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“Every beginning is difficult,” says a proverb. Does this sentence also apply to the beginning of the Christian life? I remember how difficult it was to learn to swim when I was a little boy. At the same time, it is much easier than I thought. But it took a long time to understand how to do it.
The “great art of swimming,” for which I had such respect, was about trusting the water and its buoyant power. Today, I realize that my beginnings in swimming were difficult because I did not trust the information I had about swimming. I underestimated the buoyant power of water (water is 800 times denser than air, note). Some beginnings are difficult only because we ourselves make them difficult.
The sea of God’s promises is the strength that carries us. It is enough to overcome your disbelief and not question yourself with questions about whether the sea will keep us above the surface. That is why the beginning of faith is so difficult. But the beginnings are not only challenging but also fascinating.
“There is a certain magic in every beginning,” German writer Hermann Hesse once said. Yes, beginnings can be truly magical. Think back to the beginning of your love for another person: a magical transformation – your life began to intertwine with someone else’s.
How it all started can’t even be said exactly now. Was it the familiar “love at first sight” or the gradual growth into a deeply intertwined, blissful experience of belonging? Did she choose him—or did he choose her? The magic of the beginning of love often leaves some questions unanswered.
Even in the beginning of faith, there is a certain charm. To believe is to fall in love with God, who comes as a loving being to us humans. Believing God loves Christians, they are fascinated by the magic of his love. Just as human love stories begin differently, faith stories also begin differently.
For some people it is “love at first sight”, but others need a long journey of rapprochement and slowly growing trust in God. In the process of becoming a Christian, nothing works according to predetermined “norms” or designed “schemes.”
Becoming a Christian is the beginning of a magical love story between God and man, which happens differently in every life.
A tale of a good beginning
Many hopeful stories of “good beginnings” begin with the words: “Once upon a time…” I will tell you a story, a “modern fairy tale” if you will. Perhaps it will help us to understand how a person becomes a Christian or what starts this process.
Once upon a time, there was a little child. It lived in an orphanage and did not know its parents. “A complete orphan,” it said in its documents. That was his condition. The child could not change anything on his own, even if he were obedient, even if he behaved well, even if he tried in the orphanage.
As if the sea had washed ashore somewhere after the shipwreck, the child always dreams about his parents and siblings again, tries to imagine what they look like, and tells himself that maybe his father and mother are still alive.
On a high hill opposite the orphanage, the child sees a beautiful castle daily. Often in his imagination he climbs over the wall that surrounds the orphanage, sneaks into the castle, walks through long corridors and large rooms, breathes the freedom and grandeur of the castle – but he knows: I will never go there, I will never be able to live there.
“Whenever a child falls into a bleak sense of orphanhood, the king lovingly reminds him of his new status.”
He will be left with nothing more than the bedroom of the orphanage and its impenetrable walls. When playing with other children, they play as a royal child who lives in that beautiful castle. He enjoys royal freedom, is used to ceremonial dining. She would love to become a real royal child with a rich inheritance waiting for her. But what he is – that’s what he remains: a child without parents.
But one day, a stranger appears in the orphanage. He comes to the child, looks at him in a friendly way, shakes his hand as if they have known each other for a long time. “From now on, you have a new home,” says the stranger. The child does not understand. “You’re not an orphan anymore.” He still doesn’t understand. “See that castle on the hill opposite?” asks the strange man. The child nods his head. “This is your new home. I live there. And you can live with me from now on. I am the king, and I chose you to live with me. You are no longer an orphan. From now on, you are my child, a royal child. Do you like it?”
The child does not believe his ears. A royal baby? He looks at his worn, dusty clothes from the game. He doesn’t see anything royal about himself. Not only that, but he doesn’t know any royal manners, he doesn’t speak the language used in the castle. He is a child from an orphanage. He does not know how to move around the castle yard.
And yet he is a royal child. His situation changed unexpectedly – from outside, without his doing. The child did nothing for it. Something happened to him.
Suddenly, he is in a completely different position. It will surely take a long, long time before he gets used to his new existence before he loses the feeling of being an orphan, before he learns to deal with his new freedom, before he understands royal manners and customs, and before he himself acquires a relationship with the king who adopted him and made him from him your child, your heir.
But the king allows the child enough time for this process. She will show him the beauties that he is allowed to discover in the castle and in the new royal freedom. And whenever the child falls into a bleak sense of orphanhood, the king lovingly reminds him of his new status: “Remember, you are no longer an orphan. You are now a royal child.’
Slowly, little by little, the child becomes the being that the king decided he would be: a child who is the heir to his kingdom.
