JESUS AS MY LORD AND MY GOD This is a true experience.

After having searched for options for spiritual contentment in other religions and isms for over thirty years I realized somewhere end of 1999 that I had to return to the Lord and I did. The return however did not mean that I had resolved and found answers to all issues that were bothering me about Christianity including very divinity of Jesus. I was often jolted by various arguments leveled against his divinity by those in our society. I was not clear and convinced about it. In this context the obvious wayforward for me was to listen to those with knowledge, spiritual experience and commitment apart from my own reading of the scripture and praying for understanding Unexpectedly an excellent opportunity arose this year (2012) from end of January. That was when I had to be in hospital for nearly thirty five days during most of the Lenten season - in the Cardio Thoracic Ward No 34 and connected ICUs of the National Hospital Colombo where I had to go through an unavoidable open heart surgery. It was an excellent opportunity because my stay at the hospital became almost a retreat with the hospital chaplains assisted by two nuns making daily visits with Holy Communion and graciously keeping me steady spiritually. I had no cause for concern even from a medical point of view in view of the medical Staff at all levels being exceptionally kind, attentive & caring. During my stay in hospital I had a lot of time to pray and read the scripture. I sought particularly for guidance on the issue of divinity of Jesus. I went through various books in both the Old Testament and the New Testament and also four volumes of Dr E K V Pearce explaining the bible from the viewpoints of Science, Archeology, Prophecy and Origin of life. By reading them thus supplementing to some extent my reading in the past years on I was, no doubt, able to improve my understanding somewhat of historical person of Jesus, reliability of prophecies about him, validity of his claims and his authority, unassailable purity and, paradoxical power exercised by him. Yet when I left the hospital, I should admit, I was more confused than I had been. Returning from hospital on April 5, 2012 I started on a personal retreat with the help of a book written by Rick Warren The Purpose Driven Life - lent to me by one of the Hospital Chaplains intermittently supplementing it with certain other books also lent to me by a lay Christian who visited me in the hospital and the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola explained over EWTN. I also had a lot of work in arrears relating to my own profession which I had to urgently attend to. Yet on April 22, 2012 I was moved with an unexplainable urge to read the Acts of the Apostles to ascertain as to what had been said

and observed by the Apostles themselves on the divinity of Jesus. But I could not read more than the First Chapter. Because I had an inner compulsion to move on immediately to the First Chapter of St Johns Gospel. Why, I cannot explain. I started reading Chapter One but got stuck with the first five verses of it which read as follows. (1) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) The same was in the beginning with God. (3) All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. (4) In him was life; and the life was the light of men. (5) And the light shined in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. I read these five verses daily over and over again until April 28. Not that I had not read these verses very many times earlier. But on this occasion I felt unprecedentedly enlightened and joyful. I did not want to proceed further into the Chapter or to the other Chapters. By April 28 my mindset was such that I was totally convinced that I had been pushed to an irreversible conviction on the issue of divinity of Jesus despite various criticisms leveled against the Gospel of St John which I am aware of. Perhaps the most important realization was that it was not necessarily my knowledge of scripture but lack of humility, the weakness of faith, false arrogance and unwillingness to surrender totally under the pretext of being rational that had blocked me upto then to acknowledge Jesus as My Lord and My God By Devputh