Christian Relationships Drew Her
I mentioned before that my wife came to faith in her Chinese college. Let me tell you the steps and how at first the Christian relationships drew her.
She, like most people, was attracted to love. In the English corner at her college, the Christians would gather together. Hmm, she started to notice the Christians because a person she met for a school project introduced herself by saying that she had two fathers. She laughed at this girl, but the seed was planted. So she started to watch the Christians and saw the relationships between the Christians were different than the relations for the other students. They were more authentic and less shallow.
In John 17 Jesus makes a startling statement.
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Christian Relationships Drew Her and Many Others
Our authentic unity reaches the lost. Why did these students reflect his glory? A Pentecostal American couple teaching English had reached the first students at this school. Then, they moved to another city while the faith spread to half a dozen students who banded together. They had left atheism to find this God that loved them so. Sharing what they were finding among each other was so fun. My dear wife noticed and joined with them.
(This kind of unity does not come by trying harder I think. Their personal experience with God when shared with others having similar experiences of surrender and acceptance created a holy place among them.)
From this, she wanted to believe. My future wife wanted a new life. She and others coming out of atheist teaching got stuck there. They wanted to believe, but could not. More than a year passed. Then, my future wife read John 14:1-2:
14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God[a]; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
She heard an audible voice from God. My wife met Him in that moment. She looked around to see if any one else had heard the voice. Others did not even notice her, but she had found God when God specifically reached out to her in that moment.
Her life and the life of many others would never be the same.
