Early in my life, I knew of Jesus, but I didn’t have a relationship with Him.

My dad worked in the church so growing up, I attended church. My favourite part about it was the bag of chips that we got once a month from the cool Sunday school teacher when it was his turn in the rotation to teach. I think that was a sign that I didn’t really care much for a relationship with God.

So as I went through my childhood and teenage and eventually university years, I tried to navigate this world on my own. And I quickly learned that this world is a dark place and unknowingly, I started living life from a place of fear. This led to me making choices that were destructive and hurtful to myself and others.

When I was thinking about my career, I put my worth in my competence. I worked hard to pursue a career as a soccer player. But when the injuries piled up, that was taken away and I was left feeling hopeless with no sense of worth or identity. When I was scared of not being loved, I entered relationships that I was not prepared to navigate. When I was diagnosed with a newfound anxiety disorder in young adulthood, I coped by doing drugs to distract myself. When I was presented with situations at school, work, and my extracurriculars where I felt scared of failure, I just ran away from those situations.

But what changed my life was sudden, random and unexpected. In my first year of university, I got invited to a friend of a friend’s house for a Korean BBQ dinner. And it was the sketchiest thing ever, we ate pork belly that he got from his Korean butcher, that he packed in a luggage. We ate good food, laughed over jokes and shared our life stories, and at the end of the night, the host asked to pray for me. I could see how grace genuinely changed this life and the lovingkindness shown to me, a stranger, stuck with me.

When I got home that night, I remember sitting on my dorm room bed at 2AM, in my feels, when it hit me that I wanted to have a relationship with God. And I just started crying because it felt like a weight was taken off my shoulders. I vividly remember my roommate across the room playing Fortnite on the Xbox being like “you good, bro?”

I committed to starting a relationship with Him that night.

As I learned more about Jesus, it dawned on me that while I was trying to figure out life on my own, God was there and He wasn’t giving up on me. I was so crippled by fear that I didn’t see Him there caring for me, protecting me, pursuing me, as a good Father does.

My fears are still there but now I have a firm foundation to take them on with: I now I have an identity in Christ that’s steadfast; I am loved by a perfect Father who simply loved me; I am following a Saviour who was victorious over sin and the things of this world; and what I do and don’t do in my life doesn’t change how He feels about me. He was and is and will be victorious over my fears.

This takes me to where I’m at today. I am striving to know and love God more each day AND failing everyday, but I press on knowing that I don’t need to be fearful anymore. And the last fear that I’m tackling is baptism. I used to think that baptism was for people who were ready and had a complete faith. But in talking with the pastors and hearing stories like the one about the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, I now realize that this is the kickoff for my faith. So, why am I waiting?

I want to end off with Ephesians 3:20-21 (ESV). It’s the ending of Paul’s prayer for the church that greatly encouraged me and I hope it does the same for you.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

He healed and saved me. He can do it again and again and again, and he will do so much more.