My name is Ken, I'm a second year engineering master's student here at Mac. I've been on this campus for 6 years now, so yes, I'm pretty old. I'm really thankful though, to God for these last 6 years, and even more thankful to have this opportunity to share with you guys the things He's been doing in my life, especially this last year and some.
I guess I should start with a little background info about myself and where I came from. My family and I immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong when I was 9, and during that time my father began searching for his meaning in life. He would stop and chat with every stranger that would knock on our apartment door, and at the end of it all, he found Christianity the only religion worth pursuing. Long story short, he accepted Jesus as his personal saviour shortly after starting a new job where the office was full of Christians. My father was the type that is usually right about his decisions, so my family followed him to church. So you could say that I pretty much grew up at church; a church kid if you will, but that didn't really mean I was a Christian. To me then, up till the end of high school even, I never had a real personal relationship with God. Church back then was just a place I went to meet friends, and God to me was just a being, far off in the distance, that I knew lots of things about, but never really connected with.
The summer before I entered university here God pretty much set out to make Himself a reality in my life. My mother during that time has been hearing voices on and off for about a year. After a particularly severe episode, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at a nearby hospital, and was diagnosed with depression with psychosis. It was a hard time for my family, even just visiting her was difficult, and I remember just screaming at God during that time, angry that life isn't going my way, even though I've been at church for so long. As the weeks rolled by, that anger turned to despair, and for the first time ever, I prayed to God, and finally understood that there really was someone on the other side of the line. Someone who cared. My mother was discharged from the hospital about 4 months later, and God has now completely healed her.
That's pretty much how I got to know Jesus. And you'd think I'd enter university with some new found reverence for God, but no. Now that I knew that I could ask things of God, and He'd answer in my favour, I was out to get him to make my life the way I wanted it to be. Asking him to bless my schooling, bless my finances, bless my relationships. And I'd try to pay him back by working for him, leading Christian clubs, fulfilling my duty to pray, to read the bible, and to go to church. During those years in undergrad, that little bit of a connection I had with God that one summer quickly faded away, as I treated Him like a vending machine. To make matters even worse, my academic success had given me a hugely conceited heart, which would have been less disastrous if that had stayed within the realm of academics, but it soon spilled over into my spiritual life. To call me judgmental would've been an understatement; I was fully using my good way with words maliciously as I sought relief from my own spiritual inadequacies by exposing the faults of others.
And that brings us to Westside. I started coming here when it first started in September of last year, and honestly I came just because it started at 4:30pm, which meant I was actually awake. The moment I walked in though, I just felt something was really different here. As I observed the leaders at the time, the way they lived their lives, surrendering everything they had to God, I thought they were crazy. The way they served one another, the way they encouraged one another, the way they loved each other. Those things I had only read about in the bible, but now in this church I'm seeing them in real life. As I started to serve here on the tech team, started going to the weekly bible studies, and really got to see God in these people as we did life together, I just wanted to know how people could have such wonderful hearts, and how I could have that too. I realized that being Christian is not about rules and duty and do's and don'ts, it's about loving people the way that God loves people. And that's what the people here did week in week out, with joy and gladness. So I tried my best to follow suit, to not much avail as love and conceit really don't go well together. I remember just striving and striving to be more loving, flattering people, pretty much just pretending to love people, even though inside I didn't love them at all, and I was exhausted just trying and trying. It was so straining, to change who I was, out of my own ability, thinking that was what God expected and demanded of me. After a relationship fell apart last summer, I remember sitting there, alone in the house that day, and just saying to God, "God, I don't know what to do anymore. I know you want me to love, sincerely, humbly, but this is just plain impossible for me. I've tried and tried, and I just can't. What more can I do?"
And God's answer was immediate, "Ask me for those things." He said.
And that's what I prayed, day after day, up to this very morning. It was a huge revelation, that moment when I realized I can't do it on my own, and He never expected me to. The bible studies suddenly became much more than head knowledge, but life transforming, heart changing experiences. Serving and leading things at church was no longer an accomplishment or a chore, but joyous occasions to be used by God. That's not to say I'm the worlds most loving, or most humble, person, I still have some ways to go, but I've said the words "I love you" to the guys in my small group more times than I've said that to my parents during all of high school, and I really do mean it, those guys know that I love them probably more than I lead them. I've begun to encourage people, not because I'm making things up to sound nice, but because I see in them the same strengths, the same potential, the same fingerprints of God, that God sees. And I smile now not because I need it plastered on my face all the time, but because I'm so happy that God is at work in my life and my heart, through the bible studies and small groups, through serving together with the people here at Westside, and that He's placed wonderful people around me to share that with me. I have confidence in what I do, whether at school or at church or anywhere, knowing fully that I longer needed to puff up myself to cover up my inadequacies and insecurities, but that whatever good God wants of me, indeed whatever good I want of myself, I need only to be willing to receive that from Him. That's been real freedom, freed from my own prison of self reliance and self righteousness, neither of which I did very well to begin with anyways. Now free to finally enjoy the gifts that God wants, and is willing to give to me in my life with Him.
Everything comes from God, if only you'd ask. The question that was laid before me, the same question that's laid in front you today, is will you ask God to come into your life, to be all the good things that you wished you were, to be all the good things that you wished you could have? I answered yes, and no it hasn't been easy, but I don't regret a single moment. You won't either.
