Early one winter's evening as the glow in the western sky began to dim into darkness and a chilly wind pierced the air, an incident occurred that made so deep an impression on my young heart that the memory of it was to stay with me for the rest of my life. I was in our little thatch-roofed house located right next to the local church. A beggar, shivering from the cold, came to our door to ask for something to eat. My father looked at him for a moment and then asked him if he was cold.

"I'm freezing," he said.

Without saying a word, my father took off his own jacket and draped it around the beggar's shoulders, saying, "Here, this is yours now."

My father was well known in our hometown for his charitable deeds. He would weep at the sight of the sufferings of others, and he would plead on their behalf to God and to men. Once he even invited a beggar into our house to stay the night. The beggar slept in our only bedroom and by morning the room was creeping with lice. This wasn't an isolated event; my childhood memories are full of incidents such as these.

When I was about twelve years old, I remember lying in bed talking with my father one night before we went to sleep. He told me of his hopes for the future and then he said,

"I want you to be a pastor when you grow up."

These few words determined the direction of my life. A sense of calling formed within me, the calling to become a church minister who would truly love others as my father had done.

When I was 24 years old, I entered the Presbyterian Theological College in Seoul, Korea, but from the moment I started my studies there, a problem arose in my heart. I had always thought that the students at a theological college would be like angels, and that life in the students' dormitory would be a foretaste of heaven. My expectations were ruthlessly shattered, however, and my disillusionment left an incurable scar in my heart. When the time came for me to graduate, I decided not to be ordained. My decision deeply grieved my father, however, and at his rebuke and the encouragement of those around me, I conceded.

At the age of 29 I graduated and was ordained a minister by the laying on of hands, and for the following ten years I pursued this profession. But those ten years were a period of tremendous inner struggle for me. I became totally confused and couldn't find any direction in my life. I found that my disappointment in my fellow students at the theological college turned into further disappointment in my colleagues of the cloth. In the end I made up my mind that no matter how other people might live, I would be a minister who would meet with God's expectations. I determined that I would be righteous, pure, and sincere, and I made a solemn vow to God to this effect. Such was the arrogance that entered my heart.

Then one day as I was reading the Bible, I came across the passage in Matthew chapter 22 that tells of how a lawyer came to Jesus to ask Him a question:

In reply Jesus said,

I had vowed to live a righteous, sincere, and pure life which, naturally, would include obeying the commandments of God. Here in Matthew, Jesus said that the two great commandments were first to love God and second to love your neighbor as yourself.

The matter of loving God didn't concern me too much at that time since it's such an abstract concept. But when I read, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," these words remained stuck in my mind. These words reminded me of my father. He had truly put this kind of love into practice, and I felt that I should do the same. I gave alms to the poor, I took off my jacket and gave it to a beggar, I gave out handfuls of rice, but I knew that this wasn't enough. I could take pity on others and help them to a certain extent, but I couldn't love them as myself. I had no peace in my heart or in my conscience.

As the days went by, the voice of my conscience seemed to be crying out to me all the louder, "Do you call that loving your neighbor as yourself?"

One dark night as I was walking along a little side street in my hometown, I noticed a beggar crouched over an exposed charcoal burner trying to warm himself. I stopped in my tracks, aware of the challenge that now faced me. Was my sermon that I had prepared for the next morning now going to become nothing but empty lies, or was it going to be based on real facts? I hesitated, wondering whether I should perhaps take the beggar home with me. I knew that if I did this, it would turn the whole house upside down, and I really didn't feel inclined to face that kind of turmoil. Then suddenly an idea flashed through my mind.

"That's it! I'll go home and bring back a thick quilt for him."

With this thought in mind I continued on my way home. The moment my foot crossed the threshold of our house, however, my resolution began to waver.

Later, as I lay in my bed beneath the warm covers, the loud cry of my conscience tormented my heart.

"Hypocrite! You hypocrite! Look at the streets. How many pitiful souls are out there now hungry and shivering in the cold, while you lay here comfortably in your warm bed looking forward to a tasty and satisfying breakfast. Tomorrow morning you'll stand up in your pulpit and preach love, telling your congregation to love one another and to love their neighbors. You hypocrite!"

I agonized over this matter for a long time before I finally fell asleep.

When the time came for me to preach my sermon the next morning, I hardly dared to lift my head and look at the faces of those listening as I struggled to read through my manuscript. I became more and more reluctant to preach, and my sermons became more and more meaningless.

"Why do I have to preach at all?" I began to ask myself. "When it comes down to it, I'm only doing it to earn a living, aren't I? Heaven forbid! If I am just trying to earn a living, isn't there a more honorable way of doing it than this?"

Thus my life became completely meaningless.

"Laborers manufacture products, farmers harvest crops, but what are the fruits of your labors as a pastor?" My conscience continued to cry out to me.

"You have a lot of good words to say, perhaps more than most other people, but how much of what you say do you actually put into practice in your daily life?"

One day I attended a retreat held exclusively for pastors at a coastal resort. During one of the breaks, I talked about my problem with some of my fellow pastors. I told them that I no longer had any confidence in my ability to carry out my work as a pastor. One of them said to me, "Pastor Kwon. What are you talking about? You are already renowned for your success as a pastor. If you aren't able to carry out your pastoral duties, then who is?"

To this I replied,

"If I have two kilos of rice in my rice box at home, I ought to give one kilo to those who are starving and keep only one kilo for myself. I can't do that!"

When the other pastors heard this, they said,

"Oh, come on. Who could ever do that? Don't you think you are taking this all a little too seriously?"

"But this is the word of God!" I said. "How can we defy the word of God?"

To this there was no answer.

Then one day I came across an article in a monthly magazine called "The World Of Ideas." The article said,

A prostitute sells her body in order to earn a living; a teacher sells knowledge in order to earn a living; and a pastor sells morals in order to earn a living. What is the difference?

As I read this article, it was as though my conscience had been pierced through with a sharp knife.

I felt that a street girl was more honest than I was since her sinfulness was exposed to the whole world and she lived under the contempt of society, while my sinfulness was covered in a shroud of false piety and everyone looked up to me with respect. I would stand up in the pulpit in my gown, looking like an angel that had just come down from heaven, and my congregation would look up to me with respect and veneration, but actually I was just as sinful inside as a street girl. Even though my actions may not have been sinful, when I saw a beautiful woman, the attraction was there in my heart. When I saw a pile of money, feelings of greed arose within me. So what made me any different?

I felt sure that there must be some other way for me to earn a living. I even considered giving up my job and just eating less. I was desperate to do almost anything rather than continue this life of hypocrisy. Strange though it may seem, however, once a person has been ordained by the laying on of hands, it's like receiving an official seal for the rest of his life. It seemed that there was no way out of my predicament.

One evening a few days later, as I finished preparing my Sunday sermon, I suddenly burst into floods of tears, helplessly lost in the darkness and weighed down by the heavy burden of my conscience.

"O, God," I cried out, "please give me a different job to do. Or, if not, please take my life. I can't go on any more as a pastor."

Such was my journey through the darkness.