Live Out Loud

-I recently had a chance to reconnect with friends from the PHS Class of 2006, many of whom I had not seen or spoken to in four years. I ended up writing this one extensive letter to a friend about how CRAZY my life has been in college, which obviously involved the story of how I became a Christian. So here we go, the testimony of how I came to know Christ :P- I came into college just wanting to live the life I've always wanted to live, apart from restrictions and previous conceptions of who people expect me to be, and the like.. Just came in to do well in school, make some solid friends, and bounce--but MAN my life got flipped upside down in my time here, largely because at the end of my freshman year I decided to commit my life to following Jesus. No God? I grew up in an atheist/agnostic family--never even considered the existence of a God (yet alone feel the need to live my life for this so-called higher being). Then in high school I started asking myself some big questions like

"Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." The concept of surrendering my career never made much sense to me because I've always known what I wanted to do, and was perfectly en route to achieving it. I thought I was better than everyone else for knowing what I wanted to do. In all frankness, I just thought I was awesome and gave myself credit for every accomplishment in my life. When God directly confronted me last year with how much I had been living for myself, I made all excuses to rationalize and justify myself. Somehow God changed my heart to be willing to let go of my perfect plan and insured that I would never find the type of security and identity that I found through a job title or company reputation. He took me through a whole year of rejections and dejected moments so that I would learn what it means to be satisfied with merely having a relationship with the God of the universe , not just praising Him or want

This weekend I not only closed out my time with my spiritual family in Ann Arbor, but also my academic pursuits as a student at the Michigan business school . Since January 2010, I was a part of a multi-disciplinary Social Entrepreneurship course where I worked with five other graduate & undergraduate students in launching C2A2 (Community Cars Ann Arbor), a peer-to-peer car-sharing program that provides societal & environmental impact through the sharing of resources. I never imagined myself to be an entrepreneur, but this was undoubtedly the climax of my academic experience in college because I was challenged to take everything I learned and apply it into launching an actual business. I not only used concepts from my past experiences in marketing, but even the foundations of business I was required to learn in my curriculum and never imagined would ever become useful. From using Excel spreadsheets for financial projections to understanding different partnership laws and for

This past weekend I was able to close out my CRAZY unexpected four years in college by standing in front of HMCC , the place where I became a Christian and learned how to follow Jesus. For those that couldn't be there, let me take this chance to boast to everyone on the world wide web :) As I reflect on my time in college, one lesson God has taught me is how every sacrifice I made was in fact no sacrifice at all. Growing up in an agnostic family, the thought of a higher-being never even crossed my mind for most of my life. When I came to college and was prompted with the question “If you were to die tomorrow, would you know for sure you’d go to heaven?”, this Jesus figure became relevant in my life for the very first time. After months of weighing the pros and cons of handing over my life to someone else, I committed to follow Christ at the end of my freshman year (through Xanga ) but could not shake the fact that I had to sacrifice my old lifestyle. Even when I became a Christian,

If you're my friend, teammate, lifegroup member (or you have any context with me at all), I've probably hurt you. I've probably hurt you in the way I approached you, made you into an agenda, or seemed disinterested in our friendship at times when we weren't being "purposeful". I probably gave you the idea that I didn't value our time together unless we were doing something "productive"--and in all honesty, you were right--you read right through me, and knew exactly what I was thinking. Ever since experiencing God (personally) for the first time three weeks ago, I've seen how my skewed relationship with God has affected so many other parts of my life. Before, I saw having a relationship with God as a list of tasks--in my warped point of view and biases of being an already-too-task-minded person, if I wanted to know God, I needed to read the Bible, persevere in prayer, get involved in biblical community, and serve the church. If I did all these

delirious (adj): marked by uncontrollable excitement or emotion; ecstatic; filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy (1 peter 1:8); me I don't think I had a personal relationship with God until 2 weeks ago. There have been a lot of formative moments and experiences in the past 6 years of me considering the existence of a higher-being, 3 yrs of being a Christian, 1 year of living by faith, 6 months of serving on church leadership, 1 month of dire circumstances, each of which have been challenged and supported by specific instances in my life.* But it's only been 2 weeks of finding pure joy, satisfaction, and freedom in Christ (alone). Though it's been 6 years since I first stepped into a church building and 3 years since I accepted Christ, I was always afraid to admit that I didn't know what grace, freedom, repentance, or Jesus meant--in terms other than the ones I had heard or read--it was always a theory and never a reality in my own life. After years of doing chur

It's been three days since I've been back. I came in scared, feeling unprepared as ever. Once I got here, I was overwhelmed. I couldn't believe I was being left alone to do this. I was lost, confused, without direction nor conviction. I still don't know what I'm doing, but God NEVER fails to give me much more than I ever deserve. NEVER NEVER NEVER. Through the disappointments and doubts, the only thing sustaining me right now is Acts 20:24 "However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace." Nayoung if you ever forget, if you ever get discouraged, if you ever lose hope or purpose for your life, remember why you're still here. To testify to the gospel of God's grace, and be His beautiful feet that will bring good news. God give me a vision that's bigger than my petty dreams.