Once every while when I meet pastors that are devoted to serving God, I can’t help but wonder about their spirituality. I remember that when I met Pastor Lee Yonggyu, he said that to him, his ministry was no different from living in a monastery, even though his ministry involved managing a university that requires raising millions of dollars every year to run. Pastor Daniel Kim said that he read 40 chapters of the bible in Korean every day, on top of his bible readings in Japanese and English, and also that he reads Christian classics like those written by C.S. Lewis. Recently, I met a pastor at our Korean churches in London retreat, and as I listed to him share God’s vision of serving Korean diaspora around the world, I saw that he had a special faith in God that not many others had.
A few days ago, I met a sister who had left our church a few years ago, after attending and serving our church while on working holiday in the UK. She came to visit us with her husband. Following God’s guidance, she had visited the US and Europe for a few months, and had decided to end her trip here in God’s Vision Church, the church that she had missed. When members of our church go back to Korea, it’s hard to stay in touch as we’re all busy, but when we do meet after years of separation, it’s so nice to see them and it’s like they never left.
We met to have lunch together but ended up talking until late evening. I listened to how God had led the couple, and all the concerns, tears, despair, challenges and joy that they had experienced throughout the way. After listening to them share, I received a question that I don’t hear that much, and which is quite general in nature: “how is your relationship with God?” At first, I shared how God had given our church the vision to share the gospel with the unengaged, unreached people groups and engage in mission aimed at all the nations that live in London. But what they were interested in was the God that I had personally met, experienced and come to know during my life here at London.
It was my turn to answer the question. When God builds up a Christian, he does so in many ways, but the pattern in which he guides them is equal. In short, he helps us grow – from having a “relationship” with him to engaging in “ministry”, from being like God’s “child” to God’s “co-worker”, from having “faith in God” to having “faith in God’s faith in me”. After experiencing faith and love towards God, we learn about the privileges, glory and power that we can enjoy in his love. We start our journey as newborns in his arms, for whom he provides everything as we can’t do anything ourselves – and he helps us grow into his heirs, with whom he is able to share his will, vision and passion, and rule together the world that he had planned since before creation.
That is why, after 25 years of walking with Abraham, God shared with Abraham his grief towards Sodom and Gomorrah – with the words “shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?”. Once the relationship had developed further, he had Abraham experience at Mount Moriah the pain of sacrificing his only son on the cross. For Moses, God had him spend 40 years in exile in Midian where he was forced to confront his sinful nature and learned to rely completely on the grace of God. Then God called him from a burning bush on Mount Horeb to “bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt, and into the promised land”. Then God became a real god to Pharaoh, who was the god to Egypt. Hearing this couple go through this journey made me thankful to God, and made me have great hopes for their future. Walking with God is never boring – it is thrilling and filled with thanks.
