I have a question for all of you brothers and sisters. Don’t worry, it’s not rhetorical, so you can answer or respond if you want. How many of you here have ever felt that maybe God just wasn’t there? Or perhaps, your parents were just lying to you about there being a God? Well, I think, for the first part of my life, I’ve always been in constant argument with myself over the truth of God.
Unlike most of you, my faith wasn’t so strong. I don’t have much to brag about during this testimony. All I can say and testify is how God changed my view in life and how He proved to me He existed. For most of my life, I “believed” in a religion. It’s like those times were you say something but you don’t do it. However, after these 13 or so years, after finding myself unable to prove God wasn’t there, I became more faithful to God.
If you know me, I’m the type of person who thinks too much. And I like peace in the family. So every time my family had an argument over Christianity, I’d be the peace maker. Probably because I like peace or it was most likely because I didn’t have any strong feelings to make me support one side or the other. When my parents fought over Christianity, I’d stay on my mom’s side probably just because I’m more scared of my mom than my dad and more people were on my mom’s side then my dad’s. But I never forgot to say something to back up my dad. After listening to my mom for so long, I thought of her words as law. If she said God is God and we could only bow down to him, then so be it. Obviously I had enough intelligence to know and differentiate between lies and truths. But stuff like this, I had no clue so I took the advice of the wiser and half heartedly believed in this wonderful God.
You can say I’m selfish, only thinking about myself. I’d only come to God when I needed him and afterward, many times, I forgot to thank him. It wasn’t like I forgot accidentally, saying thanks to someone I’ve never seen, someone I don’t even know if He really existed, just never came across my mind. Yes, how can someone like me be Christian? I just have to say that this God we know can work miracles. He knows just what I need and what I’m asking from Him to prove that He exists. I’ve asked him at first, to speak to me. Obviously that failed. Why? Not because of Him, but because I couldn’t hear him. Somehow, now that I think back to it, I feel like then, I tried to block him out. I was always constantly switching between believing in Him and not, just like how I was constantly switching between being on my mom’s side and dad’s side. However, later, after my dad started accepting Christ, my heart also opened up and I was more convinced. You know, after my dad started accepting Christ, our whole family was brought to church. And from Church, I learned the basics of Christianity and I built my faith in Him and learned how to search for Him and started meeting him more. A lot of things I heard or saw at church influenced me and changed my view of things. The stuff Pastor said about faith and how to be a true Christian stuck to me as I lived through my everyday life. No, I didn’t realize I changed to a better, more loved person; I just wanted to change myself to be someone God would like. But now that I look back, I can see the everyday change. But still, even through all these changes were for the better, I would still find myself wondering if God was real or not.
Two things convinced me that God existed: prayer and the presence of God.
Mark my words. Prayer is POWERFUL! When my mom told me this, well I can’t really remember exactly what I was thinking, but it was along the lines of: “ok. Prayer is powerful. Yay! I should pray when I need to. Of course it’s powerful.” Like everything else, I also half-heartedly believed this. But after experiencing so many miracles from prayer, I now fully believe it. I remember when I take tests, prayer really helps. In seventh grade, for math, I was constantly getting 100%s without even trying. I thought that math was very simple and easy and that the only thing needed to ace the test was to finish the homework. Because of that, I became arrogant. In eighth grade, I was so arrogant I didn’t study for any of my math tests. It became like a habit, to not study for math. I also thought I didn’t need to pray so my test scores would only plunge. When I got back my chapter one test I was quite surprised and horrified at my score. Where’s the 100%? After that test, I studied a bit and got 100% on my next test. But because of that 100 percent, I relaxed again and my scores just kept on falling into the well. However after realizing this, I decided it was time to shape up. I started taking my mom’s, pastor’s, and friend’s advice, I started praying. I have experienced the power of prayer, from then on my test scores would always be 100% or close to that score. Obviously, I studied too. It’s just how God works his miracles; he changes your heart to benefit you. When I dance, or play piano, almost anything, I always rely on God through prayer.
The first Bible verse that I ever memorized was Proverbs 3: 5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all you heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight”. My mom likes this verse. So she asked my sister and me to memorize it. Ever since then, it was my source of reliance. Every time I felt away from God, I would say this to myself or pray this to God and I would feel him with me all over again.
Even God's name is beyond powerful. Every time I need to calm down, chill, or free myself from my thoughts, all I have to do is full heartedly say " in the name of Jesus” or “in the name of Jehovah" and all my thoughts would vanish and I would calm down again. It was as if a sudden gust of wind would release me from all my sufferings and everything would be still and I was suddenly full of joy again. That’s the power God has. It’s amazing. The first time, I didn’t think much of it, but after this happened multiple times, I was convinced that God was there in my life. I think that anyone can find God, as long as they are willing too. That’s because God is already searching and waiting for you.
