Saemi Chung

After walking my friend Fumie for the last time to the train station, I could not help but feel disappointed. I had prayed for her, tried to love her and even shared the gospel three times. Yet, she did not get saved. I was fighting the disappointments. In my head, I knew that her salvation was God's work, it is in his timing, that I should be confident in his love for her, yet why did I still feel disappointed? Why did I want to feel disappointed?

I detected sinfulness in my disappointments. I had somehow ended up thinking that I deserved some kind of change in her because I had invested in this person. In the midst of engaging God's work and even through daily prayers, I had become very self-centered. My emotions reflected this, as the disappointments revealed that because I was still seeking self-glory from my efforts. I was frustrated at my sinful heart, as I realized that my sinful nature was always at work to steal God's glory.

This experience not only shed light to my persisting sinful nature, but also made me see the pure basis of anyone's salvation: it was Jesus and Jesus alone. The only thing that they needed for their salvation was Jesus. Not my works, nice-ness, skills in teaching English, but the Holy Spirit that enables them to experience Jesus. When I first told Fumie the gospel, I felt I was talking to a wall that deflected everything that came out of my mouth. Maybe it was after than that I had somehow thought that my better efforts could change her.
But this experience taught me that it didn't matter how skilled I was. Not only self-centeredness steals God's glory, but it also reflects the reliance on something that does not work: myself. This experience made me see ministry in a totally new dimension. it was essential to have a God-centered mindset in ministry. God-centered mindset was seeing a person's salvation ultimately as God's work, and being confident of his love for them. The motivation for my best efforts should not be because it contributes to their salvation, but to glorify Jesus. If my heart burned with the beauty of the gospel and hungered for God's glory, then I would try harder in ministry no matter what. Jesus is glorified nontheless in my declaration of the gospel. Being able to go from self-centered to God-centered mindset in ministry was the biggest lesson I learned in Japan.