No-brainer choice

Submitted by Bob… I cannot remember a time where I did not want, nor would not accept, Jesus Christ to be my savior. Thanks to the persistence of my grandmother, a devout Christian, I grew up in the church and learned everything and did everything that young church-going boys did. I went to Sunday school and worship services, went to bible studies and camps, and tried to get along with all the other kids. I thought I was saved; I took it for granted that I was. After all, I had no problem saying that I wanted Jesus to be my savior. But never, not once, did I claim Christ as my Sovereign Lord.

Growing up, I didn’t adhere to the teachings of the Bible, to the wishes of my parents, or even to popular culture. I could see popular culture as fleeting, meaningless, and usually, ridiculous. My parents seemed too controlled by the old Korean cultural values of pride and success, which I couldn’t agree with. Especially considering the kind of persons I saw my parents to be in how they related with each other, with my brother and I, and with people outside of the family, I was sure that I didn’t want to live the kind of life their philosophy led to, which, along with my stubbornness and disrespect, became cause for many arguments. And as for the Bible, I never really thought about it or tried to apply it to my life. Everything I read in there or learned at Sunday school just became another set of random facts that I stored in the back of my head somewhere, unsure if they’d ever really be useful.

Of course, that left me to live my life in only way. I lived off of impulses, desires, and appetites. I truly lived selfishly, seeking for the way to make every moment the most enjoyable, apathetic to what the future may bring or what others may feel. Occasionally, I would be restrained by a strange sense of morality or guilt, but that never really lasted long. Life quickly came to revolve around me and instantaneous pleasure. I lived for fun, excitement, romance, and a twisted version of friendship, but it always came down to what I could get out of a relationship or action. Eventually, I began to do whatever I could to get my blood pumping. Fights, reckless driving, getting in trouble with school, family, and the law, arguments with anyone and everyone about everything, stealing, breaking in, vandalism, and many other such pursuits. The adrenaline rushes and excitement, mixed with the uncertainty of knowing the outcome, created the illusion I came to live in. I tried to create more meaning and worth for my life by risking it and the state it was in. People soon just became pawns that I would try to maneuver to my best benefit, to get what I wanted from them, and then to abandon them if I thought they no longer served me any use. However, in the back of my mind, I could never truly escape the idea that I was cheapening these relationships and pursuing a life that was headed toward a dead end anyways. Being one to never think about the future, I compartmentalized what I knew to be true away from how I would choose how to live my life.

But I began to feel very empty and isolated before long. I continued to be destructive to myself, to my family and friends, and to everyone around me. Soon it wasn’t even for my pleasure, but just for the sake of being able to destroy the things around me, so that everything in my life could mirror what I felt inside and that I could feel as if I was, at the very least, finally living authentically.

At the same time, I began to notice a change in my brother’s behavior. He, much to my surprise, began to talk about spiritual things, quit chasing things that he once seemed to enjoy, and changed in the way he related with the members of our family. It came to me that, although I had claimed to be Christian, I hadn’t so much as uttered a word of prayer or even thought of God for years. I came to a point in my life where I had no other choice but to really contemplate on Christianity. I had ruined so many of the relationships in my life, with my family and my friends, my dad went from being between jobs to ending up at a job that caused him to compromise some of his values, which, until that point, regardless of our disagreements, I respected him for standing by, and my grandmother was diagnosed with a late-stage cancer over all the other illnesses she suffered from. Even in her sickness, my grandmother lived a radically different life, sacrificing for the rest of us, reading the bible and praying fervently day after day, and insisting on going to church every week, even when it seemed as if her health might not have been able to afford it.

That spring, I came across a choice. I could either enter UCSD’s bioengineering program as a junior transfer, or I could go up to Berkeley, attend community college, and see the church, and God, that had changed my brother’s life. For me, in my desperate state, this decision was a no-brainer. Everyone else just thought I had no brain. The results of that choice proved to me once and for all that the world’s value system doesn’t have everything figured out after all.

God took this small step toward Him and used it in a way I never could have predicted. At first, I attended and participated because I just felt like I should, but I didn’t expect much. After a few weeks though, I realized that I was just going through motions. I decided that I needed to really put this search as my priority. I skipped breakdance practice that week and attended prayer meeting, still unsure if anything would happen. But as I sat there in First Pres, and the guided prayer led into returning to the cross and experiencing grace, I couldn’t help but break down into tears, as I reflected on the fact that God had been waiting for me to return to Him and that He forgave my sins in full through what happened on the cross. Christ, still willing to love and forgive, bore my burdens and guilt, my ruined relationships with my family and friends, my selfishness, my rebelliousness, my destructiveness, my deceitfulness, and my seemingly hopeless condemnation and overcame it. I prayed to God repenting of my sins and then and there, I resolved to live a life committed to God, truly faithful, to live by the truth, and to no longer live on rushes and emotions.

Things started off shaky, of course, as I was unsure of how to live a Christian life; it was completely different from everything I’ve ever known. But now, I can say for sure that I can’t go back. There is no other choice for me. I am in desperate need of God’s grace; it has given me purpose, confidence, and complete fulfillment. He has shown me love, and has therefore taught me how to love, live in community with the church and my peers, to repair my old relationships, to live my life sacrificially, and has caused me to hunger for more of Him though time spent in the word, prayer, service, fellowship, seeking guidance, and battling sin, which I can now do through His power. He’s blessed me beyond what I deserve and given me glimpses of his vision for me, as I take Christian living seriously and am convicted more and more of my pride, arrogance, lusts, lack of seriousness, lack of love, anger, and isolation. The realizations of my shortcomings, and helplessness to overcome them alone, cause greater dependence on my God, and my greater dependence only leads to a greater realization of His faithfulness. Now, although I have so far left to go, I know for sure that I want nothing else but to serve my God and live under His grace, choosing Him every moment and getting to know Him more and more intimately, as everything else is meaningless apart from my Sovereign Lord.