I felt empty and didn't know why I lived...
I've made it into a video, if you're interested click the link below.
https://youtu.be/i2ZAuHs5s5M
(Opening)
I am going to share my testimony with you. This is a difficult task, how do you sum up what God has done in your life when He has done so much that is amazing and merciful? I've tried to pick the highlights and for me that's coming to understand what Jesus did for us at the cross and how personal, merciful and ever-faithful God is.
(Before)
I remember throughout primary school, I was always looking for friends. I remember every time our teacher asked us to form small groups or pairs in class for activities or assignments, I got really anxious, fearing that no one would want me in their group. So I was trying to do all I can to make myself more desirable, or at least, more befriend able
I also remember being grumpy and angry all the time. I got irritated easily, I hated everything. I wasn’t happy. I was also complaining a lot. I wanted to be happy so I spent a lot of time hanging out with my friends, going out. But so often, even though I was surrounded by my friends, I felt lonely in inside. I couldn’t be myself around them.
I'm sure now that God was quietly at work behind the scenes in my life: bringing me to the point where I'd realised we have such a precious Friend in Jesus.
The turning point was an unexpected trip about a year ago to Melbourne....
(How)
When I came to Melbourne last year, I was invited to a caregroup, where we share a meal, sing some songs and have a small Bible study. When I came I felt and experienced the warmth and love they had for one another. I was drawn to this loving, caring family. I wondered why they are so different from other people in this world. There is something about them that I can’t quite tell what it is. They have something that I don’t. The verse I remember from caregroup that night was that
Jesus said in the Bible ‘For verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you’. (Matthew 17:20).
Then I started going to church when I went back to Brisbane and Taiwan. I started reading the Bible, having Bible studies. I wanted to have that something that I saw in these people.
The Bible says ‘A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgements and do them’ (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
As I was studying the Bible and going to church, God revealed His truth and everlasting love to me, step by step. For precept must be upon precept; line upon line; here a little and there a little (Isaiah 28:10).
One Friday morning, I woke up and was lying in my bed thinking. Then I had this so selfish, filthy thought in my head and I was entertaining that thought for a while. Then I felt so ashamed and dirty and sinful and that I couldn’t face God nor talk to Him. I couldn’t read the Bible. I couldn’t pray. I was troubled at the thought of God’s presence and that it was too pure for me. I felt so separated from God by sin.
Then the Sabbath came, I realised God’s constraining love for me. He doesn’t want me to be separated from Him.
‘The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee’ (Jeremiah 31:3)
‘O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; you understand my thoughts afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down. And are acquainted with all my ways’. (Psamls 139:1-3).
He knows everything about me. He knows my every thought, but He doesn’t judge me. And I had a sense of forgiveness that God sees this little child running away hiding from Him and He reaches out His hands. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds (Psalms 147:3).
The Bible says: ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9). And God says ‘And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more’ (Hebrew 10:17).
And there was one day that I was so angry because the reception lady was late. And because she was late, I wasted so much time waiting for her when I had a lot of things to do. And things just didn’t go as planned. I was so angry, so upset. When I was at home I started singing this song, this is the air I breathe, this is my daily bread, and I am lost without you. Then I realised how lost I had been in my own world. God’s word is the air I breathe; God’s word is my daily bread. And I am so lost without Jesus.
‘Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path’ (Psalms 119:105). ‘For thou art my lamp, O LORD: and the LORD will lighten my darkness’ (2 Samuel 22:29).
Jesus says ‘I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep’ (John 10:11). And ‘My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand’ (John 10:27-28).
(After)
I always wanted a new start. I wanted to erase, undo my past and start over again. And today I know through baptism, I am born again. And ‘in Christ, I am a new creation; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new’ (2 Corinthians 5:17).
And today I found a Friend so faithful, ‘a friend who lay down His life for His friends’ (John 15:13).
‘One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple’ (Psalms 27:4).
‘I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world’ (Matthew 28:20).
‘How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee’ (Psalms 139:17-18).
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