My Life’s Testimony

I have finally pieced it altogether. I feel like I was just born again when the story was revealed to me.

I have received further appreciation of my salvation and this so called “Christianity”. I now have a new pair of eyes that sees and makes sense of the words, “God gave you life.”

So here’s my story:

I was born a premature baby, only 6 months old. I didn’t really take time to ponder about this truth before because, naturally, I don’t remember any of it. But some two weeks ago I saw this video which shows a premature born baby. I don’t know how old he was but it made me think, “Was I this small when I was born?”. In my curiosity I shared the video on my Mama’s FB wall and asked her; she responded with a “Yes”.

I looked at myself, I compared it to the baby on the video. I remembered the family friends who told me they couldn’t believe I’m this big and how far I’ve gone. (FYI: I’m 5'5" in height and about 154 heavy. I know. I need to really check my diet and do something about the excess flabs. So help me, God.)

I also was reminded of my Mama’s story, how she almost felt she would go crazy because at that time, my Papa was away as a Seafarer so she practically had no one. She had to bring me to the hospital for weeks and months for access to Nebulizer as I had asthma then, at that time it was not easily accessible and neither was it that affordable.

I thought about it. I pondered about it. I can’t believe myself how I lived through.

Statistics say that a 24-week old born baby has a 50–50 percent chance of survival. I could’ve just died. I could’ve just stopped breathing. I could’ve just gone without seeing and learning of the world. But I didn’t.

I lived.

I was literally given life.

I didn’t know Jesus

Knowing this truth helped me appreciate the life I have now. Realizing this truth also gifted me with new eyes to see how God has been so involved in this. He had a plan. In utmost, weird as it maybe, late as it maybe from the “norm” of being a born-again — if there’s any of that sort — I have finally received an authentic gratefulness to Him for my life’s testimony, something that I didn’t have before which I shared in a post.

Though I was a church kid for all of my life — yes, all of my life — and though I have always been very actively participating in church ministries as a Tambourine dancer and a Children’s Teacher Assistant, I really never knew Jesus. I knew His Name, I knew the stories, but I didn’t know the value of acknowledging Him as my only Saviour and submitting to His Lordship.

I may not have gone through addiction, murder or adultery but I did lie when I was young, I cursed my parents whenever I was angry at them for correcting my wrongs, I sought fight with classmates who were bullies, and I was prideful and judgemental in so many ways. I may have grown up with all-things-Christian around me but I realized that I am a sinner, no different than with other people. It says in Romans 3:23 “… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God …” so who was I to set myself apart and think of myself highly?

No one. Not one.

It was only when I was in High School and got involved in our church’s Youth Ministry that I slowly began to know who Jesus is. Mind you, I don’t have a spiritual date like the others since I don’t have that one-moment encounter with Jesus. It was more of like a progressive process for me, it was developed through time and circumstances. I believe that one of the big factors was seeing how my youth leaders lived their lives with so much passion for Jesus. I wanted that. There was something different about them. Also, I consider greatly how my Mama demonstrated a life that reflected Jesus’ love for me and our family. I wanted that.

I have no idea when but I was eventually led to deciding that I needed to follow Jesus. It took me instances when I had to make decisions about whether I will go with the flow of the world around me at school or should I choose to be more Christian. There were times I would choose to do what was right basing solely on the things I learned from church, there where times that I didn’t due to pressure. But God is so good and gracious, I don’t know how but I learned how crucial the genuineness of my motives and intentions are compared to mere acts.

I love the surrounding verses are around Romans 3:23, read verses 22–24:

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Like others, I have not really thought about faith or eternity. In my case, I was surrounded with it but never took notice of it. I thought I was good on my own. I thought that my righteousness was about deeds and nothing else. And I thought that righteousness can never be an adjective used to describe me. But in the Scriptures, I was proven wrong.

Only through Jesus Christ can one be truly righteous and have freedom. I had no difference with other people. I could’ve just lived my life with sheer misunderstanding of Christianity and died; I could’ve just lived in foolishness and arrogance thinking that I’m already good because I’m a Christian by label — but I didn’t.

In God’s grace, I finally knew Him during high school. Jesus revealed Himself through people around me, through personal and simple chit-chat with friends and leaders, through Sunday service sermons, through youth camps and church programs. Jesus introduced Himself to me, taught me progressively that I need to follow Him and acknowledge that He alone can save me from eternal death and absolutely forgive me from my sins. He taught me increasingly how I need to submit to His lordship, how I need to acknowledge His authority and sovereignty over my life, my family’s, my surroundings and my affairs.

I finally knew Jesus Christ.

The Call to the Ends of the Earth

As I only got to know Jesus during High School, my desire for missions started earlier. I was in my second or third grade when a missionary was invited to our school. She’s a Filipina missionary to China and at that time, around 1998 or 1999, Christians were still heavily persecuted so missionaries were very careful in taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ there.

I forgot if it was that woman missionary who told this story or that I knew it from another. Anyway, there’s this story that stuck in my head: Bibles and any material that promotes Christianity were not allowed in China so for the missionaries to bring the Scripture in that country, they did radical measures. They’d rip a page or two and fold it neatly and small. After so, they put it in a plastic and tie it with a clean string. When it’s secure, they’d swallow it and tie the other end of the string to one of their teeth. No one would know that the person’s carrying anything suspicious. When they arrive safely and successfully get in the country, they pull it out and take out the ripped page.

There were other stories of Bibles made really small so it would go unnoticeable upon baggage inspections in airports. At that time, I was so inspired with her story. I thought to myself, “Wow. She’s so awesome, so cool. She’s like a spy, one that I watch in movies. Like an action star! I wanna be like her!”

That was my motivation. Yes, I was inspired to be a missionary with the wrong motivation. But for whatever reason, for whatever plan God has set before me, that inspiration never left my heart. It got quiet for some seasons but it stayed in me.

There were instances when I succumbed to my hastiness that I was set on going straight to a Bible School to become a missionary. Even my idea was shallow! But both occasions did not succeed. It was God’s grace, through the Holy Spirit, that I chose to obey the counsel of my parents and wise guardians.

There were times when I also got too focused on asking and asking what the Lord’s call was for me. I experienced so much frustration whenever friends around my age would tell me that they’ve received their call. I would get jealous and unsettled to the feeling of unfairness, “Why haven’t I received mine? Why? Is there something wrong with me?”

In my pride and self-centeredness, I didn’t realize that I had the wrong motives. But God was so good that my heart was dealt with. I discovered how too great the need there is. I finally received my call last year, December 2015. It was the time that I did not pray to God to give me my call. He gave it at the moment I did not expect. I received it at the time that my heart was right — all by His doing and all for His glory.

Steps in the Darkness to His Light

The call to reach the unreached is great. As of 2016, according to Joshua Project, the world is populated with about 7.29 Billion people and that figure is grouped and are summed to about 16,510 people groups. The forty percent (40%) people groups of the 16,510 are unreached.

This means that unless someone who knows Jesus goes to the unreached with the intention of sharing His Truth and Gift to them, they will not have access to the Good News. That forty percent, comprised of 3.07 Billion people, does not have the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ, know who He is and discover that there is this peace beyond understanding and a living hope available for them.

This 3.07 Billion people won’t know that there is the One, True and Living God who is sovereign and loving. They won’t know the Father who is not just Almighty but able to give His everything, even His one and only begotten Son for the purpose of redeeming, ransoming and saving people from death and sure perish.

Death is sure. Eternal Death is true. Heaven and hell is real and there is a Person who conquered death by His sacrifice and by His blood.

This call is sinking deep in me. I have the choice to stay in the comforts of my family and job, but what good is it if I gain all the seemingly good things in this life but perish eternally?

I have the choice also to keep this so-called Christianity to myself and care not for other people. But in truth, this is no choice at all.

A Story Pieced Together

In realizing how God literally gave me life from birth, to the orchestration of how I got to know Him truly and up to the point where He revealed how I may serve Him further through cross-cultural work — I am in awe of His sovereignty to have done everything in my life and how He has set a plan before me for His glory; I am in awe of His desire to include me in His Story and serving Him is the greatest pursuit and joy I have received.

Who am I to deny this life and the comforts I am in when my Lord asks for it? Is He not the creator and giver of Life — physically and spiritually? Is He not sovereign enough to care for the needs I worry about? Was He not able to provide for Israel, a nation of millions of people, during their 40 years in the wilderness even without them toiling for their needs?

Jesus Christ is worth it.

If there is any sacrifice He is asking for you to make, please do know that God is good enough to take care of your affairs. He is more than enough and beyond comprehension that His plans are just out of our imagination.

Know and choose to believe that God is sovereign enough to uphold you.

Whatever direction or command it is that He is giving you, it may be freakingly scary not knowing anything, but I tell you, obeying Him would be the best decision you can ever make in your life.

Suffering will ever be present in this life, but life in Him and with Him and for Him and through Him makes everything beyond good.