God’s clear and firm plan

Submitted by David…

I was born in Mainland China. Growing up there, I had no Christian background in my entire family, and received twelve years of education that had a strong atheistic and communistic foundation. The secular worldview and lifestyle had been rooted in almost every area of my life. Religion has always been a mysterious and even forbidden topic in China, while school and media taught me that my future is created and controlled by my own hands. Moreover, the “one child” generation, of which I am a part, created an even stronger atmosphere of individualism and self-centeredness. For so long I was convinced that I need not and should not truly trust anyone, because everybody is on his own, and everyone must pursue and maintain his own self-interest in order to survive and succeed. This philosophy led me to a lifestyle centered entirely on myself, yet without boundaries. Knowing that my ultimate goal was to pursue my own success, I was willing to pay anything for it. I envied almost anyone around me. I lied to my friends and my parents. I cheated in order to earn myself benefits. I tricked other people so that my own goals could be achieved. I also made efforts to obtain happiness, naively thinking that sensual satisfaction meant true happiness. I drank a lot and spent a lot of time in pubs, hoping that the laughter alcohol brought me were genuine, and believing that my mind would follow what my body desired. In Fall 2008, when I started my new college life almost ten thousand miles away in Berkeley, I hoped that without parental intervention, I would be able to pursue my pleasures more recklessly and more wildly.

However, things started to change in me in an unexpected way. I can still vividly remember how deeply impressed I was after watching the “race” skit during New Student Welcome Night. The voiceover kept on saying that life seems to be an endless cycle, and we are too busy running and chasing to pause for a while and ask the questions “what are we running for?” and “what is waiting for us in the end?” Ever since I was born, I was exactly like the runner who never stops, never looks back, and never considers what might be at the “end.” I felt scared and shocked. I realized that in elementary school, my life was centered around getting into a good high school. And then high school life soon disappointed me because it was simply the beginning of another race. Then it was all about getting into a good college. I suddenly realized that everything I was striving for was not the end, and none of them would be able to satisfy me because there was always something new coming up and I needed to fight even harder to grasp it. At the same time I had to accept the sad fact that the end will surely be death no matter what pathway I take for my life journey, no matter how successful I become, no matter the how many achievements, fame or wealth I might amass for myself. Everything I am now focused on, fighting and chasing so hard for, will surely come to an end in the next seventy or eighty years.

For a couple days, I rationalized to myself that achievements and activities could satisfy my desires and fulfill the ultimate purpose of my life. I thought that since I cannot take anything with me when I die, then my life must be meant for the process rather than the result. However, the more I tried to examine my own life, the more hopeless I became. I realized that my desires were so unlimited that nothing could actually satisfy and fulfill them in the long term. For either material or spiritual comforts and happiness, I could only feel excited and satisfied for a short while–a couple of weeks maximum–and then I would quickly lose interest and passion and turn to focus on something new that I didn’t yet have, remaining dissatisfied until I achieved the new thing.

Soon afterwards during a Friday Bible Study, I encountered one of the most important messages: the one regarding my own sinfulness. The passage Pastor Ed used that night was Roman 7. Verse 15-18 read:” I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.” These verses perfectly addressed my struggle. Though I believed I was a good son to my parents, a good friend to my peers, and a good student to my teachers, I was clearly aware of something wrong deep inside me. Much of the time, I was a very disciplined person. I wanted to be righteous, honest, friendly, and I would make all efforts to improve myself. However the more I tried, the more often I found myself in failure, because I noticed there were things within me that I could not control. I wished to be honest and kind to other people, yet often at the critical moments, I just could not help myself but lied or generated wicked thoughts. I tried to commit myself to many charitable activities so I could somehow be helpful to people in need, yet at the same time I also knew there was something more egocentric and selfish motivating and pushing me. Similar examples can go on and on, and the more I started to reflect, the more I realized how dark and evil I was inside. Though I wanted to drive the evil part of myself out, I could not. It was deeply rooted in me, and as the Bible described me, for the first time I recognized my “sinful nature” within me.

However, The Bible did more than simply explain my sinfulness. It offered me a solution, a way to lead me out of the endless and hopeless cycle I had been experiencing. I started to realize that my hope is in the cross, where Jesus died and sacrificed his body and blood for me. His sacrifice was personal, and even though it happened more than two thousand years ago, I can feel its refreshing power able to make me new and pure. In other words, the gospel message suddenly became very simple: I am so stuck in my own emptiness and sinfulness that my own efforts are not able to get me out. But God offers me Jesus on the cross, the only way out of the darkness. If I want to see the light, I have no choice but to depend on the power of the cross.

To my surprise, Christianity offered a precise description of my life and of my sinfulness. I could understand this description of myself, and I could feel the need within me for God’s solution. However, it was a lot more difficult for me to actually take concrete action and respond. I couldn’t imagine nor start completely changing the life that I had lived for eighteen years in order to begin living the way prescribed by the Bible.

Shortly afterwards, during the Thanksgiving Retreat, I had the chance to hear how God worked in many of Gracepoint’s brothers and sisters lives throughout the year of 2008. My heart was truly impressed. If what Gracepoint had taught me in the last several months was mainly theology and the core theories of Christianity, the real testimonies I heard during the retreat were the first intense chance that I had to get to know how Christians live out their faith in God and how God works in them. The morning session that day was very important to me, because for the first time I was able to connect the abstract and often times philosophical Christianity basics to real people’s lives. During the lunch break, I tried to write a reflection based on my own story with God and how he had led me, and what I realized during that hour changed me forever.

Through this reflection time I realized God has always been working in me and preparing me. God prepared my heart and placed invaluable people in the critical phases of my life to help me approach and experience His love. I had an English teacher who taught me six years in high school. She was from Michigan, and it was not until recently that I find out she is actually a missionary who gave up her job in the US to go to China eight years ago. For six years she had been one of my favorite teachers and we built a very good friendship outside the classroom. In the freshman year of my high school, I asked her advice about volunteering and community service. She suggested a charity called “Amity Foundation” to me, an organization founded by Chinese Christians. Although I didn’t learn anything about Christianity from Amity during my four years’ of volunteer work, what I saw and experienced truly changed my view on Christianity. I witnessed the way Amity helps reduce poverty and improve both the educational and medical environment throughout China, and so I generally knew Christians do good works. Had God not led me to Amity the way He did, religious activities would have been the last thing on my list of items to do once in college. Additionally, in the summer before I left China for college, I asked my dad if there was anyone in the US he knew. From his many friends in the US, my dad randomly picked one person and sent him an email message. That person turned out to be my dad’s college roommate, who he hadn’t talked to in more than twenty-five years. Imagine our surprise when my dad found out the son of his college roommate went to the same university as the one I would be attending in just a couple weeks. This son turned out to be Kevin Ding, a senior in Koinonia. Moreover, as an international student, I was required to attend the international student orientation, which was one week before the dorms officially open for move-in day. Kevin offered me to stay at his apartment for that week. Since that was my very first week in the US and I did not have any friends or family nearby, it was natural for me to hangout with Kevin and his apartment mates, and when Kevin invited me to Koinonia’s picnic that week and other activities such as Bible Study, I immediately said yes. And so, Kevin’s peers and Allen Chen, Kevan Ho, and Mike Ho, who later became my leaders, were the very first people I met in the US. I was extremely thankful that God had placed all these invaluable people in my life. All the older brothers and the leaders in Koinonia have been a great blessing to me since I first met them, and their help in my spiritual journey is immeasurable.

Before the retreat, I was hesitant and scared of taking up my own cross and following Jesus because I thought this was too unrealistic, and I could not picture myself living a Christian life that was so utterly different from my own life. However, after reflecting on my own journey with God, I suddenly got the big picture of how God had always been working. I was shocked and amazed by His clear and firm plan for my life all these years, despite my complete unawareness. What could I be afraid of and hesitant about? God had already taken the initiative to personally welcome me into His kingdom, and His people have already reached out to me all these years. I was initially intimidated about following Jesus, but through the Thanksgiving retreat and reflecting on my life, it suddenly became the natural thing that I should do. Therefore, I cried out to God, repented for my sins, thanked God for His love to me, and received my salvation at the retreat, on Nov.15th, 2008.

My salvation became an official invitation for God to come into my life, to transform my lifestyle, to guide important life choices, to purify my sins, and to build eternal relationships. Isaiah 41 verse 10 reads: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.” I am constantly strengthened and encouraged by God’s promise in this verse, which drives away my fear and hopelessness. Struggles still accompany my new Christian life as I am fighting with my sins, and trying to expose my weakness to the people around me. However, these struggles are far outweighed by the joy, peace and comfort I have found in Christ, because I know I am finally home.