Day 4 – Andrew Chung
1. What do you do for a living? (occupation/field of study).
Currently, I am a full time student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (and I'm almost finished!). I also serve at Grace Church as an pastoral intern of the college group, Stand Up.
2. How do you like to spend your free time?
I enjoy powerlifting, reading, playing games, and going out for walks while listening to music.
3. Share one interesting fact about you that most people don’t know!
I cried when I first listened to Chopin's Ballade No.1 in G Minor (It is my favorite piano piece).
4. Do you have a favorite book in the Bible? If you do, which one is it and why?
If I had to choose one, it'd be Romans. It greatly shaped my Christian life, reassuring me of the gospel and Christ's love and forgiveness. It also taught me how to live my Christian life.
5. Is there a verse/passage in the Bible that has significantly impacted your life? If so, which is it and why?
There are too many to choose from so I'll share one that impacted me most recently. It's Psalm 84:2. I was reminded of this verse to seek God more desperately.
6. Is there a prayer request that has been on your heart recently? If so, please share with us.
It relates to the verse that I just shared, Psalm 84:2. I have been praying that God will grant me the heart to seek him more earnestly. I am also praying for my studies and our Stand Up members, that they will grow in the love of Christ.
7. Tell us about how you met Christ? (feel free to share a brief testimony).
Though I was attending church regularly since I was 8, I didn't encounter God in a real, personal way until I was in highschool (I think my senior year). During that time, I was going through a lot of mental breakdowns. I was depressed and was struggling with anxiety, mainly because of school.
One day in the middle of Spring, when I was at a park to get some fresh air and to take a break from my school work, I "felt" God touching my heart with tenderness and warmth. What happened was that my phone started playing Christian music though I asked it, through Siri, to play a different song (I don't remember what it was, but it was a secular song). I didn't manually change the song, so as I was listening to it, I started thinking about God. This will sound weird, but I also started to smell a very pleasing, flowery scent. It helped calm my anxious heart. I was filled with anxiety, but that experience calmed me down. When I came back home to wash up, I was thinking about this surreal experience and then I felt an unexplainable wave of peace wash over me. I was then breaking down in tears when I felt this peace in my heart.
That's what got me curious about God. I never doubted his existence as I was growing up in church, but I never bothered to care. Hearing about his love and forgiveness never mattered to me. But now that I "felt" him, I needed to know him, especially while I was struggling with depression. I wanted to encounter him in a real way. Eventually, I was led to read Isaiah 53, the prophecy about Jesus. And everything clicked. At that moment, I acknowledged that I was a sinner in need of saving. Everything that I learned about God at church now made sense, what Christ came to suffer for and what God's love is truly about, that he "bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors" (Is. 53:12b). It was as if God was personally preaching to me through his Word. And so, I believed in Jesus that day and since then, I wanted to know God more and more, even now.