‘If I lose Christ, I lose everything’
Junior BTS major recounts how his family’s history and his relationship with God have led him to where he is now.
By Josh Poppie | Storyteller
Junior and BTS/Philosophy Major Isaac Bei posits the question to emphasize how important Christ is to him, referring to his conversion from atheism to Christianity at 15: “I asked God, why so long? Why did you [make me] wait 15 years of my life without you?”
But as he grew spiritually, he realized that it was because God changes people over time. H
“[God] wanted it to be a learning process”.
In the five months that I’ve known Isaac, the thing that has struck me the most about him is that he is honest to a fault. More than that, he sticks to the Bible as his guide more than a lot of people I’ve met and is passionate about living according to Scripture. As he puts it, “If I lose Christ, I lose everything.”
He says his family history helped form these aspects of himself.He was born in a Thai refugee camp after his family fled the persecution of the Karen people in Burma, and moved to the US when he was 3.
He says what his family went through has taught them lessons, which have trickled down to him:
- “Take the opportunities that you have.”
- “You got to work in this life.”
- “Don’t ruin your life, basically.”
These lessons have stuck with him and shaped him, even during the first fifteen years of his life. While growing up, even as he says he was called racial slurs, he didn’t let them bother him, because his parents taught him not to start a fight and “words don’t hurt you when you don’t let them hurt you”.
He says he can easily separate his life into two periods: before knowing Christ and after. He calls the day that split his life in two, his “redemption day.” He felt unsatisfied with living for other people, and found himself thinking about going to church at random times.
“When it felt so peaceful, I thought, why not go to church?”
He found what he was looking for. While attending a mission trip with his new youth group, he told his youth pastor he “felt a stir… I feel like I want to accept Christ” and that he couldn’t wait any longer. After everyone in that youth group gathered to listen to him accept Christ, they celebrated that day, he remembers.
Isaac is also passionate about the military, especially since joining the Reserve Officer Training Course, which represents everything he believes in and which has helped him grow even further: in “basic leadership skills that can be used anywhere,” in teaching him to work with others as a team, because “in life, we need a team of people to do stuff together.”
On top of that, it caused him to focus more on staying physically active. ROTC has become a huge commitment and a huge part of his life ever since.
He says his future will involve teaching about scripture, whether it be as “a professor … or maybe a pastor or chaplain.”
