My story

Slovak dissident living in America.

Many people are confused about their Christian faith. If we would ask those who regularly attend church on Sunday what is the meaning of their church attendance, they would struggle to come up with an answer. Most people associate it with some kind of religious behavior, a type of piety. Does anyone know that Christianity is about our practical everyday lives and most of all about happiness? It is no surprise that we have a problem with evangelization. It is very difficult to “evangelize” and promote your own faith if you really do not know how valuable your faith is. The Gospel says: “The Kingdom of Heaven resembles a merchant who is looking for a precious pearl. When he finds it, he sells everything that he has to buy that field.” Can we grasp such a concept? That pearl is nothing more and nothing less than the good news of Jesus Christ, the promise of blessed life here and happiness in eternity. Much of our happiness in this life depends on personal freedom. Only free people can be truly happy. This freedom consists of three main components:

1) Freedom from sin

2) Freedom from sickness

3) Freedom from economical and financial difficulties.

These freedoms do not come easily; on the contrary, life is a never-ending battle for complete freedom. Freedom from sin is absolutely the most important one of the three. A bad conscience makes life miserable. Even the richest and the healthiest people can never be truly happy if they do bad things to others. We are sensitive creatures, and we will never be happy if we hurt our neighbors. Our own conscience is like a sensitive barometer that is able to measure the value of our actions. A man may possess a vast amount of wealth but will never be as happy as the one who is in a perfect relationship with God. People free from sin are happy with every small thing that life brings to their doorstep. Wisdom opens their eyes and they find beautiful things everywhere where other people cannot see it. Finally, they can achieve the highest level of freedom when they are actually able to enjoy their problems and even sufferings that come along because they know that in the end all things work together for good for those who love God.

We live in a time influenced by modernism; people are proud to be rational and use logical reasoning along with scientific methods. The fact is that “rational” and “logical” do not automatically mean “wise.” This modern age without God’s wisdom is only a mirage. People build their whole lives on being successful in their careers, looking for glory, and seeking applause from others along with power and money. While competing in this race, they completely disregard the biggest fact that one day it is all gone. During the course of my life, I have been carefully watching people who reached retirement. One day they are in a position of authority over other people, and the next day it is all gone; their power disappears like a puff of smoke. The same thing happens with money, wealth and glory. Perhaps the best examples of foolishness can be observed in the cemeteries where the richer and more powerful people have built for themselves large grand tombstones to show off their significance and “superiority”! Over whom? The other graves?! Does anybody even care? It is all just a puff of smoke.

The Gospel teaches us about the five wise and five foolish virgins. The foolish ones were not prepared for future events; they had lamps but forgot to bring oil with them. They waited a long time but were not vigilant and slept. God also provides many hints or signs for us: the grandeur of nature and its Master Designer, a kind word from a stranger or a friend, scriptures that reveal the plan of life, and best of all the good news of forgiveness. We have a great chance not only to live the abundant life but also help other people to find it. We often feel sad when something bad happens to other people but what can be worse than living our lives in a lie and losing eternity? Evangelization is for mature Christians due to the fact that it requires us to fight against the forces of evil. The Apostle Paul challenges us: “Let’s put on ourselves the armor of God that we may be able to stand against the forces of evil.” Modern society speaks about freedom, but living in the mindset of materialism and consumption is not real freedom. In fact, it is just the opposite; it resembles a type of slavery. Satan wants to take our freedoms away and sets traps for us that we need to avoid. The biggest trap is the glamour of this life.

We are disciples of freedom, of the abundant life, and we can share this every day with people around us by way we act and what we say – it is our own destiny, our own role in the evangelization of this world. During previous socialist system we used participate on “brigades.” I remember, when I was a little boy, we used small hammers to “knock down” the old plaster on the outside of our church wall. The wall was very large but we worked tirelessly like little ants pounding on this large wall until the old plaster was gone. Similarly we are to contribute in our own way to evangelization. We need to “pound” God’s word into this world until our society is cleaned from old rotten layers of sin and prepared to receive new “plaster” of God’s word of salvation. Somebody said that nothing is for free in this world, so naturally we are also asking, “What do we get in return for evangelizing?” The Apostle Peter also asked Jesus the same question, and Jesus answered, “You will receive a hundred times more in this life and in the life to come!”