Lillian Hsiao

Hi everyone, my name is Lillian and I’m currently a senior at USC. I grew up in Los Angeles, going to CBCWLA, and believed in God at a very young age. However, I’d say it’s been my time in college where I’ve really gotten to understand God’s grace and my own sin more. Today, I want to share a recent story of how God brought me to a deeper understanding of his mercy.

This story takes place in Taiwan where I studied abroad last semester. I’ve always wanted to study abroad in Taiwan because I have a lot of extended family there that do not know Jesus. I wanted a more long-term chance to share Jesus’ love with them.

Before leaving LA, my plan was to be a bold and victorious soldier for Christ. However, little did I know that that was not exactly what God had planned for me. Not long after I arrived, I began experiencing some of the most difficult moments of my faith in God.

Before Taiwan, a tiny part of me had been questioning the concept of God’s justice because someone I cared about deeply seemed to be walking farther and farther away from God. This questioning amplified 100 times when I moved across the world, away from the distractions of my daily routine and away from my church community for the first time. Being myself was a huge change that affected me emotionally and spiritually, and I began to question God in ways I never dared to before. For example, I started feeling that God was unfair, and even though I had occasionally thought this before, this time, it really bothered me. It seemed unfair that anyone—even people I disliked and even more so the people I loved— would be doomed to an eternity in hell. What sin could be so big? I felt that if I were God, I would be merciful and not subject anyone, no matter what they did, to hell.

Slowly these thoughts morphed my perspective into one that was centered around ME. I saw what was just and loving through my own eyes, and God slowly began to become unmerciful, not wholly good, or not even good at all. Many times, I would be walking alone and as I saw the unfamiliar faces around me, I would think, “God, where are you in all of these people’s lives?” When I didn’t hear an answer, another wave of frustration would wash over me and I felt more and more distant from God.

This kind of thinking continued, coming and going for a while. Sometimes I would be encouraged through scripture I read here and there, but I still wasn’t fully convinced. By God’s grace, however, towards the end of April, he used a series of different moments to really humble my heart.

The first one was during one of my walks home, in typical, rainy Taipei weather. That day, I was particularly frustrated. “Jesus, where are you in all this?”; I said out loud in exasperation. However, this time, even before I finished that thought, another thought rang loud and clear: “You. You are supposed to be Jesus” presence in all this.” I paused, surprised because that thought had never occurred to me before in all of my questioning. Immediately, I understood that it was a reminder that I am to be God’s tangible presence in this world. Although I was complaining that God was not doing anything in the world, He in fact was and one aspect of him working is through Christians who are supposed to be his light in the darkness. But, even as I recognized that as a reminder from the Holy Spirit, my heart was still hardened and in the moment I was not yet humbled.

A couple days later, I was still in the mindset that God was not working. I was sitting in front of my university’s library with my friend, Joy, and I was telling her about my doubts. I told her, “I keep asking for God to show me that he is working and that he desires people to be saved but I don’t see enough”. And then, as we got up from the stairs, this random guy that I’ve never seen before comes up to my friend and tells her, “Hi Joy. Last time you said you went to church, right? I want to go to church with you.” In the moment I felt like crying because in the past decade of being a Christian, that had never happened to me before. For something like that to happen right after I had just told Joy that I felt like God wasn’t working seemed too crazy to be a coincidence. I slowly started to feel that even as I still had some doubts and struggles, God seemed to be giving me “just enough” to keep believing in him each day.

The last incident that really humbled me was in the beginning of May when I was eating breakfast and listening to a sermon. In the sermon, there was a passage from Isaiah 66 which said, “This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? 2 Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” declares the LORD. “These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word.”

When I heard this, it really cut to my heart, and I realized that I needed to humble myself. If God is the Lord of all creation and the earth is a mere footstool to him and I am a mere speck on this earth, how small am I compared to Him? How can I even come before Him and accuse him of not being good? Who am I to demand God to prove himself to me? The speaker talked about how the Israelites had been crying out to God to answer them, but God’s answer was that it wasn’t that he had rejected them first; it was that God had given them his words but they rejected Him. In that moment, I realized my sinfulness and my prayer changed from “God, I need you to show me that you are working; why aren’t you answering me” to “God, you are so much greater than me. Please help me to just obey you before I ask you to show me more.” And from that prayer, I started feeling this shift in my heart, a shift that I knew could not have come by myself.

From that day on, I started seeing so many different ways that God had been working in the lives of those around me. Instead of thinking, wow, how can God condemn people to eternity from him, I started being in awe of how we are condemned already because of our sin yet God still gives us life on earth. I started being in awe of how I am so undeserving of God yet God has still saved me. Instead of blaming God for how my family members do not believe, I started praising him for how he has blessed them with so many good things in their life even in their rejection of him. I started praising him for how what I see as impossible is possible in Him.

And that is what I want to give thanks to God for and give glory to God for today. Praise God for the mercy and grace he has shown us. Praise God for the moments of grace that we have in this current life to know Him and to love Him and to love others. Praise God that He is the one who sustains us through doubts and trials, and that He is the one who changes our hearts. Praise God that if we just lean into humility and ask God for His perspective, He listens to us and will open our eyes. For heaven is His throne and earth is His footstool. Has not His hand made all these things and so they came into being?

Praise be to God. Thank you.