. (Luke 15:18-20)

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