Baptism Testimony (Grace Chen)

作者：Grace Chen
日期: 07/24/2024
类别：感恩见证

I grew up in a Christian household. For most of my childhood, I blindly followed my parents’ faith, not truly connecting to what I learned in church, but just parroting what I’d been told to believe. In 8th grade, I decided to try to make my faith my own. I thought, if the Bible is real, surely it can be proven to be true with sound logic and evidence. I quickly learned, however, that this task was impossible without God. I was trying to lean on my own fallible understanding to convince myself to have faith, when the very definition of faith is believing in what you can’t see — and to do that requires you to humble yourself and fully surrender all to Jesus.

In high school, I started turning away from God because it seemed to me that the views of the Christian church often clashed with my own, and it became difficult to reconcile these beliefs. Church began to feel like a suffocating environment, and I was never excited to attend. I looked forward to the freedom I would have in college to explore and decide for myself where I wanted to go in my faith journey.

My plans were cut short in my first semester of college, when a friend passed away. I suddenly desperately wanted, more than anything, just to be able to believe in the existence of God and the promise of heaven. I no longer had the strength to try to stubbornly make my way towards faith on my own — I wasn’t even sure if I cared anymore. To my surprise, God showed up and reached out. I saw evidence of His faithfulness with my own eyes in countless indescribable “this could only be God” moments and in the steadfast kindness of this church and the people around me. It wasn’t until I fell face-first into God’s love that I discovered He was there and that, in fact, He had been there the whole time.

The Holy Spirit revealed to me what I had been failing to understand for years: We cannot rely on our imperfect selves, and so we must turn to God and the gift of salvation He gave us through Jesus. As the Lord says in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I feel that this has given me a new lens through which I see the world and walk in it. I still struggle with doubt and have to remind myself constantly that Christ is enough, but I know that no matter how many times my fears try to pull me away, He is so much more powerful than all of them combined. Psalm 55:22 says, “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.” I can stand firm knowing Christ sustains me even in my weakest moments.

Baptism, as a public declaration of faith, represents a promise I am making to myself and to God that I want to commit my life to Christ and His church. I am fully surrendering all I am to Jesus. No matter where I go and what I do, I will strive to be a witness for Christ, a living testimony of the living God.

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