The Lord Will Provide

Dear friends,

Over the past months and years, God has sanctified me in very tangible and unimaginable ways. It is my joy to be able to share some of those ways, with the objective and hope that you might know Christ and be encouraged in your Christian walk.

Allow me to start by sharing my testimony of how I became a Christian (they didn’t ask me to, but they can’t stop me… I think :P). Born into a Christian family, I grew an increasing boredom for church programs throughout the first 12 years of my life. I tell this to a lot of people I talk to — who would want to sit through another lecture about the Bible on a Sunday morning? Instead, I was fully content with my life — perfectly satisfied spending all my time with games like MapleStory and League (was that a thing yet…?). I also thought I was a Christian already, since I just had to believe in Jesus, or so the Sunday school teachers said.

It’s kind of boring, yet amazing, how I became a Christian. Perhaps contrary to some, I had no serious addiction, no family issue, no adversity, and no discontentment that struck me. There was no message or talk with someone that seemed to contradict my understanding from the first 12 years of my life. It must have been peer pressure, because I was surrounded by a bunch of “church attendees” who played on their phones throughout church service (that was supposed to be sarcastic lol). It was simply that God saved me in my contentment in life. I’ll elaborate a bit more on that — there was a period of 3 days where I suddenly got overwhelmed by thoughts about God. You might think that that’s a good thing, but I just wanted it to go away. The intensity was like losing something extremely precious, the thought of it constantly consuming you. The only difference was that I never cared or planned to care about God. The months to come proved to be interesting — I loved praying and learning about the Bible and worshipping God. I honestly thought it was super awkward that I was the only one in my church friend group who wanted to sing. I’m no psychology major, but I’d like to think that my testimony defies some laws of psychology. How could I, who grew a growing distaste to God, fully content with life, heard no convicting message, thought I was a Christian already, surrounded by people who shared such thoughts, become someone who loved all the church stuff and Jesus?

Allow me to share more (cuz they can’t stop me hehe). Hebrews 10:15–17 has a rather interesting promise to Christians saying “And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,’ then he adds, ‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’” This practically means that when someone becomes a Christian, God would forgive their sins and drastically change their heart so that they will turn to God and love God. I came to learn this “phenomenon” years after I became Christian and realized that everything that happened after becoming a Christian was simply a fulfillment of the promises of God. Once again, I see the laws of psychology being broken. If I knew about all of this and then experienced it, I guess it’d still be pretty awesome, but undergoing this promise without having had heard or learned anything similar demonstrated the truth and faithfulness of God.

I apologize that you had to read through my testimony before I got into what they asked me talk about, but I hope you get to know Jesus. :) From how my life has played out, I really don’t see the slightest impossibility of God’s existence, and He has been faithful time and time again in providing and growing my joy for Him over the years in unimaginable ways.

Over the past year on CCF Committee, one of the primary lessons that I’ve learned is this — the Lord is my provider. The phrase, The Lord will provide, is most directly attributed to Genesis 22:14. However, this truth and promise is scattered quite evidently throughout Scripture. For instance, Philippians 4:19 claims that “my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Matthew 7:11 says that “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” If our understanding of God “who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20) translates into our hope that God would merely bless us with a 90% average instead of a 70% average or provide us with that dream job (Accounting firms are a trap! :P), then such provisions are pretty limited. I’m not saying that God can’t do these things, but I argue that such items should generally be at the bottom of our list of prayer items as they don’t even remotely align with the awesome promises, plans, and works of God found in the Bible.

Let me give you an example — John 14:12 says “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” Likewise, I come back to Ephesians 3:20, believing that “far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” cannot be merely associated with great marks and jobs. So what are these greater works? I vote that it refers to “proclaiming the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9) and pursuing “the ministry of reconciliation, that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” where this is “God making his appeal through us” to non-Christians (2 Corinthians 5:18–20). In more simple terms, we are to preach the Gospel, God will save people, and in doing so, we would do greater works than feeding the five thousand, turning water into wine, and healing the sick. So when we consider the provision of God, it must primarily be based on the salvation of souls and the extension of God’s Kingdom.

Reflecting upon my initial consideration for Committee elections, I could remember one thing that I got out of Winter Retreat 2019. As I scanned the 100+ fellowship members from the back, I realized that I was undoubtedly not competent to lead this fellowship. This thought honestly daunted me to tears. And then I went into elections. I’ll be honest — I had no idea what the role of Chair entailed. Perhaps it involved setting an agenda for each meeting, reading some commentaries to lead Bible study, periodically speaking in front of the fellowship, and helping to plan out some other events. Now compare this description with the following paragraphs below. :)

So why is the Lord my provider? Because He has convicted me in ways I never thought of, extended my responsibilities that far exceeded what the Constitution said and what I heard from past chairs, and equipped me to labour for these things. Allow me to give you four examples:

The Lord has placed the burden on me to desire for revival in Waterloo. When I say revival, I mean the salvation of thousands on our campus — that the world might know that God is working miraculously here. I don’t believe revival in any city has ever previously crossed my mind, and it wasn’t even remotely within my radar of considerations during elections. My closest interaction with the concept of revival was Bryan’s many futile attempts to try and get me to write a paper for him when I was External Coordinator 3 years ago (I never did it :P). However, the Lord equipped me with a heavy conviction to assess how every Bible study, every program, and every event would be a means to achieving revival. So here’s the TL;DR — every ounce of true passion, every tear shed, and every volume of joy that you saw in me can only be attributed to God’s provision.

The Lord then prevented me from burning out. I think one primary aspect of burnout is a loss of joy in serving, and I burned out 3 years ago when I was External Coordinator. I’m not sure what the workloads of past chairs have been like, but my workload for Chair was approximately double of that when I was External Coordinator, plus school got harder. At its worse, being Chair was almost equivalent to a full time job (that Isaiah 6 and Romans 10 Bible Study was hard!). So why is it that I haven’t burned out yet, while my joy has only grown? I believe God gave me a very bizarre method for not burning out: If what’s at stake here is the maturity of God’s people and the salvation of souls that will otherwise end up in hell, does my physical fatigue really matter that much? At least in terms of the time I spent, I argue that my slight fatigue did not even remotely compare with the fact that I was fighting for the salvation and maturity of people. So it’s interesting how God provided for me in this manner — the great burden for this campus that consumed much of my additional time and effort had saved me from burning out.

Next, God convicted me with a passion for certain Biblical doctrines when it mattered. You know, it’s a lot easier to just assume that our past ways are always the best — less work, less change, less conflict. I vote that our past ways are usually not bad, and past Committee members have probably given it much thought. To be exact, if we’re frequently introducing novel yet unfamiliar methods, perhaps we’re neglecting the wisdom of past leaders and are entering a dangerous path. However, I argue that it’s also dangerous to have little Biblical theology and assume that our current practices are Biblically grounded. For instance, the burden to study about the doctrines regarding worship and fellowship were essential to reconsidering our practices and it served as a way to Biblically ground myself. For the most part, studying this just gave me lots of additional work and change to deal with, yet such convictions were not based on pleasing man (cuz change usually isn’t too pleasing to people) but on pleasing God and ensuring that the ways we were leading were in accordance with God’s commandments.

Here’s one last example: There’s one thing that I fear the most as chair, and that is to lead anyone into a false understanding of or disobedience to God. I certainly did not have this fear speaking in front of the fellowship 3 years ago, but I think this fear is crucial for any “preacher” or “teacher”, knowing that there are major implications for what we say. I started my Fall term trying to resolve this fear by speaking less and trying to stick with theology that was more well-known. But then I realized that this wouldn’t do — I desire for Christians (including myself) who know specifically and much about God, because our unambiguous and specific theology evokes worship of God who has revealed specific attributes, truths, and promises that we can hold to. So how do we reconcile the fear of heresy and the desire for theology — God convicted me to work even harder and struggle with Scripture. The desire for perfectionism in every Bible Study that I led was not merely based on the hope to please fellowship members for my own boasting, but primarily a recognition that I was serving a perfect and holy God, and the maturity of God’s people mattered exponentially more for God’s work and glory. I guarantee you that I’ve made countless mistakes, but God convicted me to diligently pursue excellence in my service.

I hope that in these 4 examples, your conclusion is not that “I’m so holy and committed to this fellowship”. If you got the Samuel Siu you elected in March 2019, you would have got a Chair who half-heartedly cared for this fellowship and was ready to only put in the effort necessary to please man. Actually, I’m kidding — you would have got someone much worse than that LOL. But thanks be to God that the Lord has richly provided for me to serve this fellowship.

I conclude with one final point: Have you ever heard of the Bible story where God saved the hundreds and thousands through the prayerless church body? That’s not in my Bible. I argue that God has ordained prayer to be the prerequisite of salvations and victories for His Kingdom. So if there’s no conviction to pray, then I would imagine that this corresponds with no plans for God to perform a mighty work through and among us, since such works are always initiated by Christian prayers.

Let me put this in another way: In our ministry work, it’s not that God’s provision merely enhances how we’re able to serve. Instead, if God does not act on our behalf, we are exceedingly and extraordinarily screwed. So we pray because we know that if God does not act, our ministry is in great vain. I can’t say that I have prayed nearly enough, but I will say that I have felt the pressure to pray for revival in Waterloo. I have not seen revival in Waterloo yet, and yet with my anticipated graduation, I must wonder why God has placed such a conviction in me to pray for revival. As I leave Waterloo (Lord willing at least), I pass my torch to you, believing that there is much labour and prayer yet to be done here. Who knows — perhaps God is convicting many more to pray for revival and setting us up for something awesome to come!