Thursday, February 22, 2007
The Testimony, One Final Post
Yeah. Some have said this blog has been too religious for reading pleasure. No comments for that one, just hope that this final post has a good mix of reality with spirituality.
My Story
Life before a relationship with the Savior
I come from a family with very strict parental guidance. Discipline would be meted out very frequently in my younger days, to the point that it was nearly a daily affair, and at times abusive in nature. It made me view the world as a very unsafe place, being in need of me proving my worth and sincerity before I could be accepted.
I remember as a young boy my response to that view was to manipulate people by fabricating a story that was an exaggeration of my situation; I told my peers and teachers in primary school that I had step-parents who favored my brother more than me. They noticed that I had some odd behaviors and some genuinely concerned teachers really believed my story and sought to do something about it. It did not occur to me that they would talk to my parents about it. Of course, they spoke to my parents and felt foolish that they had believed a little kid. I was of course punished severely by my parents and marked by my teachers. And I was left feeling very bad about myself and unworthy of love.
As I grew up I faced oppression by a brother who sought to gain some control of his world by bullying me, but he was a significant influence to me because I could not look to my parents for guidance. I then sought to please him and that behavior spread to my peers and I became a people-pleaser. That behavior was reinforced as I helped my dad as a promoter of household appliances; we would say anything just to make the customer feel good about buying the product. From allowing myself to be hurt, I grew to become a person who cannot be trusted because I dished out promises that I could not keep, but said them in a bid to boost my image. People around me could not see me as who I am because I had buried my real self and portrayed a public self.
Christ is the answer
I got to hear about God through catechism classes that I attended as a young boy when my parents converted to Catholicism. Somehow He seemed to be a distant and aloof God to me as a Catholic. I remember growing in awareness of sin and its nature as I attended the lessons, and feeling an impending sense of condemnation and guilt. There was a custom of entering the confession box to confess your sins to a priest and doing penance to cleanse yourselves of the sins committed and that always made me feel worse and helpless about my sins. Confessing my sins to a priest I didn’t even know meant there were only ‘acceptable’ sins like telling lies that were confessed.
In my tertiary studies in Ngee Ann polytechnic I met a Christian who started discussing spiritual issues with me. Due to my background in Catholicism I was open to discussing such topics and got very good at pretending to be philosophical. By then my faith in Catholicism had waned and I was not defensive about the claims that he made towards Catholics being wrong in their beliefs about God. I then started attending church events with him, at the same time maintaining my involvement in my Catholic church as a choir member. I began to see a stark difference in the way the services were conducted, and the way the sermons were taught. What I did in my Catholic church I did as a ritual, a rite and a routine. How the congregation responded during my friend’s church services were spontaneous and sincere. ‘These people around me really believe in a God that’s alive and involved!’ I thought. The pastors in these services also seemed to invite people who had not known Christ to come to know Him. That never happened in my church.
At the point in time that I was attending these services my relationship with my parents was a mess, and I had left home and was putting up at my then girlfriend’s place. One service, the pastor got a prophetic vision and started declaring that he saw, among other things, a person who had left home and needs to go home. I was shocked, and later responded by going forward for prayer. During prayer, I suddenly felt my legs give way but I fought to stay upright. My friend encouraged me to give in to that sensation and I then fell forward and started trembling uncontrollably. After that, I was convicted to make my way home and found that my parents had a big fight and my mom needed my support. That was the first encounter with God and it made me believe God was interested in my life. I continued to attend these services. There was one event that I went to for the purpose of lending support to a course junior who was performing that I was led by a pastor to pray the sinner’s prayer.
For the good of those who love Him
I began to attend services at COR regularly, and the reality of God in my life made me hungry for more knowledge of Christianity. I had also just entered the army and was eager to prove to myself and others that I had been changed by Christianity. In that environment where masculine hormones were raging, vulgarities and scantily clad pictures of women were rampant, and I remained steadfast in my faith and maintained my integrity, at the same time growing in fame as a Christian.
Six months into being a Christian, my girlfriend broke up with me and I saw it as God closing the door on a relationship that was hindering my walk with Him. I spent some time recovering and read books that had Christian views on pursuing romantic relationships, and realized I had been in a relationship for all the wrong reasons.
I began devoting my time and energy to learning all I could about Christianity and serving as a Christian. Two years into being a Christian, the time came for me to pass out from the army and face the world again. I remembered my calling to be a counselor early on in my walk with Christ and my inclinations toward ministering to friends and family members on personal issues. I started praying to God for an opportunity to serve him as a counselor. Soon after, the youth congregation started publicizing about the Mentor’s Ministry and that triggered my interest. I started asking around and the ex-Mentors were more than happy to share their testimonies. Ron, my fellow Mentor, even challenged me to fast and pray about it, which I did. I applied for the position, got interviewed and before I knew it I was on-board.
Little did I know that I was still holding on to a warped view of who God is and what it means to be a Christian. I had entered Christianity thinking that God had made the world without original sin and our goal was to live a holy life pursuing ideals that the Bible has instructed us to follow. Instead of being a people-pleaser in a bid to gain their approval, I had turned my attention to being a God-pleaser in a bid to gain His approval! However, He started breaking me down and caused me to realize His unconditional love and acceptance for me and that my redundant efforts in trying to gain His approval were burning me out. The Father heart of God slowly peeled away the layers of lies I had believed in about my unworthiness and prompted me to seek help to understand who I was in Christ. Help started pouring in as I acknowledged my brokenness before God and His family. I saw then that I was motivated by fear and insecurity but God intends for me to experience His love and be transformed by it so as to become an agent of His love.
I am still in the process of healing, but I know now that I am in good hands. Three years into being a Christian, I am now learning to put my genuine trust in Him and learning that my Heavenly Father is faithful and dependable, unlike my earthly parents.
Mantou at 9:56 PM