For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Natalie Liu, I’m 19 and I’m here to profess my faith and belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. I’ve spent my whole life at this church. I’ve grown up with the idea of God and have always thought of Him in my head as some sort of floating guy in the sky who knew all about me and was always watching my every move, making sure I wasn’t doing anything bad and protecting me as I lived my life.

While the latter part of that might be true, I didn’t know that Chrisitanity was so much more than just a religion, it’s a relationship with God. My whole life I never understood why there were so many rules in the Bible and why we had to follow all of them. I didn’t get why I was in a religion that restricted my freedom to do the things I wanted to do. Like why did I have to maintain purity, or why couldn’t I drink or go out to parties like all the other kids. Once I got to university, I suddenly gained so much freedom and I was able to do whatever I wanted with no consequences. So that’s exactly what I set out to do.

It wasn’t until I met God and built a relationship with Him did I truly understand the reasoning behind it. Christianity isn’t about following the rules, it’s about following Christ. It’s about knowing God, not just knowing about Him. It’s not about following all these rules and doing all these things so that God will love you, it’s that God loves you regardless of what you do, there is nothing you can do to earn His love and grace. It’s about doing these things because of your love for God not for God to love you.

While at university, in my first month a friend invited me out to CCF and I decided to go, more out of habit and comfort than because I wanted to be there. On the first day, we were asked to write messages to ourselves for the end of the semester and I wrote and asked God for Christian friends. I wrote that, completely forgot about it until the end of the semester but a week later, God did just that. A week later I was introduced to a bunch of friends from my highschool and I learned that they were all christian. We soon got really close and they helped me grow in my faith. Soon after I joined a church and started going to CCF more and more consistently.

While all of that built my faith, this past semester my faith was tested. I spent the entire semester trying to find a job for my first co-op, I sent in hundreds of applications and did many interviews but none of them seemed to work out for me. I knew in my head that my worth wasn’t defined by what job I could get or how good my grades were but it didn’t feel like it in my heart. I was constantly overwhelmed, I was trying to multitask leading at CCF, finding a job, practicing for my interviews, applying for jobs, getting good grades, finding a sublet/a place to live all while maintaining my relationship with Christ. I couldn’t keep up with everything that was going on in my life and eventually I hit a breaking point. I remember sitting in my room just crying out to God and wondering why He wasn’t answering any of my prayers or providing me with the things I thought I needed. I remember asking God in that moment to show me his love and to give me hope and faith in Him, even when I had no idea what he was doing. After praying, I suddenly felt like I should read the word and I opened my notebook and that’s when I noticed two things; I noticed that the last time I read the Bible was a month ago and the last devo I wrote down was Matthew 14, the story of Peter walking on water. I read the notes that I wrote and I started breaking down because as silly as this sounds, I suddenly realized why I felt like I was falling apart. It was because I was just like Peter, I was walking through a storm and the second that I took my eyes off him I realised that I was drowning. After finishing devos I checked my phone and see the verse of the day and I just felt chills through my body because I knew God was speaking to me. The verse of the day was Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for
you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” I felt so much peace and excitement by the end of that night for my future because I surrendered it to God and I knew that it was no longer in my hands but Gods alone.

Sure enough, a week later, which was already a week into the semester, I got an interview and a week after laterI had a job. Not only that, this job was also in Waterloo so I also didn’t have to worry about finding a sublet and it was the perfect job; it was on campus and it was relevant to my job.

Through these experiences, God has shown me his love, faithfulness and grace. He met me where I was at, whether in times of doubt or in joy, he was always there for me.
A verse from one of my favourite songs is:
“If the highest place I reach is at Your feet
Then I’ve done it all
If the best thing that I’ve seen is Your glory
Then I’ve seen it all
Your love has changed my life, forever satisfied
God, You are my everything
So here I am today publicly declaring myself as a follower of Jesus Christ, transformed by his presence and ready to live a life that reflects His love and goodness.