Chasing Revelation

This weekend I had the opportunity to catch up with one of my friends from high school. The two of us ended high school on a bad note, and I felt like it's been harder to talk to her ever since college started. You could say our friendship was broken due to misunderstanding and miscommunication. We hadn't talked to each other in months, and I decided to shoot her an IM with the hope of keeping our friendship intact. That day, as we started with our distant but polite "Hi"s and "Hello"s, the typical "What's up?" and "How's summer?" surprisingly led to us sharing experiences about how college had changed us. (God was working!)

My friend shared with me about how she'd been soul searching this year. An intimate conversation with one of her classmates opened her eyes and got her to start thinking about spirituality. To sum it up, her friend, a 26 year old undergraduate Korean female, had fallen into drug addiction, alcoholism and depression her first time through college in Canada. This person dropped out of college and her suffering was so great that she bordered on suicide. But she prayed and sought help - long story short, she turned her life around. Now strong in her faith, she travels to other countries doing humanitarian work and on mission trips. She grew closer to her parents, cleaned up, re-enrolled in college, and is now studying to become a dentist.

The entire time, I just couldn't help but stare as I tried to imagine the life this girl had gone through. This was a real person - not some word of mouth story, but someone who my friend knew directly. She had undergone a transformation because Jesus Christ was working in her life, and it changed the way she lived for good. The power of prayer and the Spirit's healing have never been so real to me. And even though I say it all the time, I was acting like it's never happened before - I thought: Wow. The Lord can change people's hearts.

I thank God for the testimony that my friend had heard because it got her to think more about faith and how it relates to her life. Right now she doesn't affiliate herself with any particular religion, but she told me that she believes there has to be a good God out there. My friend has always speculated that there was some higher being watching over her, but she didn't really feel that way until she talked to her classmate and heard her life story. Hearing about her friend's journey made her feel that things happen to people for a reason. Learning more about faith and spirituality has become an important thing to her, and I can only credit that desire to God.

After she told me of these amazing things, I got a chance to share my testimony with her - something that I haven't had the chance to tell my friends outside of Berkeley. And it gave me a chance to think about how the questions I sought answers to changed as I kept searching. I realize now that even before I had started to seek, God had already found me. But I wasn't able to see that He was right there in front of me, waiting to be found. I had sought to learn about the knowledge of creation, of the moral absolute, and of the truth - what He was. I only realized He was there all along after I saw how my own morals and strength weren't enough - when I had the desire to know Him personally as a Savior and when I wanted to know who He was to me.

I've been so humbled and encouraged since talking to my friend because her journey reminds me of my own. It's truly amazing because I'm actually seeing someone I know go through it, and I can completely relate to where she's at right now. I've never been able to see God's goodness as clearly as I do now. I'm so excited for her because seeking will eventually lead to transformation and revelation.

After talking to her, I couldn't help but feel that God intended this weekend to be different. The first two Saturdays of my internship I explored the east coast with some of my fellow interns. This time I didn't. And I don't regret it because otherwise we wouldn't have had that conversation. Every day I pray for my friend, that she'll have the perseverance and curiosity to continue seeking for the answers to the many questions she asks. I pray that while she currently seeks to know about God, that eventually she'll begin seeking to know God as a personal Savior. I'm confident Jesus will be behind one of the many doors she opens, waiting to meet her. And in time, given His grace and wisdom, I know she'll be able to see that He's there.

Illumination

Wow. God has been giving me so much joy this past week. I'm really tired so I'll summarize briefly:

These last couple of days I discovered that two of of the interns I've been hanging out with are also Christians and have been struggling with finding a church to go to in New Jersey.

I wouldn't have learned that about the first intern if it weren't for what he was wearing that day - a T-shirt that had "'I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ...' - Romans 1:16" printed on it. We talked for a bit about churches here in New Jersey and agreed to church hop together the next Sunday.

The second intern I wouldn't have known either if she didn't mention it herself. We were on a train back to New Jersey after touring Philadelphia for an entire Saturday. She said that she planned on sleeping in the next day, but she felt bad about not going to church yet since summer had started. And that was a perfect opportunity for me to invite her to church hop with us :).

We ended up going to the United Methodist Church down the block, and it just so happened that they held their 18th annual African Thanksgiving Service today. We walked in to the sight of an entire church with the members of African origin dressed in their traditional garbs. Most of the congregation were middle-aged adults, a far cry from the group of young college adolescents and new college graduates that I was used to seeing at church. Worship was amazing even though it was different from what I am used to - they were singing traditional hymns backed by organ and belting out African worship songs. The view of all these people worshiping God in their own way - singing in their own style and language - was just too incredible to behold.

And here we were: an Asian from California, an African-American from Michigan, and a Caucasian from Indiana - three students who were surrounded by an entire congregation of Caucasians, Asians, Indians, and African-Americans spanning all of areas of the world. All of us - varying in ethnicity, young and old, and dressed from jeans and to garbs - were together this Sunday with one purpose: none other than to worship and glorify the Lord. These individual people of different nations, cultures, ages, ethnicities, and denominations assembled together to form the Body of Christ. I'd never seen this before. Even if this sight only lasted for two hours, and even if I was only able to appreciate even a small part of what God wanted to show me, I'm glad God revealed more of His heart to me and how beautiful He has created us to be.

After the service ended, the youth pastor came up and told us that the regular services were not usually like today's. I guess we'll have to check it out again to see what it's usually like!

After today I'm so hopeful despite of the circumstances. Each week I spend without a solid community and accountability group, the more and more I see that I'm being engulfed by a tempest of darkness and doubt. And as I'm being swallowed whole, I realize how I alone cannot keep my heart free from sin. Yet God fights for me when I can't fight it off myself. He gets me through the storm and reminds me of why I follow Jesus. As I find myself straying away from Him, God manages to find me, show me more of Himself, and bring me back.

Even in the wilderness here is still joy to be had, and that joy is found in Him. PTL.

Beauty in the Breakdown

So far New Jersey has been great - I've met so many wonderful people from different places (I'm the only one from CA haha), I've gotten along with my apartment-mates, and I've even started cooking (mostly to save money). I'm glad for what God has been showing me recently, and I'm really excited for the community that I'm starting to build here. 

Yet, at the same time, things aren't so great. 

The more time I spend here in New Jersey, the more I see myself slowly reverting back to living like the way I do at home. It's going back to unwholesome interaction with people, it's the relationships built on people and people alone. It's not spending time to pray. It's being too lazy to go to church. It's me being complacent. Timid. It's me living as though God wasn't a personal God, ignoring Him as if He was irelevant to each day of my summer. I don't like what happens, yet it comes so easily and naturally. After all, this is how I've been used to living for 18 years of my life. 

This is the Vincent who my friends and family back home know. But this isn't me anymore - my time at Berkeley has been transforming me. Whenever they ask me if there are any changes in my life, I want to tell them "YES. I've encountered a God who loves me unconditionally and I've found His Son who died for my sins, and it has forever changed my life and the way I see it. I have found an amazing God of love, compassion, wisdom, and grace who is personal. And He cares about you even more than I possibly can." 

Yet whenever the "Anything new?" arises, an invisible force holds my tongue in check as I say "No. Not really." 

Why do I do that? 

As the days pass in New Jersey, I've been thinking about why. I've been so conflicted and scared that the people who I knew before I knew Christ would treat me differently once they found out how I've changed. I'm afraid that the the comfortable would become awkward, that familiar would turn unknown, and that understanding would disintegrate into ignorance. As a result of my inaction due to these fears, for the past year I've managed to keep hidden the most important aspect of my life to the people I've known the longest. Why am I unable to talk about the God that I love the most with the people in this world that I love the most? Why do I always revert back to familiarity and doing what I've been used to? Will I ever tell them of my new-found identity?

No. Not yet. I can't. I'm too weak. It's too difficult to do by myself.

Because of my weakness, I've found myself living a double life ever since I became a Christian. It's been so painful being in it and I see why I've avoided thinking about it for so long. And I question where my heart is. I see how I've been putting myself - my own comfort - above God. And in this aspect of my life I see how I've been failing Him.

Yet scripture speaks volumes about failure. He reminds me of an ancient story: one of people who have been delivered from slavery - who have seen God work miracles with their very eyes - only to create a golden calf in the wilderness to worship it instead of Him. God whispers to me the story of His people, of the Israelites, and of how they continually break covenant with Him generation after generation. Yet He never gives up on them. He shares a story that I've heard many, many times - a story that I've always overlooked until now.

And I realize that I am just like the Israelites. 

God, You've freed me from my Egypt and saved me from a life without You in it. You redeemed me from my sin and promised me a new home. Yet when I oh so quickly forget of Your promises, I fall back to my old idolatrous ways and my comfortable methods of people-pleasing - these ways of living for myself. And even though You've brought me out of Egypt, it seems that Egypt is still in me.

Lord, I have failed. But just like how You remained faithful to the Israelites after they too failed time after time, I know You'll be waiting patiently when I fall short. You tell me not to be afraid to fail because you have a plan for me - a plan to give me hope and a future - and You'll catch me if I fall too far. You are a God of love and forgiveness - a God of second chances. Whenever I'm angry at my actions and when I doubt my faith, You remind me of Your own faithfulness by telling me the same word You told Your people around 3,500 years ago. That one word...

Remember...

Remember what I've done for you...

Remember why you chose to follow Me.

God, I don't deserve Your love. Yet I know You'll be beside me giving me strength when I don't have enough to tell them about my faith. I must remember where my heart truly lies. Maybe then it won't be so hard.

All of Me

It's been a week since I started work here in New Jersey, and I can say that it's definitely not what I expected coming in. On my first day of work I met my coworkers, who turned out to be almost all middle aged Chinese men and women. I had lunch with them, and it was different because they all spoke in Mandarin. There I was, sitting in silence, listening to their conversation while trying to blend quietly into the background. All that I could think about at that moment was just how uncomfortable, awkward, and excluded I felt. At home I don't typically speak in Mandarin to anyone besides my parents, and I had never been accustomed to speaking or hearing it outside of my home. Ironically, I felt out of place in a group that spoke in my parents' native tongue, and I couldn't help but feel baffled. Thinking about it some more, it was weird because New Jersey isn't known for its Asian population. Somehow, though, I was placed in a research group that was about 90% Asian. I originally was looking forward to the east coast because I'd have a chance to escape the enormous Asian population of California and get to know an entirely different demographic - to improve and work on interacting with people who were different than me. Why would God lead me to the wilderness just to have me come across a splitting image of my home?

While I was eavesdropping in on their conversation and pretending to read a newspaper, my supervisor asked me if I spoke Mandarin because I had laughed at a joke that one of them had made. I responded with a reluctant "yes" and assured him that my Mandarin was horrible. Regardless, he encouraged me to speak with them in order to practice, and it was tough. But once I began conversing with them, I felt that I was being reunited with a part of me that I had lost coming to college. And then it hit me.

The conversations that I have with these people in Mandarin show me how much I am losing touch with my culture. They make me realize how indifferent I am to being Chinese (and Taiwanese), about how I dislike talking about Chinese traditions and have next to no cultural pride. These conversations open my eyes to how much I tend to distance myself from my own culture out of apathy and shame. 

As I wander through the wilderness, perhaps God is challenging me with visions of my home to show me how I haven't really regarded it as one. He is telling me how ironic it is that I seek to learn about and celebrate other cultures and ethnicities while I rarely identify with my own. I have always labeled myself as everything but my ethnicity, and I have always appreciated everything around me but my culture. But that's slowly changing now. God has shown me how I am a citizen of Heaven, but He is also reminding me that I am a Berkeley student, a chemical engineer, a nerd, a son, a brother, American and Chinese as well. He's made me to be all of these things and intended for me to be this way. God has purposefully created me to be who I am - I trust that He's made me Chinese for a reason too.

Speaking in Mandarin with my coworkers brings me so much healing because it reminds me of that fact. These various aspects of my life are all equally important, and I believe God is calling me to embrace not just one part of my identity, but all of it.

Trek into the Wilderness

This blog was made with the purpose of documenting how God has been and will continue to be moving in my life - to show to myself that God truly remains faithful and has my best in mind. I want to remember, remember, remember the things God has promised me and done for me. It is my intention to receive the blessings He has given me and use them the way He planned for me to - to grow closer to Him rather than push Him farther and farther away.

This is especially appropriate this summer as I am working at an internship in New Jersey: a wilderness where I will be challenged in my faith - a wilderness where I will be tempted by the security, success, and self-worth that the world can promise me. This is a wilderness where I will be expected to depend on myself, where I'm told that success is only obtained through self-dependence. This is a temptation-riddled wilderness where I have never been before.

And I am determined not to give in to these temptations. I can only choose to rely on my God and trust that His plan for me is the best plan for me, whatever that may be and however blind I am to it.

Heavenly Father, I'm grateful for the opportunity that you have given me with this internship on the east coast and I pray that I will use it to glorify You. I pray that while I'm in the wilderness this summer, that I'll be ready for whatever is thrown at me - that I'll remember who it is that I place my identity in and never lose sight of that. God, although the wilderness is a place of trial, hunger, thirst, and temptation, it's also a place where those who are tested emerge ever stronger and renewed in their faith. And so I pray that this summer will be a time of spiritual growth where I'll be able to see You move in the workplace and in the people around me - in ways that I never thought could be possible - and be further affirmed in my own faith. I pray against any fears of failure, of loneliness, and of the unknown, and I pray that these fears would not stop me from learning and growing. Please watch over me as I embark into the wilderness now. Keep me strong in prayer and in physical and mental health. I pray for all these things in Your name. Amen.