Trusting God When Circumstances Change
Kelly, 3rd Congregation
Kelly
I will always remember my 12th birthday‐the day one of my closest friends presented me a Bible. She had come to Christ shortly before that, despite her family's staunch religion. While no one in my immediate ‐ and extended families too, at that time - was Christian, God had always placed believers in my life. Since I was ten, most of my close friends in school were Christians.
Growing up, I was taught to work for exemplary results, money, respect from others. But at a young age, I had a keen sense of pain and suffering happening elsewhere in the world, even behind the smiling faces I line up next to before class. I knew those I was told were “important things”, were but a chasing after a wind. Somehow, I felt there had to be more to life. But I didn't know what it was.
I felt like I could not believe in God because I couldn't see Him. I needed solid and tangible evidence. I kept running away, refusing my friends’ invites to visit their churches. So for a long time, I knew of a God vaguely but refused to believe and submit to Him. However, God was relentless in pursuing me.
In my freshman year at the National University of Singapore, I decided to join the Varsity Christian Fellowship (VCF) to learn how to read the Bible which I've had for six years but never opened. But more than bible study, VCF let me get to know students who are very unlike the others in my faculty. Christians who live their lives in a very counter‐cultural way. During a camp at Genting Highlands in 2008 ‐ so they send us into the mountains and let us dig deep into the Word ‐ I saw how fellow students my age had such a heart for the Gospel. December 2008 was the first time I felt convicted of sin, that the world is broken but I, too, am not as good as I think. (We studied Ecclesiastes that camp.) I repented from sin and put my faith in Christ, who died for my sin on the Cross so that I may be righteous in Him before God. However, due to challenging circumstances at home, I was not baptised as a believer.
Over the years, God continued to place people who shared very encouraging testimonies of God's hand in their lives, who prayed with and for me, who helped me with my questions and assured me when I questioned my faith ‐ including people in VCF, Bible Study Fellowship, Project Gratitude, the international students ministry, the short stint in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where I spent a large proportion of my time with the college ministry, and in Redemption Hill Church (RHC). I came to RHC in July 2012, which coincided with a pretty rough patch in my life. For some time, it felt like everything that could go wrong went wrong in school, with my body, and at home. Exasperated, I wanted to give up. Yet, God continued to sustain and minister to me through His people.
Those in my home group ‐ I was in Edward’s then ‐ and other Christian friends kept encouraging me, and challenging me. I think those episodes convinced more than ever that things will fall out of our plans because we are weak. But these aren’t coincidences - God ordained difficulties big and small, and one important reason is so we can yield close to Him, trust in His sovereignty, when circumstances around us change.
Over the last two and a half years, I’ve seen even more ugly consequences of our fallen world and they pain me, and I expect that more will come in life. But I’m always reminded of Christ's death on the Cross and look forward to the new heavens and new earth. In December last year, I publicly identified myself in Christ through baptism at RHC and became a member of this church. I'm thankful to God that a community in Christ has always been a mainstay in my life, and pray that God too will teach me to love others as He does.