__________________________________________________________________________________
Personal Testimony
By Brian Y.
November 2011
I have often found myself wishing I was born someone else. It might sound a little ungrateful—I was born into a Christian family who, in my biased opinion, are the best parents in the world. I was raised in a family that did not suffer from economic hardship, lacked significant marital discord, and in which family was to come first and foremost in our lives—after God, of course. I wish I was born someone else because I wonder how I would have turned out. Call it curiosity—but I’ve always wondered what life is like on the other side of the fence. Then I realize that despite the upbringing that I've been given, there are those who struggle so much less than me who have been given much less. I have had every opportunity to use the gifts God has given to me to the fullest, but again and again, I have given in to my slothful desires. In contrast, my best friend from high school was born into a family below the poverty line, yet he had a strong desire to use everything God gave him, to make opportunities where there seemed to be none. I am weak.
Sometimes the realization that I have been so weak in my life—that I have been driven by my own desires instead of God's—leaves me depressed and feeling worthless, or at least it used to. In my freshman year of college, God showed me a great truth: He has put me in the place He put me for a reason. Without my parents' great support and the opportunities that they gave me, I would have gone nowhere in my life. With my disposition, I would have gone nowhere, never sought after God. I went into college for the some of the worst reasons a student could ever have for choosing a university. I was looking for a school that would make me successful in a worldly way, and one that would place me far out of sight of my parents, where I could do anything I want. Yet He was able to use my sinful desires to do His work in my life. Going to college, I frankly did not intend to even go to church. Despite growing up in a Christian home, at that point in my life, God did not seem real to me—my faith was not yet my own.
Never have I seen God's hand so directly in my life as during my freshman year. I needed to see God working tangibly—without it, my faith was too weak to support itself. He gave me what I needed. On the morning of the first day of class freshman year, I wandered aimlessly into the college dining hall for breakfast. Seeing a random student sitting by himself, on a whim, I decided to sit down with him. From him, I heard about the intro night for the college fellowship that I eventually ended up joining, where I eventually found the friends that would stick with me throughout college and beyond. Without such a coincidental encounter, I would never have found my faith in college. God provided me out of nowhere with a core group of solid Christians as friends and a fellowship to be in despite my worst intentions. Soon, there was no turning back. The thought of leaving my fellowship to look for what I had originally wanted out of college life never crossed my mind. These Christian friends and this Christian fellowship filled a hole in my life that the secular life of high school and that I had imagined for myself in college never could have filled. I am weak, but He is strong.
Looking back at my experiences in college, God gave me the exactly right conditions to thrive in spiritually. I eventually grew to the point where I served my church as a small group leader, and took a trip during the summer after my junior year in college to work with a Christian organization that runs summer camps for orphans. There, God’s tangible work in this world changed the direction of my life again. While volunteering in Asia, I was paired with a teenage boy named Stephen, who suffered from severe cerebral palsy. He had a heartbreaking story. Cerebral palsy is a childhood disease with a late onset—Stephen’s symptoms did not start to appear until he was five or six. When his parents realized that something was wrong with him, they started to grow increasingly cold and distant, until they finally abandoned him at age ten. He was put in an extraordinarily poorly run orphanage, even by his country's standards—he told me that he would often have to hold a stick in one hand and his food in the other during mealtime to make sure that other orphans did not steal his food. There, his life continued to spiral downward—the scars on his wrists tell the story of how he attempted to commit suicide at the tender age of 12. Fortunately, when everything seemed lost, God thrust His hand into Stephen’s life and protected him during his greatest time of need. The orphanage Stephen was living in was shut down, and Stephen was fortuitously transferred to an orphanage run by the organization that I would eventually volunteer with. There, Stephen was given all of the tools that he needed to thrive—beautiful facilities, training on how to live independently, a caretaker who had the time to care for Stephen’s needs—and most importantly, Stephen came to know God. A local student who visited the orphanage regularly shared the gospel with Stephen, and Stephen, realizing how much God had worked in his life, accepted Christ. By the time that I met him four years later, Stephen was a bright teenager with a spirit that radiated a joy that reflected the redemptive grace that he had received. A year after I met Stephen, I heard that Stephen had left the orphanage in which conditions were so good to go to a government-run old person’s home to live—to share the gospel.
Though I only spent a short week with Stephen, seeing God’s work in his life changed my life forever. With the proper care and medical support, Stephen was able to grow into the extraordinary teenager that I met. Though I had always had an inkling that I wanted to become a doctor, hearing Stephen’s story showed me the extraordinary ways in which God can use medical work to change lives. Here in medical school, as often as I might complain about the workload or the fact that I can’t live life in exactly the way I want to, I know God has put me where I am for a reason. As weak and thankless as I might be, when I step back and look at my life, I cannot come to any conclusion but that God loves me and is working tirelessly in my life. With that knowledge stored deep within my heart, I can begin to obtain the ability and freedom to live my life fearlessly for Him.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
A Living Sacrifice
By Tom Y.
August 2011
When I first became a Christian I was on fire for God. I wanted to tell everyone I knew what had happened. I really had no hang-ups or apprehensions if I would be embarrassed or not. Even my boss at work (who was an elder at my church) asked me if I “thought I was being a better Christian” by being so involved with church activities. My faith seldom wavered though my outward expression of it did. Over time that changed as I became more concerned about my image; whether I was being an “over-enthusiastic Christian” – you know, one of “those people” who we embrace and praise in private but are kind of embarrassed to be seen with in public. And I realize that He cautions us about conforming to the patterns of this world but calls us instead to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, but it’s so difficult to do.
Pastor John Piper calls risk “an action that exposes you to the possibility of loss or injury.” How am I living a life that not only risks, but sacrifices something of worth? Without risk there is no “faith.” For we if have certainty, there is no need for any faith.
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship”. (Romans 12:1)
God calls – no He demands not only risk but sacrifice for His glory. So what does that mean? What does that look like? In our lives of abundance, it’s not often (and probably not even most essentially) our financial sacrifices. I could take a significant hit to my bank account, but could I take a significant hit to my popularity and to my ego? Maybe it means being open to ridicule and being ostracized for my faith. Or maybe it means being open to embarrassment on Facebook or at work? When was the last time I took that kind of a risk and made that kind of a sacrifice?
I don’t know what risk and sacrifice means for you, but I do know what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean going to church on Sundays, but not sharing the Gospel with your unchurched friends under the guise for “waiting for the right time.” It doesn’t mean hanging out with friends from church during the week but not challenging your unchurched friends’ comments or jokes about those who stand up publically for our faith. I often ask myself, am I fully-integrating my faith with all aspects of my life in the way that He calls me to do?
We are called to suffer with Him. You can go through your entire life and not suffer with Him. Is it because you are just fortunate to be born into a country that allows you to freely practice Christianity or are you called to something greater? To reach out to the homeless guy on the street and share the Gospel with him? To reach out to a co-worker who suffered a loss or setback and pray with her? To sit next to the new person at church instead of your friends and actually take a genuine interest in what is going on his life?
Am I giving out of my excess, protecting my pride or ego, or am I actually being vulnerable in professing my allegiance to His Gospel? To what extent am I giving out my poverty of my reputation and ego instead of my excess?
Pastor Steve has talked on several occasions about our need to make sacrificial substitutions, and how Jesus and God have made those for us. To what extent am I substituting my wants and needs for the sake of the Gospel? I too must decrease so He may increase.
Realize that it’s not really a risk when we sacrifice pride, ego or reputation for the Gospel, because we only serve to entwine our lives more deeply in His, but it is a sacrifice. The missionary William Carey once said, “Be bold enough in your faith to take on an objective large enough that it is doomed to fail if God is not in it.” Am I living a sacrificial lifestyle as that objective?