My Journey to the Truth by Edgar Enrique Palacio Mizrahi
From an early age, I was a religious person. As a fifth grade student at the Saint Joseph Conciliary Seminar Catholic School—where I received all my religious and academic education through high school—I signed up to receive special training to become a priest. Although my family is Jewish on my mother’s side, they enrolled me in a Catholic school because of my good grades. But I was always a dreamy and inquisitive kind of boy. I was in search of the truth, the real meaning of life, and why we are in this world. Therefore, I became part of the “Little Missionaries” group, visiting the elderly, taking them clothes and other needed items.
While still in high school, I joined a yoga group called “Ananda Marga.” We had a guru who trained us in different breathing exercises that allowed us to enter into profound meditation, becoming one with the cosmos. I became a vegetarian and believed in reincarnation. I read a lot of Hindu, Gnostic, and New Age literature, always in search of the truth and the real meaning of my existence. But this all resulted in profound depression and a deep spiritual emptiness. Because of this, I would listen to New Age music to supposedly increase my levels of consciousness and in that way become one with it all, with the cosmic energy.
After two years, almost without realizing what was happening, God began changing my heart. This was evident in the desire I had to read more and more of the Bible. I read it in an attempt to justify my New Age beliefs as a vegetarian and my Hindu beliefs in reincarnation (a type of syncretism). But suddenly the Bible texts I read became engraved in my heart and it became evident to me that the Bible was the truth I had been searching for all my life. Through it I understood who I was, where I came from, and where I was heading. This marvelous book told me about Jesus the Messiah, who was rejected by my people. My grandfather Samuel Mizrahi had taught me that Jesus was false and a deceiver, but I found out He is the God of Israel incarnated and the true Messiah. Of course, my Jewish family became furious.
I am glad to be serving my Savior and Lord Jesus Christ through the Presbyterian Reformed Church, of which I am pastor and founder. I confess Jesus Christ as the foundation of politics and education. That is why I founded the John Calvin School for children living in poverty and need. I am also part of the Dignity political movement, through which we want to confess Christ as the Sovereign King in all spheres and facets of our public and private lives.
In the same manner, I confess the Bible to be foundational for understanding any area of human thought, whether science or philosophy. In fact, I teach these subjects at two local universities: at the University of Atlantico I am in charge of medieval philosophy, logic, and mathematical philosophy; at Magdalena University I am in charge of ethics for engineering and science philosophy.
We must render all to Christ and serve Him diligently with fervent love. If we understand that our lives are brief and that death soon will reach our door, then we should realize that we have only a few years to show our Redeemer how much we love Him and how grateful we are for all He has done for us.
Edgar Enrique Palacio Mizrahi is pastor of Presbyterian Reformed Church, Barranquilla, Colombia, and president of the John Calvin Foundation.
