Desperation

"I want to now, start reading the bible out loud in English with you," said my Chinese friend during our Sunday morning English tutoring session. "Right now?" said my clueless 21 year old self. "Yes, and I want to start at the beginning and read all the way through," my Chinese friend replied.

We began that morning in Genesis. By the third chapter of Genesis I was sweating and panicking inside. She was asking some difficult questions that I could not answer. Over and over I told her what I knew and then said I would get back to her. At the end of that meeting I, who grew up in Sunday school, had a page full of deep questions about God and His plan that I simply could not answer. I thought I knew the story of creation, but by the end of the morning I was thoroughly humbled.

Immediately after our tutoring session I went to the leaders of the Chinese ministry and begged for help. They gave me a Chinese Bible and then responded with, "It might be a good idea to go over the covenants of the Bible with her before you begin the next session." As I stared at the leaders blankly they took pity. "How about I come over with a visual aide and go through it with you so you can teach her?" said the wise leader.

The next night he came over to my tiny apartment and got on his knees with my roommate and me with a beautifully illustrated poster and explained the covenant heart of God to us. I was enthralled and humbled. Before he left he said, "How about I pray that God will give you wisdom." He proceeded to pray a prayer that I had never heard prayed for me. He prayed that God would use me to to plant seeds and grow a deeper passion for Him in my heart.

That year of tutoring was the most humbling and exciting time for me. I think I might have taught my Chinese friend some little things about God, but she taught me so much more. God used her to humble my spirit enough to search and call out to God. I realized that the bits of knowledge I knew were not enough to fully walk with God the rest of my life. The desperation I felt before each tutoring session motivated me to seek out how I could study God's Word in a way that would draw me deeper into relationship with Him than I was at that point in my life.

I searched for a study and found that our church was doing a precept study on Romans 6-8. I had started to memorize Romans 8 the year before so I thought this was a great opportunity to study it more deeply. This study fed the hunger in my soul and at the same time gave me a greater desire to study God's Word.

I thought this was exactly what I needed to prepare myself to go overseas, but God had other plans.