Growing Life (7) Testimony - Esther Sung
Hi everyone. My name is Esther and I am here to share what God has done in my life through growing life bible study. This bible study is different from any other bible studies; it’s one on one and it’s more intimate and personal. This is actually my second time taking this and God spoken to me in a very different way this time.
Beginning of this year, I had few prayer requests for the year 2018. And one of them was for obedience. I didn’t know what it meant to be obedient or to obey. But through this bible study, I was able to learn how to obey.
To obey, I first needed to open my heart and my ears to focus on what God wanted me to do. This step is obvious, but I realized that I wasn’t listening to him and just wanted him to work miraculously in my life. The habit of listening to God developed through quiet times. Quiet times focuses on building intimate and personal relationship with God. It consists of bible reading and meditation—and it should happen regularly at a certain time and place. Every day, after my passage reading, I focused on what God is speaking to me through the passages. This habit helped me to clearly see what He wants to do in each day of my life.
Secondly, I learned to immediately act upon what he has told me to do. For those of you who don’t know me, I am really lazy. And this laziness even hindered my relationship with God. There were so many times where I was able to listen to his voice but didn’t act upon it—losing the opportunity to obey and glorify God. But thankfully, I learned to react quickly to what God has spoken to me through weekly homework, which was applying Sunday sermon during the week. This homework helped to develop the habit of listening to God and acting upon what he has said. During commitment time, I focused on what God has spoken to me through the sermon and how he wants me to apply this through the week. Unbelievably, there was a situation where I could apply the sermon in my life every week.
For example, few weeks ago sermon was about being holy meaning being different. While I was listening to the sermon, I thought of myself at my work. The coworkers at work talk behind everyone including customers. I found that talking negatively of others or of the work prevented me to enjoy my job. After hearing the sermon that week, I tried not to get involved in those conversations and thought positively of my work. From this, I enjoyed my work so much more and could see others spoke less of other coworkers. I am amazed everyday how God can work through someone like me to glorify his name.
Also, from this bible study, I learned how to share testimonies. I did not like sharing testimonies because I felt like I was bragging about myself. But I realized that it is bragging about God and his wonderful grace. On the second week of growing life, we had to write salvation testimony and share it with each other. For me, even sharing it with one person, Grace, was nerve-wracking. After sharing it several times, I felt more comfortable sharing my testimony. And on that week, I had the opportunity to share my testimony with a non-Christian friend. If it was me in the past, I would’ve ignore this opportunity because of my fear. But this time, I was able to take this opportunity and share my testimony. I don’t think it made a huge impact, but definitely planted a small seed.
Though I am not a perfect instrument for God’s glory, I pray that I will be sensitive to the Spirit and act it out as quickly as possible. I thank Grace for being an awesome spiritual role model whom I could look up to and follow. I am really thankful for this opportunity to share my testimony with you. Thank you for listening.
