I’ve found by slow realization that the few people who have most affected and encouraged me in seeking and enjoying a intimate relationship with God have turned out to be the ladies in my life. I hesitate to say this publicly lest it make it seem that I haven’t got good brothers in my life- I certainly have, and I thank God so much for the Brothers at Cornell-or that I hang out with the ladies too much, at least I don’t think I do. I think God has made the woman’s heart more readily geared for a deep, intimate relationship with Christ, at least the ladies would more readily humble themselves to the authority of such a sovereign God. I think this is one of the prime ways in which the sisters can show brothers how to grow in a deeper relationship with God, even the brothers seek to build up their sisters as well. I’d like to just name three women who have affected me intensely and and pointed me so vividly to the Cross and to Joy in Christ.
3. Jin Zhang. My mom. What a saint. She has suffered alot. We became Christians near the same time, it was the change in her life that drew me to consider Christ as powerful. For myself and most people I know the process of coming to faith is a seemingly laborsome process fraught with putting our hands to the plough and looking back and wondering why we lack joy if we are truly Christian. When my mom first accepted Christ it was as if the floodgates of her life lflew open and everything made sense in light of the Gospel. She became aware of her sin, all the suffering she had and was still enduring, and all the grace that God had shown her from earliest life till now. After I left for college and later on when she was no longer able to go to church I was concerned that her faith would falter. But God has met her is such intimate and tender ways that when I come back she is eager to recount to me the wonderous deeds of God and say over and over again, how wonderful God has been to her, how life would be so miserable without him, and how she would never ever turn back to her old way of life. Her face beams with assurance and joy. She is not a theologian, she doesn’t know all the terminology but her heart is spring-loaded to understanding and embrace the deep truths of God’s sovereignty, all sufficiency, atoning sacrifice, and so on. Even though she hasn’t been to church in a long time, when she talks about her devotions she exposits and exegetes as if by nature. She is one of the prime examples why I believe that an essentially calvinistic understanding of Scripture is right. The Spirit has revealed to her those same truths that the rest of us fight and bicker over. Contend me must, and God does gives grace to the humble and suffering.
1. Jia-Li Ai. She is Christian friend of my mom who first befriended my parents when they first moved to the States in 1994. She was the lady who bought me my first picture Bible and bought me all sorts of video tapes and books that gave me a vague but biblical foundation from early on. I praise God so much for her. She was only a graduate student at the time and so she spent for all those out of her own pocket. She and her husband cared and prayed for my parents and I even before Christ ever came clearly on the scene for myself or my mom. The one thing that I will always remember Jia-Li Ai for is the way she would talk about the characteristics of God. She would recount them with such a sense of assurance and pleasure, like how He loved me very much and did send his son to die for my sins. It seemed as if when she described God in some way it would encourage her so much that she had to verbally reaffirm her deep pleasure in those truths about God.
2. Faith Chan. More than once I’ve asked God why Faith had to graduate early. She has been the single greatest example of someone having deep satisfaction in Christ I have ever met. We weren’t great friends, she didn’t actively invest in me, but her heedless pursue of Jesus was the greatest ministry anyone at Cornell has ever graced me with. I say that with a great sense of awe towards God because there have certainly been people who have poured into me with their life but I think it is to God’s glory that a scattered-brained little girl would bring him the greater glory. Two quotes from her (or that I first heard from her) that follow me are: “There is nothing better than following Jesus” and “The heart of every matter is a matter of the heart”
Hope that encourage you sisters to be godly women, and you men to cherish the godly women in your lives! Praise be to Jesus!
Recent Comments