The most Significant Moment in my Life
Back on June 26th 2000 one of the world’s great scientists stood alongside the U.S. President at the White House as the announcement was made informing the world that the first survey of the Human Genome Project was 90% complete. That scientist was Dr Francis Collins, Director of the National Human Genome Research Centre – a brilliant scientist and man of faith.
“Are faith and science in conflict?” is a question many people ask. Interviewer, Nigel Bowen, asked Dr. Collins about his faith. He replied “I wasn’t raised in a faith tradition. As a child I was vaguely aware of the concept of God” . Later Francis became a student at Yale and there - “I was surrounded by people in science who largely ignored any spiritual aspect of life, so I just ran with the crowd. I was convinced that everything in the Universe could be explained by equations and physical principles. No thinking scientist, I concluded, could seriously entertain the possibility of God without committing intellectual suicide. (Source: “War Cry” as are quotes below)
Thankfully the story does not end there. Dr Francis continued: “But then I changed direction and went to medical school, and I started to encounter the reality of suffering and death in a much more up-close-and-personal way. One afternoon an elderly patient with a terminal illness shared her faith with me and explained why this gave her comfort and peace as she saw the end of her life approaching. She turned to me and said: ‘Doctor, I’ve told you about my faith but you haven’t said anything. What do you believe?’” The brilliant scientist and medical doctor was unable to answer the question. He knew he needed to check out the Christian faith. Was it true?
Francis began his investigation by visiting a Methodist minister who lent him the book “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis, an Oxford Professor who himself had previously been an atheist. As Francis read the book he realised his arguments against the rationality of faith were those of a “schoolboy”. Francis found Lewis’s case for faith extremely compelling. “I fought it. I didn’t want it to be true. I was reading the book to shore up my atheism, not to become a believer. But, as Lewis puts it, the ‘Hound of Heaven’ was after me. I fought the evidence for almost two years”.
“It became clear that I had to make a decision not only about whether to believe in God but also about what kind of God He was. I encountered the person of Jesus Christ as this remarkable figure in history who clearly was different from any other figure in any other faith. Jesus claimed not only to know God but also to be God and to forgive sins, and He died on a cross in a way that took me a long time to understand. Eventually it made the most beautiful, perfect spiritual sense. I realised that this was not just a story to walk away from. I had to reach my own verdict based on the evidence”.
‘My moment of commitment came one autumn day while I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains. It was a beautiful afternoon and as I rounded a corner I unexpectedly saw a frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high. The remarkable beauty of creation was overwhelming. I could no longer resist. I fell on my knees and asked Christ to be my Saviour. My days of wilful blindness towards God were gone. The search was over. Dr Collins went onto say "I was 27. I've never turned back. That was the most significant moment in my life” (Source: “The Question of God”).
I finish with a quote from C.S. Lewis: Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. Dr Collins found the Christian faith of “infinite importance” and fell on his knees and received Christ. What about you and me? We have just finished Easter celebrations when we especially remember and celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic with thousands of lives being taken daily around the world many people are having their belief foundations shaken. We need to be reminded of the words of Jesus Christ who said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no-one comes to the Father but by Me” John 14:6.
May each of us keep seeking and then believe, repent and receive Christ and that will be the most significant moment of our lives too. .
Bruce Stewart.