{"id":3595,"date":"2026-01-02T14:36:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T22:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/?p=3595"},"modified":"2026-01-02T14:36:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T22:36:26","slug":"when-god-humbles-my-heart-i-see-his-mercy-once-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/blog\/when-god-humbles-my-heart-i-see-his-mercy-once-again\/","title":{"rendered":"When God Humbles My Heart, I See His Mercy Once Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lillian Hsiao<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hi everyone, my name is Lillian and I\u2019m currently a senior at USC.\u00a0I grew up in Los Angeles, going to CBCWLA, and believed in God at a very young age.\u00a0However, I\u2019d say it\u2019s been my time in college where I\u2019ve really gotten to understand God\u2019s grace\u00a0and my own sin more. Today, I want to share a recent story of how God brought me to a deeper\u00a0understanding of his mercy.<\/p>\n

This story takes place in Taiwan where I studied abroad last semester. I\u2019ve always\u00a0wanted to study abroad in Taiwan because I have a lot of extended family there that do not\u00a0know Jesus. I wanted a more long-term chance to share Jesus\u2019 love with them.<\/p>\n

Before leaving LA, my plan was to be a bold and victorious soldier for Christ. However,\u00a0little 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.<\/p>\n

Before Taiwan, a tiny part of me had been questioning the concept of God\u2019s justice\u00a0because someone I cared about deeply seemed to be walking farther and farther away from\u00a0God. This questioning amplified 100 times when I moved across the world, away from the\u00a0distractions 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\u00a0God in ways I never dared to before. For example, I started feeling that God was unfair, and\u00a0even though I had occasionally thought this before, this time, it really bothered me. It seemed\u00a0unfair that anyone\u2014even people I disliked and even more so the people I loved\u2014 would be\u00a0doomed to an eternity in hell. What sin could be so big? I felt that if I were God, I would be\u00a0merciful and not subject anyone, no matter what they did, to hell.<\/p>\n

Slowly these thoughts morphed my perspective into one that was centered around ME. I\u00a0saw what was just and loving through my own eyes, and God slowly began to become\u00a0unmerciful, not wholly good, or not even good at all. Many times, I would be walking alone and\u00a0as I saw the unfamiliar faces around me, I would think, \u201cGod, where are you in all of these\u00a0people\u2019s lives?\u201d When I didn\u2019t hear an answer, another wave of frustration would wash over me and I felt more and more distant from God.<\/p>\n

This kind of thinking continued, coming and going for a while. Sometimes I would be\u00a0encouraged through scripture I read here and there, but I still wasn\u2019t fully convinced. By God\u2019s\u00a0grace, however, towards the end of April, he used a series of different moments to really humble\u00a0my heart.<\/p>\n

The first one was during one of my walks home, in typical, rainy Taipei weather. That\u00a0day, I was particularly frustrated. \u201cJesus, where are you in all this?\u201d; I said out loud in\u00a0exasperation. However, this time, even before I finished that thought, another thought rang loud\u00a0and clear: \u201cYou. You are supposed to be Jesus\u201d presence in all this.\u201d I paused, surprised because that thought had never occurred to me before in all of my questioning. Immediately, I\u00a0understood that it was a reminder that I am to be God\u2019s tangible presence in this world.\u00a0Although I was complaining that God was not doing anything in the world, He in fact was and\u00a0one aspect of him working is through Christians who are supposed to be his light in the\u00a0darkness. But, even as I recognized that as a reminder from the Holy Spirit, my heart was still\u00a0hardened and in the moment I was not yet humbled.<\/p>\n

A couple days later, I was still in the mindset that God was not working. I was sitting in\u00a0front of my university\u2019s library with my friend, Joy, and I was telling her about my doubts. I told\u00a0her, \u201cI keep asking for God to show me that he is working and that he desires people to be\u00a0saved but I don\u2019t see enough\u201d. And then, as we got up from the stairs, this random guy that I\u2019ve\u00a0never seen before comes up to my friend and tells her, \u201cHi Joy. Last time you said you went to\u00a0church, right? I want to go to church with you.\u201d In the moment I felt like crying because in the\u00a0past decade of being a Christian, that had never happened to me before. For something like\u00a0that to happen right after I had just told Joy that I felt like God wasn\u2019t working seemed too crazy\u00a0to be a coincidence. I slowly started to feel that even as I still had some doubts and struggles,\u00a0God seemed to be giving me \u201cjust enough\u201d to keep believing in him each day.<\/p>\n

The last incident that really humbled me was in the beginning of May when I was eating\u00a0breakfast and listening to a sermon. In the sermon, there was a passage from Isaiah 66 which\u00a0said, \u201cThis is what the LORD says: \u201cHeaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.\u00a0Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?\u00a02 Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?\u201d declares the LORD.\u00a0\u201cThese are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and\u00a0who tremble at my word.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I heard this, it really cut to my heart, and I realized that I needed to humble myself.\u00a0If God is the Lord of all creation and the earth is a mere footstool to him and I am a mere speck\u00a0on this earth, how small am I compared to Him? How can I even come before Him and accuse\u00a0him of not being good? Who am I to demand God to prove himself to me? The speaker talked\u00a0about how the Israelites had been crying out to God to answer them, but God\u2019s answer was that\u00a0it wasn\u2019t that he had rejected them first; it was that God had given them his words but they\u00a0rejected Him. In that moment, I realized my sinfulness and my prayer changed from \u201cGod, I\u00a0need you to show me that you are working; why aren\u2019t you answering me\u201d to \u201cGod, you are so\u00a0much greater than me. Please help me to just obey you before I ask you to show me more.\u201d And\u00a0from that prayer, I started feeling this shift in my heart, a shift that I knew could not have come\u00a0by myself.<\/p>\n

From that day on, I started seeing so many different ways that God had been working in\u00a0the lives of those around me. Instead of thinking, wow, how can God condemn people to\u00a0eternity from him, I started being in awe of how we are condemned already because of our sin\u00a0yet God still gives us life on earth. I started being in awe of how I am so undeserving of God yet\u00a0God has still saved me. Instead of blaming God for how my family members do not believe, I\u00a0started praising him for how he has blessed them with so many good things in their life even in\u00a0their rejection of him. I started praising him for how what I see as impossible is possible in Him.<\/p>\n

And that is what I want to give thanks to God for and give glory to God for today. Praise\u00a0God for the mercy and grace he has shown us. Praise God for the moments of grace that we\u00a0have in this current life to know Him and to love Him and to love others. Praise God that He is\u00a0the one who sustains us through doubts and trials, and that He is the one who changes our\u00a0hearts. Praise God that if we just lean into humility and ask God for His perspective, He listens\u00a0to us and will open our eyes. For heaven is His throne and earth is His footstool. Has not His\u00a0hand made all these things and so they came into being?<\/p>\n

Praise be to God. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lillian Hsiao Hi everyone, my name is Lillian and I\u2019m currently a senior at USC.\u00a0I grew up in Los Angeles, going to CBCWLA, and believed in God at a very…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":3597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3598,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3595\/revisions\/3598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}