Grace Wu
My mom started taking me to church
when I was 5, enticed by my oldest brother's report of cookies and
juice that would follow after Sunday School. Little did I know this
would be the start of a dreadful 10-year relationship of church every
Sunday. I made no effort to know other people, I daydreamed during sermons,
and I would try to find an excuse to miss church by doing homework on
Sundays. Because of this apathetic attitude, I didn't absorb anything
that was taught at church, and as a result I was ignorant to what Christianity
was about.
When asked where I would go when I
die, I would say, "Heaven" because I believed that going to church
and believing in a God of some sort was what made me a Christian. Never
would I have considered myself a sinner. OK, sure I lied, and I gossiped
about people I didn't like, I liked to throw around swear words to
make my vocabulary more colorful, and I hated people that mistreated
me-- but I was convinced these were just the small things; it's nothing
big like killing someone. Hell couldn't be a possibility for me--
I'm Christian!
My rudimentary idea of religion was
destroyed upon entering high school. The course material was very challenging,
as it questioned and demanded proof for things I had never thought about
critically-- Is there a God? How do you know He exists? If God is good,
why is there evil in the world? What about evolution? My weak, if even
non-existent foundation of Christianity was shaken up. I realized I
didn't have answers to these questions. I began to doubt Christianity
and didn't know what was true anymore.
Praise God though for using that confusion
and uncertainty to show me the Truth. While confused about the evolution
debate, my pastor at the time taught a Friday night survey of creationism
and evolution. I went, not because my parents forced me to, but because
of my curiosity in hopes of finding the "Truth"-- if there was one
at all. That was the beginning of a new relationship with my church.
Church began to seem like the place
where I could find out the Truth, as I saw weekly my pastor preach from
the Bible, the inerrant Word of God, as truth and not his own opinion.
Though I was deeply intrigued by church, I still wasn't Christian
because I hadn't come face-to-face with Jesus Christ yet.
The day I realized I deserved to go
to hell was the Sunday when my pastor preached from James 3:6-9. "And
the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set
among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on
fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell...But no one
can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.
With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men..."
It was at that moment God showed me I had sinned against Him-- a holy,
perfect God. No matter how "minor" my gossiping and lying were,
they were still an offense to the Perfect One. All this time that I
thought I was safe from the place where the worst people go, and here
I was, surprised at my eternal destination. From hearing this, I recognized
more sin that resided in me I had never known about before. I wasn't
as good of a person as I thought I was. I was not a Christian.
The days of eternal uncertainty were
also a time of learning eternal truths. I was like a sponge and I soaked
in everything that was taught at church: what salvation really is, the
importance of a changed life as a Christian, and most importantly--
who our Savior is. My high school curriculum remained relentless and
kept on challenging Christianity, teaching that Jesus Christ was just
a mere man who died needlessly and that the Bible never explicitly states
that He is God. Though it was challenging, God used this challenge to
bring me to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. He IS fully God ("I
and the Father are one." John 10:30) and is the ONLY Way, the Truth,
and the Life (John 14:6). He died on the cross and resurrected not in
vain, but to take away my sins and bear the punishment that I deserved.
I am endlessly thankful to God for
leading me to LBC in my freshman year at UCSD. My pastor from home established
a high view of God and God's Word, and I wanted the same Bible teaching
to grow me even more in my college years. At LBC I've been able to
exercise my gifts, using my formerly evil and deadly tongue as an instrument
of worship. Serving on New Visitors Team challenges me to constantly
be encouraging and welcoming to first-time visitors, showing them a
small measure of the love Jesus Christ has shown to me. God has also
allowed me to go to Argentina twice with LBC in obedience of the Great
Commission (Matt. 28:19-20). The trips to Argentina have challenged
me to take my life, my hands, my all-- and turn it over to Him, because
that's what the TRUE Christian life is supposed to be.
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