Esther Nam

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

During the middle of the trip, when everything started to become a routine God reminded me of the verse. One morning I was passing out English Lesson fliers as usual. At first, passing out fliers was fun. It was challenging. I was willing to go through rejections. However, after a few days of unsuccessful stories of passing out fliers, I was getting discouraged. I wanted to hide in the corner and simply get into a self pity mode. Yes, it would be an easy way out. I could easily focus on my pride that was being hurt, or the discouragement I was getting from those unsuccessful times. But God did not want me to. God wanted to teach me that at any moment and in any circumstances I no longer lived but Christ.

Being reminded of this verse was only one part of God's plan. I needed to learn to apply this at the moment. As I was trying to apply this in my heart the battle was now if I truly had faith in that verse. As people continued to walk by me, my selfish heart continued to remind me that I should not do it. However, only by God's grace the second part of the verse helped me to carry out my convictions. What is there to be discouraged by when Christ is in me. What do I have to fear when my powerful Savior already conquered every single sin of my heart. All I needed was to have faith that God can and will work in and through me. Realizing that gave me so much more freedom to fight my pride and my selfishness. I was able to joyfully get rejected by people walking by me. It did not matter if one person or 100 people took the fliers or not. I was filled with God's love and Christ's heart that breaks for the Japanese souls and simply wanted to bless the souls through prayer as they walked by me. At the end of the that day and as well as at the end of the trip, I was thankful that God was working in my heart and giving me encouragement and conviction, to sustain me.