Faith Story by Francis Hew
I would like to share a testimony of God’s goodness and faithfulness to me, even when I feel faithless sometimes, He remains faithful.
I was working with my previous company back then and the schedules were crazy. There was a project that drove me to the point of burnout. We were working on a charity program, and as the event drew closer, more and more talents wanted to joined & participate. So, work just seemed to never end. It was literally back-to-back shoots, and promos, and edits, and repeat.
I felt very burned out as I was trying to balance my life, my work, my church (serving in ministry, Cell Group leading) and family. But for everything I was attending to, that I was working on… I felt half-hearted and was doing it just for the sake of doing it. Though I was still in church, my heart was away from God and had grown cold. I relied on my own strength trying to fix and balance everything. I tried to put on a strong front and to carry on the things that I had to do. But things soon turned out to be a chore (routine tasks). This led me to feel guilty and unworthy of God. My thoughts were “I’m such a mess and a failure, I tried to be strong but everything I do seems so messy, I felt so tired and not in the right spirit or mood to do anything, why would God want someone like me.” I felt like giving up and just dropping everything.
But as I said earlier on, even when we are faithless. God remains faithful.
One evening, I left work and walked to my car. I had to cross a two-way lane road to reach the car park. It was a Friday night, and the after-work hours traffic was heavy on both lanes. I waited for quite a while and started to get impatient. Worse, it looked like it was about to rain.
Then, I saw an opening. I thought to myself, if I make a run in between the on-coming cars, I might be able to reach the middle road island. And from there, I could continue to my car. So, I braced myself and almost took another step to cross.
I don’t know how, but as I was about to run. I heard a very clear warning in my heart “Don’t cross yet.” It was a split-second thing. Somehow, I decided to stop and not cross.
To my surprise, suddenly a motorbike suddenly passed in front of me from my left side. That should not have been possible because it was a one-way direction lane! (And as such I was not even looking left this whole time!) Basically, the biker “Curi Ayam” and drove from the opposite direction, along the edge of the road, hoping to take a short cut.
In that moment, I realized – it was a miracle. Imagine if I had run out. I would have been knocked down! With the oncoming cars, I might not have lived to tell this testimony today.
Through this encounter, God reminded me that, He chooses to love us not because of what we can do. But simply because, He loves us and wants us to come and know Him more personally.
Realizing that God has preserved my life, it sparked off a new personal revival in my heart. I want to come and to know and to hunger after God. It has even restored my first love for Him. Despite my failures, or how unworthy I think I am, God still can forgive, and still loves me. This has changed my perspective on serving. From an “I have to serve mentality” to an “I get to live another day and serve God.”
Today, I hope this testimony can encourage you to look back to God. God was there then, and He is here right now too. In the highs and in the lows, He has always been there. Even when we are faithless, He remains faithful.
Let’s run back to God, and God will restore our first love for Him. It will no longer be a task or a chore. But it will be an encounter with Him.
2 Tim 2:13 – if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself.
Francis Hew