Spiritual Gifts, Unusual Encounters, and My Conviction in the Truth of Scripture
Understanding the Body, Soul, and Spirit
During the years I experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit, I came to understand certain aspects of human existence in ways I had never considered before.
One of the most important was the distinction between the body, the soul, and the spirit.
This understanding did not come from theological books or religious teachers. It developed naturally through my personal experiences with the Holy Spirit.
I find that a computer provides a useful analogy.
The human body resembles the hardware, the soul functions like the various applications installed on a computer, and the spirit may be compared to its operating system.
A computer can run many applications, each performing a different task. But without an operating system, those applications cannot function properly.
Similarly, I came to understand the spirit as fundamentally different from the countless thoughts, emotions, and desires that arise within the human mind.
The Apostle Paul makes an important distinction in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, where he refers specifically to the human spirit, soul, and body.
This passage became especially meaningful to me because it corresponded with what I had come to understand through my spiritual experiences.
What, then, is the soul?
Based on my experiences, I understand the soul as the realm of human mental and emotional activity.
Thoughts, memories, emotions, desires, rational judgment, moral reasoning, and the conflicts that continually arise within the mind all belong to this realm.
Buddhism speaks of the 108 earthly desires and afflictions that trouble human beings. In my understanding, these struggles also belong to the domain of the soul.
The spirit, however, exists on a fundamentally different plane from the soul and concerns the ultimate spiritual direction of human existence.
I came to understand the spiritual realm in terms of two opposing directions: good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness.
Goodness, truth, and righteousness belong to God, while evil and injustice stand in opposition to His will.
The thoughts and intentions arising within the soul may move toward either direction.
Kindness or cruelty, wisdom or deception, compassion or selfishness—all can emerge through the workings of the human mind.
Yet beneath these choices lies a deeper spiritual question: Which direction will a person ultimately follow?
A person may choose to live according to God’s will or surrender to destructive desires and evil influences.
When a human being dies, the body returns to the earth, and the mental activities associated with earthly life come to an end.
The spirit, however, faces a different destiny.
I believe that the ultimate questions of eternal life, judgment, and our relationship with God extend beyond physical death.
I did not develop this understanding as an abstract philosophical theory. It took shape naturally through years of spiritual experience.
The computer analogy is simply a way of explaining my understanding. It is not intended as a scientific theory or a complete theological doctrine.
The Spiritual Gifts Bestowed Upon Me by the Holy Spirit
In 1 Corinthians 12:7–11, the Apostle Paul describes various spiritual gifts, including healing, prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, and the discernment of spirits.
He explains that these gifts come from the same Holy Spirit and are distributed according to His will.
During my spiritual journey, the gifts I experienced most strongly were spiritual discernment and prophecy.
Before embracing Christianity, I had worked as a journalist with a strong interest in economics, politics, and international affairs.
I frequently wrote articles analyzing economic trends and forecasting developments that might shape the future.
Looking back, several of my predictions corresponded remarkably closely with events that later occurred.
Among the most memorable were my forecasts concerning the severe economic crisis South Korea would face in late 1997 and early 1998, as well as the financial difficulties that emerged in the United States in 2008.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, I also spoke to people at churches and elsewhere about my conviction that humanity was approaching a period of great suffering, which I understood in the context of divine judgment.
Some of my earlier economic forecasts remain documented in published articles.
There are also people who may remember my warnings about what I believed to be an impending divine judgment upon humanity.
I do not regard these experiences as achievements arising solely from my intelligence or analytical abilities.
Rather, I believe that the gifts of spiritual discernment and prophecy bestowed upon me by the Holy Spirit played an important part in them.
I share these experiences not to boast about personal abilities, but to explain how the spiritual gifts described in Scripture became meaningful in my own life.
An Encounter with a Mysterious Spiritual Figure
During my years of spiritual experience, certain incidents occurred that were so unusual I found them almost impossible to explain to others.
Some were so extraordinary that I could not bring myself to speak of them even to my family.
One such incident occurred while I was having lunch with my eldest brother.
We had entered a restaurant, ordered our meals, and were waiting for the food to arrive.
Suddenly, I noticed something strange behind my brother.
What appeared before my eyes was a small, childlike figure resembling a goblin or some other unfamiliar creature.
It cautiously poked its face out from behind my brother and looked directly at me.
To my astonishment, it seemed visibly frightened and confused.
It moved restlessly back and forth, apparently uncertain about what to do.
At that moment, I believed that the figure was not afraid of me personally. Rather, I thought it was frightened by the presence of the Holy Spirit whom I believed was with me.
Then something even more extraordinary happened.
The figure suddenly moved toward the wall and began climbing upward.
A moment later, it disappeared into a narrow ventilation opening.
The way it entered that opening remains vivid in my memory.
Although its body appeared too large to pass through such a small space, its form seemed to stretch and elongate as it disappeared.
It reminded me of a massive star being drawn into a black hole, its shape extended by an overwhelming gravitational force.
I was profoundly startled.
Yet I said nothing to my brother.
From childhood, my brother had been exceptionally gifted intellectually. He possessed remarkable abilities in mathematics, accounting, and economics, and his thinking was deeply rational and analytical.
He was also a Buddhist.
I knew that if I described what I had just experienced, he would probably find it impossible to believe.
He might dismiss it as an illusion, question my judgment, or even wonder whether something was wrong with my state of mind.
I had no desire to begin such an argument.
Instead, I quietly said to him:
“Brother, perhaps you should consider attending church. Mother converted from Buddhism to Christianity three years before she passed away, didn’t she?”
There was a reason I mentioned our mother.
She had raised six children and had always demonstrated honesty, sincerity, and integrity in her daily life.
All of us respected her deeply.
I knew that even my highly rational brother would take seriously something connected with our mother’s life and faith.
He listened thoughtfully.
After a moment, he replied that he would give the matter serious consideration.
I never told him what I had seen behind him that afternoon.
Discovering the Truth of Scripture
The Gospels contain numerous accounts of Jesus confronting evil spirits, rebuking demons, and casting them out.
One such account appears in Mark 1:23–27, where Jesus commands an unclean spirit to leave a man.
I had read passages like this many times before, but I must admit that I had not always understood them literally.
I sometimes wondered whether they might be symbolic descriptions of psychological suffering, moral corruption, or other conditions that people in ancient times could not fully explain.
However, the unusual encounter at the restaurant profoundly changed my understanding.
After perceiving something so difficult to explain through my ordinary understanding of reality, the descriptions of the spiritual world in Scripture took on an entirely different significance.
Passages that I had once considered possibly symbolic now seemed to describe events that might truly occur.
I cannot offer independent proof of the identity or nature of the figure I perceived, and others may interpret such an experience differently.
Nevertheless, the incident was extraordinarily vivid to me, and it transformed the way I approached the biblical accounts of spiritual beings.
I could no longer regard the Gospel narratives of Jesus confronting demons as merely symbolic stories.
Instead, I came to believe that my own experience had helped me recognize the truth of what Scripture describes.
A Disturbing Experience Near a Church
About three years after my first powerful experiences with the Holy Spirit, I began to struggle with my spiritual life. As I returned to old habits and became conscious of my sins, I felt that the strong presence of the Holy Spirit I had once experienced was gradually fading.
One night, while walking past a church I had attended, I saw what appeared to be numerous demonic figures clinging to its roof, walls, and lights. The sight frightened me so deeply that I began avoiding the area at night.
About a month later, a tragic incident involving loss of life occurred at that church and was reported by a major Korean television broadcaster.
I immediately recalled what I had seen and believed the two events were spiritually connected. Although I cannot independently establish such a connection, the experience left a lasting impression on me.
Coming to Understand the Miracles of Jesus
For many years, certain miracles described in the Bible had been difficult for me to understand.
Jesus walking on water.
Feeding thousands of people with five loaves and two fish.
Turning water into wine.
As someone who had once lived as an atheist and approached the world through philosophy and rational inquiry, I found these accounts difficult to reconcile with the ordinary laws of nature.
Yet my understanding changed profoundly after my experiences with the Holy Spirit.
At one point in my life, I suffered from severe pulmonary emphysema, a chronic lung disease that causes permanent damage to the air sacs of the lungs.
Then, during a powerful experience of what I understood to be the presence of the Holy Spirit, something extraordinary happened.
In the blink of an eye, the severe symptoms that had caused me so much suffering suddenly disappeared.
This was not merely a feeling of temporary improvement. It was a dramatic change in my physical condition, which I experienced firsthand and understood as an act of divine healing.
Remarkably, the physical evidence of emphysema has remained visible in medical examinations.
Doctors pointed it out during an examination about ten years ago, and again during a lung examination approximately six months ago.
Yet the sudden relief I experienced during that spiritual encounter remains one of the most extraordinary events of my life.
The continuing medical findings make an important distinction clear: I am not claiming that all anatomical evidence of emphysema vanished. Rather, I am describing the sudden disappearance of the severe symptoms I had experienced, a change that profoundly strengthened my faith.
James 5:14–16 speaks of prayer for the sick and the importance of faith in the Christian community.
For me, this passage carries a deeply personal meaning. The healing I experienced became one of the defining moments of my relationship with God.
In addition to this recovery, I had experienced unusual encounters that I interpreted spiritually.
After these events, the miracles attributed to Jesus in the Gospels no longer seemed remote or impossible to me.
If Jesus truly possessed the fullness of the Holy Spirit, I came to believe, then the extraordinary works described in Scripture were entirely consistent with His divine authority.
This conviction did not emerge from a scientific experiment or philosophical argument.
It emerged from my own life.
The Bible, which I had once approached with doubt and skepticism, was no longer a source of uncertainty for me.
I came to believe firmly that Scripture faithfully reveals the truth of God.
Why I Have Chosen to Share These Experiences
For many years, I hesitated to speak openly about some of the incidents described here.
They seemed so extraordinary that I feared being misunderstood.
I knew that people who had never experienced anything similar might find them difficult to accept.
There were even experiences I could not bring myself to share with my own family.
Yet after more than thirty years of spiritual reflection, I have increasingly felt that these memories should be preserved.
My purpose is not to boast of unusual abilities.
Nor do I intend to demand that every reader accept my experiences or interpretations without question.
Rather, I wish to explain how the words of Scripture, the life and miracles of Jesus Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit became real and meaningful in my own life.
In John 20:30–31, the Apostle John explains that the signs performed by Jesus were recorded so that readers might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and find life through faith in Him.
I find this passage especially meaningful because it expresses something close to the purpose of my own testimony.
I cannot compare my experiences with the works of Jesus. But I hope that by sharing what I have lived through, readers may reflect more deeply on faith, Scripture, and the possibility of God’s presence in human life.
Throughout two thousand years of Christian history, countless believers have testified to experiences they understood as encounters with God and the Holy Spirit.
Their circumstances and interpretations have differed, but personal testimony has remained an important part of Christian faith.
My story is only one among many.
I was once a man who did not believe in God.
I tried to understand the world through philosophy, reason, and intellectual inquiry.
I questioned many biblical accounts and found certain teachings difficult to accept.
But my experiences with the Holy Spirit changed the direction of my life.
Today, the Bible is no longer merely an ancient collection of religious writings to me.
It is a treasury of divine truth that bears witness to the living God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
I believe that Scripture faithfully reveals God’s truth.
That conviction began more than thirty years ago, and it continues to guide my life today.
This is why I have decided to preserve these memories and share them with readers throughout the world.
You may also be interested in reading about my first encounter with the Holy Spirit.