Turning Point of Life and God’s Grace
There are moments in life when a turning point is created. The turning point is often caused by something that seems very trivial than when it was a huge and tremendous event. One of the newspaper columns I read 11 years ago introduced the turning point of the column author's life. It was a turning point that looked more unusual than anyone I'd ever seen. It was a column for a lawyer who loved baseball. Lawyer Gu Yul-hwa, who supported Hanwha Eagles among Korean professional baseball teams, explains the turning point of her life as follows:
The miracle happened right then. Hanwha had a 10-game winning streak starting from the Chuseok holiday, and in the playoffs, they pushed the Doosan Bears into a four-game victory and advanced to the Korean series. At the beginning of the ninth, Jang Jong-hoon flew the final sacrifice fly, and the Eagles' long-awaited wish was fulfilled.
I realized like a thunderbolt. There was nothing that couldn't be done in the world, and it wasn't the world I was resenting that kept me locked, but my consciousness of defeat and self-destruction. As I struggled with frustration and endured day by day, my team reminded me of my dreams as I crawled around without fail. The very next day, I prepared for a judicial exam. I was worried that I started too late, but there was nothing I couldn't achieve. Because Hanwha won the championship ... .1)
Some of you might think what a big deal the baseball team won, but the fact that it was a turning point in a person's life caught my eye. It was because I thought about how winning a baseball team brought a person to pass a judicial exam and change her life. Not all baseball fans experience life changes just because the team they support wins. However, an event may have a special meaning for an individual and may be the most important change in life.
St. Augustine, one of the greatest theologians in Christian history, had an event that could be called the greatest turning point in life. The turning point for him was a very trivial routine. The voice of the boys and girls coming from the street near his house, which could have been heard as usual, came to him like the voice of God.
Thus much I uttered, weeping, in the most bitter contrition of my heart: whenas behold I heard a voice from some neighbour’s house, as it had been of a boy or girl, I know not whether, in a singing tune saying, and often repeating: Take up and read, Take up and read. Instantly changing my countenance thereupon, I began very heedfully to bethink myself, whether children were wont in any kind of playing to sing any such words: nor could I remember myself ever to have heard the like Whereupon refraining the violent torrent of my tears, up I gat me; interpreting it no other way, but that I was from God himself commanded to open the book, and to read that chapter which I should first light upon.2)
Augustine listened to the voices of the children who had accidentally heard him, and accepted it as the voice of God toward him. I can't tell if it was God's voice for Augustine. However, when he heard the word, “take up and read,”he received it as the word of God. Thus he took up the Bible and read it so that he could receive the grace of conversion and salvation. What he read was Romans 13: 13-14. The Confession describes him like this.
“I snatched it up, I opened it, and in silence I read that chapter which I had first cast mine eyes upon: Not in rioting and drunkenness,* not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ; and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. No further would I read; nor needed I. For instantly even with the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of confidence now darted into my heart, all the darkness of doubting vanished away.”3)
The two examples discussed above may not seem to have anything in common. One person experienced a change in life due to the victory of the baseball team, and the other case was that the greatest theologian read the Bible and experienced God's grace. However, there are significant commonalities in both cases. The event itself, which caused a fundamental change in the attitude of life, is not unique. If a baseball team becoming a champion of the World Series made a fundamental change in life for their fans, all fans who supported the New York Yankees in the 1990s should have made great strides in their field. (It's hard to admit, even if it was, that it originated from the New York Yankees' win.)4)
Image by Charlie Yoon
What these two examples tell us is that the event that makes a turning point in life for an individual occurs when the person is instantly awakened by what has happened in the world around him. More importantly, it is not the specificity of the case. Rather, they faced the meaning of the event as a whole, without missing the special meaning that the event gave them. Augustine was praying earnestly for salvation and grace to God. So he was able to accept the voices of the children in the neighborhood as the voice of God given to him. His earnest prayer helped him to catch God's Word for him. In addition, the lawyer was not only eager to win the team he was cheering for, but there was also a period of frustration and conflict due to her life's problems. So she was able to realize the meaning of the team's victory like a thunderbolt. So she discovered the meaning of the baseball team's championship to herself and was able to experience life change as a result. Augustine also realized the will of God that he so desperately sought through the songs of the children. So he was also free from the despair of his life.
The most important question here is whether something like that can happen to us. It is a challenge that no one can guarantee, and it belongs to the realm of mystery. That's why some people call it a miracle or a luck. Christians describe such a thing as “grace.” It is only in the realm of grace that one can find God's message and calling to a person's life, but our reality today is not meaningless. Even if the realities of our lives are times of frustration, despair, and suffering, God comes to us in the context of our lives of such despair and frustration and speaks to us.
Footnotes
2) Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine’s Confessions, 463–65.
3) Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine’s Confessions, 465.
4) Of course, I personally don't deny that their poor play can cause a great deal of mental damage to a fan of a baseball team.
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