Some mystical theology

I once had a testimony story a couple years ago that I think was pretty phenomenal. I don't want to go into details... but it's a crazy story. It goes like this:

A guy name Mohammad was a Moslem (ha... never see that huh?). He does pretty cool stuff, like creating statues here and there in my hometown a while ago, ok ok that's not that phenomenal... But, before he made the statues, he would pray and fasted and ask for the guidance of spirits, and then some spirit will live in that statues to make it sacred and bring luck or any of those kind of stuff.

Then, one day, he was fasting and meditating to make this one statues (big big project for him) and suddenly Jesus came and He said, "I'm Isa Almasih (The name that the moslem gave for Jesus)." I don't really remember the details, but then... he basicly choose to believe in Him. He began to read bible and talk with Protestant pastor in the DL about him being a Christian, since he just doesn't want his family to know about his whole conversion story and he's still living with his wives and his kids and his way of living is sculpting.

Major hit was, when his family found out that there is a bible in their house. Their family thought... Man, this is blasphemy! He later found out that it's his. Long story short, he was forced to leave the house and basically he and his wife and kids has to be homeless for a couple of days. I don't really know for how long... but, he has to do that for a while. Imagine how crazy that can be... living modestly and suddenly you are expelled from your house due to your faith and left homeless. What would you do? And plus... his wife was still a moslem at that moment.

The details are lost in times... But I remember that he ended up being a pastor in one of the protestant church in my hometown. He did this for a living quite a while. And then... one day, he got a vision somewhere, it's Jesus again, saying, "Come back to my church." (pointing to a catholic church in where he was at that time). He and his wife who is already been doing this whole pastor thing for a living ended up going to their first mass ever in their whole life. Pretty confused. Don't know what's going on and people are kept doing this whole sign of the cross thing... and so they just followed. :)

Came back to catholic church around 4 or 5 years ago. I believe he is still active in my church back home and with the charismatic community back home as well.

An encounter with Christ. And Christ showing him personally, "Come back to My church." That's pretty powerful to me.

I somehow feel that this whole story needs to be told, so that we all don't take our faith for granted. There are still people that needs to sacrifice their way of living (imagine him being from a sculpture to jobless, a protestant pastor, into jobless, and have to start all over again, and I don't really know what does he do for living now) to follow Christ.

I mean... I have heard quite a few radical conversion story and they are awesome. It blows your mind away. But for most of us, our story of conversion didn't come that dramatic.

We all live our faith life step by step closer, sometimes... it's a baby step. The probability of the radical point of view change is probably 1 % in our life time. But... as we will be hearing this Sunday reading, it's not about the past... it's about what we are looking forward, about what we will do now and will impact the future that matters the most.

Spiritual warfare.
It's crazy when I thought of my experience in dealing with people who have evil spirits in their body and the process of the deliverance (to be blunt: exorcism, even though technically I can't do this due to the fact that I need an approval from Vatican to be an exorcist, but in the case of emergency, we are all capable of delivering evil spirit out of someone's literally). It shows that, the devil is real, they can do bad things to you, and I do need a God.
There are times when I could just like, hmmm... in my science way of thinking, there should be an explanation for this whole thing that is happening in front of me, but somehow even without that explanation I know that yes, the devil is in him, it's not like a psycho people, it is the fact that he needs to be delivered from this evil spirit.
One other side on why I don't really talk about this to others, is that it grows my spiritual pride, as someone who knows this stuff and people would perceive me differently, as a "holy and righteous" people, when in fact... I still am sinning just like you do. I still need that sacrament of reconciliation going in my life. I still am not perfect, I am in this journey together with you... and seriously, just listening to other questions and other explanation in bible study... it's awesome, it shows that how I need people in my community to support me, and I supporting them as well. It is a mutual act.

Ok, enough of my mystical theology. Mystical theology is kinda a branch of learning God from our personal life experience by the way.

Atun