In Search of Greatness 2

‘’One afternoon, I was working as a tutor.
Suddenly, I felt something oozing up from deep inside my chest.
My mouth felt full. I thought I would choke.
As I opened my mouth, blood began to gush out.
I tried to stop the bleeding, but blood continued to flow from my nostrils and mouth.
My stomach and chest soon filled with blood.
Severely weakened, I fainted.
When I returned to consciousness, everything seemed to be spinning.
Shaken, I barely managed to travel home.
I was nineteen years old. And I was dying.’’

It was in the middle of a war ravaging the nation.
Many became poor and dejected from the effects of the war.
They held many jobs in a day yet were poor.
Millions were struggling for existence.

‘’Frightened, my parents immediately sold enough of their possessions to take me to a famous hospital for treatment.
The doctor’s examinations were careful, and their diagnosis: was incurable tuberculosis.
When I heard their assessment, I realized how badly I wanted to live.
My desires for the future were to end before I even had the chance to start fully living.
Desperate, I turned to the physician who had pronounced the grim diagnosis. “Doctor,” I plead, “isn’t there anything you can do for me?”
His reply was to resound often in my mind.
“No. This type of tuberculosis is very unusual.
It is spreading so fast that there is no way to arrest it.
“You have three, at the most four, months to live. Go home, young man.
Eat anything you want. Say goodbye to your friends.”
Dejected, I left the hospital. I passed hundreds of refugees on the streets
and felt a kindred spirit.
Feeling totally alone, I was one of the hopeless.
I returned home in a dazed state.
Ready to die, I hung a three-month calendar on the wall.
Raised a Buddhist, I prayed daily that Buddha would help me.
But no hope came, and I grew continually worse.
Sensing that my time to live was shortening, I gave up faith in Buddha.
It was then that I began to cry to the unknown God.
Little did I know how great an impact His response would have on my life.’’

‘’A few days later a high school girl visited me and began to talk about
Jesus Christ. She told me about Christ’s virgin birth, His death on the cross, His resurrection, and salvation through grace.
These stories seemed nonsense to me.
I neither accepted her stories nor paid much attention to this ignorant young female.
Her departure left me with one emotion: relief But the next day she returned.
She came again and again, every time troubling me with stories about the God-man, Jesus.
After more than a week of these visits, I became greatly agitated, and roughly rebuked her.
She did not run away in shame, nor retaliate in anger.
She simply knelt down, and began to pray for me.
Large tears rolled down her cheeks, reflecting a compassion foreign to my well-organized and sterile Buddhist philosophies and rituals.
When I saw her tears, my heart was deeply touched.
There was something different in this young girl.
She was not reciting religious stories to me; she was living what she believed.
Through her love and tears I could feel the presence of God.
“Young lady,” I entreated, “please don’t cry.
I am sorry. I now know about your Christian love.
Since I am dying I will become a Christian for you.”
Her response was immediate.
Her face brightened into a glow, and she praised God.
Shaking hands with me, she gave me her Bible.
“Search the Bible,” she instructed.
“If you read it faithfully you will find the words of life.”
That was the first time in my life I had ever held a Bible.
Constantly struggling to gasp air into my lungs, I opened to the Book of Genesis.
Turning the pages to Matthew, she smiled: “Sir, you are so sick that if you start from Genesis, I don’t think you will last long enough to finish Revelation.
If you start from the Book of Matthew, you will have enough time.”
Expecting to find deep moral and philosophical religious teachings, I was shocked at what I read. “Abraham begat Isaac; Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren.”
I felt very foolish.
I closed the Bible saying, “Young lady, I won’t read this Bible.
This is only a story of one man begetting another.
I would rather read a telephone directory.”
“Sir, she replied. “You don’t recognize these names right now.
But as you read on, these names will come to hold special meaning for you.”
Encouraged, I began reading the Bible again.’’

For the next months, he fixed his gaze on the bible as he digested the word of life.
He was supposed to die in 3 months.
He spent 6 months more in the hospital and was totally healed.
Seeing the joy that filled his heart,
The death sentence turned into a living verdict.
Looking at the hopelessness in his country,
the poverty, the sickness ravaging the populace;
with the energy of the Holy Spirit pulsating through every fibre of his being
He heard the cry of the destitute, rejected and war-torn communities,
He took the gospel to them.
He healed
He saved
He liberated many.
He set the course of the nation right.
Millions would later listen to him many years down the line.

To walk the path of greatness,
you must hear that cry.
The cry of the helpless calling to you.
Paul continually hears the cry of nations.
Open your spirit and hear.
For Abraham, it was the cry of the birth of a new nation.
For Moses, it was the cry of a nation in slavery.
For David, it was the cry of the destitute, the helpless, and a nation to be led by God.
For Paul, it was the cry of the Gentiles.
For Jesus, it was the cry of all creation.
You must hear that cry today.

Excerpts from David Yonggi Cho’s book, The Fourth Dimension