How-Maze - Boaz Ko

at 2023-10-19 06:56:37.0 / 655 Hits

I remember being relatively fun and good at math in middle school. I think it was possible because I had a good homeroom teacher. The reason why math is attractive to me is that there seems to be a sense of tension and a strange sense of accomplishment in the process of finding the answer. After mastering Theorem 1 of math at the time, I remember that it was fun to follow the formula and solve it. I think that process is the logical step to how.

The process of "how" seems to be a constant tension in my life and ministry today. Each of us is living the life we have been given. I wonder if the quality and direction of our lives will change depending on how we "solve" that life.

I am currently a pastor in the ministry. However, since I opened my eyes to the world of mathematics in high school, I evaluate myself that I have fought very hard in the world of "how". To put it in layman's terms, I'd say it's adolescence, a time in your life when you're stumbling through basic math and then stumbling through high school math. 

Is that why? Adolescents seem to have an unusually high number of rebellious questions. They question and rebel against the realities they are given because they start to see things through their own eyes. This is probably natural. But it was also at this time that I began to ask "How did this happen?" in the Bible, which I trusted, and to disbelieve the Bible for lack of explanation or proof. 

More devastatingly, my immature self and body rebelled against my parents, as the parents' general standards of love also changed. In a way, I think that adolescence is a process of wandering through a maze of How questions, and in this context, I see a lot of Seekers in my ministry who are in the how-maze of growing and maturing into faithful adolescence.

As a fierce wanderer of the How-Maze, I saw the real bitterness of life in January when I turned 26. At what seemed like rock bottom, I had a breakthrough moment as a philosophical thinker. The key word in that transition was changing the question from how to why.

Starting with these questions, my faith also changed: why did God create; why did He perform all kinds of miracles; why did He love me enough to die on the cross; why did He wait patiently for me for so long? I escaped from the "how-maze" and became a pastor, and now I am fulfilling my mission as a pastor for seekers.