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CBN.com – “I used to think that I was my own god. I was addicted to my own destiny. I wrote my own plans for my future.”
As a young boy Fariborz grew up in a changing Iran. By the late 1970s, he had witnessed both political and religious upheaval. It wasn’t the revolution that troubled this bright eight-year-old boy but the growing doubts that were beginning to fill his young mind.
“I remember it was shortly after the revolution,” he says. “I decided to live my life as an atheist. I had seen so much controversy, so much contradictions within beliefs.”
Because of Iran’s uncertain future, Fariborz’s parents chose to send their son to live in America with his older brother. By this time, he had turned12 and was becoming more confused and angry by the day.
“Worst thing was that I was away from my family, and I really didn’t have much love that I could take refuge in.”
Fariborz attended a strict religious school, which forced him to participate in Christian activities. He rejected this religion in the same way he had laid aside his Muslim faith.
“I remember arguing with the priest for hours at the time,” he recalls. “They used to tell me how important it is to follow in their footsteps, to follow the ritual, the laws – 'the rules' I used to call them. At that time I did not believe in God, and I tried to persuade them. I said, ‘What you are saying to me with your faith is not any different from other faith. They’re all a bunch of laws and rituals that you have to follow. It doesn’t bring you any closer to God.’”
After eight years Fariborz’s family finally was able to join him to the United States.
“It was a miracle. I was just so happy. I spent every moment of the day with them.”
But soon that joy turned to sorrow as Fariborz saw his parents fighting and struggling to hold their marriage together.
“I always wanted to think about my parents as a unit that always love each other regardless but knowing that they have challenges and difficulties was very painful for me.”
Fariborz did well in school and was offered a full scholarship to USC with a chance to attend medical school. But the pressures at home forced him to choose a different path.
“It was a very normal thing to me to party with my friends,” he says. “Although hanging out with them was an escape, I realized that deep inside I was still empty. That couldn’t satisfy me.”
So, Fariborz reluctantly accepted an invitation from a family friend to attend an Iranian Christian church near his home.
“I did anyway just to be nice. I actually started questioning people at the church. They were singing and dancing. They were very happy. There was a lot of love there. It was very skeptical.”
So over the next six months Fariborz began to methodically question the teachings of Christianity.
“Although I did not have any faith and I did not believe particularly in any religion, I found myself repeatedly going back to that church. Every Sunday, there was a part of me that drew me back to that church. I was just so curious. I had lots of questions, so I started reading the Bible. Every time that I was reading it, [it was] as if another set of my questions were answered.”
Then the day finally came when 24-year-old Fariborz -- the atheist-- encountered the love of a living God.
“I said, ‘Whoever you are up there, they call you God. I call upon You too. These people have something special. They are loving You as if they are knowing You forever. This love is not a human love. It is something that is coming from above.’
“I prayed the same as they prayed, and I said, ‘God, if that is truly You, then I want that.’
“All of the sudden my heart was filled with so much joy. It wasn’t just an emotion. Every bit of my heart, my soul, my body, my being knew I am tapping into something that I have never ever been exposed to.”
In that moment Jesus began to change his life -- a process that continues to this day. Today as a husband and father of two, and one who runs a thriving chiropractic clinic, Fariborz is bold in is faith and unafraid to proclaim that Jesus is Lord of his life.
“Jesus Christ is what I could not find in my past. Jesus Christ is all those things that I used to think I was myself, and I was not. I found Him to be the answer to everything that I was trying to find the answer to.”
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