I was fortunate enough to have been raised in a family, who through the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, came to know and love the Lord. God has always been a very important part of our family life and has been the core part of my entire life. My earliest memories of my family life include sitting in the basement with my mother singing “Jesus loves me this I know” and concluding every evening with the thrill of Bible stories, whether it was Daniel having survived a night with lions or Moses crossing the Red Sea. Every Sunday I would go to children’s service and there we had a lot of fun together! Some of the more memorable things of children’s service include the memorization of the Ten Commandments, and the ensuing trip to the Toys R’Us for our rewards, the cool crafts we made, and even the competitive verse races, testing who could find the verse first. So even in these few memories it was clear that God was not a weekend “thing” for us. He was not solely a revered name that we only uttered at church on Sundays; rather, He was a very essential part to our family and personal lives.
The older I got, the more I began to see that God is neither something superficial nor just some organization, but something real and precious! My salvation was not quite as dynamic as others, but it was nevertheless very real. I had been baptized when I was nine but I neither understood nor appreciated what baptism really meant. Then in the summer of my seventh grade year, I decided to get baptized again with my best friend. Up until this time all the decisions about God were partly made by my parents, but it was in this step that I declared for myself that I chose God and wanted Him in my life. From that day I began the journey of my Christian life. Throughout middle school and high school, God had become increasingly important and became more and more the focus in my life. Especially now, being at the crossroads of high school and college there are several questions that I, as well as many of my peers, have begun to ponder: Who am I? What do I do? What is the purpose in my life? Where am I headed? Some of my peers have said money, successful careers, affluence, fame, and some have said God. But what exactly does that mean? The ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee has really helped to unfold and put this great puzzle together – the meaning of human life. Everyone out there is seeking some part of satisfaction, whether it is from entertainment, successful careers, affluence, or fame. Sadly many of my peers have sought satisfaction from drugs and alcohol. Are these things the meaning for human life? The Word of God as unfolded by Watchman Nee and Witness Lee has helped me understand that the meaning of my human life is a three-letter word—God. Genesis 1:26 says, “ And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them have dominion…” Through the ministry it was unveiled that God has a plan and a heart’s desire. In this verse it shows that God’s intention from the very beginning was just to have a corporate expression with His image and likeness and that man would also represent Him by exercising His authority. This is not just some knowledge or points that I have memorized but something intrinsically real! These were the answers to my question and they finally put to rest that question in me: why am I here?
Blaise Pascal once wrote that “Within every man is a God-shaped vacuum.” Well in me, when God came into me, that God-shaped vacuum in me was filled! There was always a part of me that was empty and longing for something real that would satisfy me and throughout the years I had tried to fill it with what others had also tried: sports, television, friends, parties—but those things never quite satisfied. I tried what all my other friends had tried, but it was only a fleeting sense of enjoyment and satisfaction. In the end it always came back to what I do really want? All those things had left a lingering sense of emptiness. So what exactly was it that I was searching for? That sense and part within me that sought out something to satisfy, was only made for one thing, and through the help of the ministry I learned that it was God and God alone. This realization alone was a tremendous point in my life; but in the following years of my life I would somewhat forget what I had touched. It wasn’t until I reached a very crucial point in my life where I had to decide what I wanted to do with my life that I remembered that realization and experience. Everyone around me was looking to succeed and to have a satisfying life. It was this past year that I realized that I wanted God to be the center of my life and that everything I did would then revolve around Him. In this decision, that part within me was satisfied and the feeling of peace and joy I experienced was unmatched by any other feeling I had ever experienced before from any other form of entertainment. My friends who were Christians, who supposedly “had God” were still trying to fill that same longing within them. I feel that the ministry really unfolds something much higher that will satisfy that longing within them.
The ministry is quite unique from anything else that I have found because it ministers life and God into others, not superficial knowledge and doctrines. I’m not interested merely in knowing knowledge about who God is, “going to church” every Sunday, singing hymns and reading the Bible once a week on Sunday. What I want is reality and nothing else. To me, there is a strong sense of “Amen” to what the ministry says which confirms that this is what God really wants. There is also an echoing sense of unmatched satisfaction within me telling me that I have finally found what I have been searching for—God. Having come to know such things, how could I go back to the dry and temporal things that society has to offer. Nowadays many things look attractive and good, but those things only offer a short-lived sense of enjoyment and reality. In contrast, the ministry offers something that is not gilded, but genuine and real. I appreciate the ministry so much because it has taught me, not knowledge and what things an upright and moral Christian should do, but more importantly what my human spirit is, how to touch God from my spirit, and who this Wonderful Person we call God truly is.
Grace Hsiung