Amy's Testimony

Amy Wang is a longtime member of the youth and the chairperson of the youth committee. 😊

There was never an exact moment in my life when I felt converted. My mum was born into a Christian family so naturally, she always brought me and my sister along to Sunday Service. Until the age of 12, I only thought of church as a place where you sing songs, learn about Jesus and eat food. After the age of 12 I joined the Youth Fellowship which to me was just another place where you sing songs, learn about Jesus and eat food. This was all fine to me at the time, having a limited understanding of what it meant to live a Christian life or what it meant to devote ourselves to God. However this all changed when I was about 15.

We had started new bible study material at youth group called Teach Me Your Way which had 40 lessons on how youth can surrender and submit to Jesus and His way. To my surprise, I found a lot of the lessons quite challenging and difficult to understand. I thought growing up as a Christian would mean that I would know all the answers, or at least the majority of them. This made me realise that I wasn’t growing up as a Christian at all. I only thought of myself as a Christian but hadn’t actually put what I had learnt into practice. 

This realisation hit me quite hard when we started to learn about salvation. Growing up, I knew that Jesus had died for us. But what it meant for an innocent man to die for us sinners was life-changing. From then on I always felt thankful. Walking to school, I would look up at the sky and pray to God, thanking Him for the legs He had given me to walk, the privilege He had given me to go to school, the eyes He had blessed me with to see His creation. Living as a Christian finally, was great. But I was only 15. Life could only get harder from there. And it did.

In my last year of high school, I had decided that I wanted to become an engineer. My grades were honestly not that great, but they weren’t that bad either. I would always pray for God to give me wisdom so that I could do well enough in my exams to get into engineering but I wouldn’t pray for God’s will to be done in my life because I couldn’t. I physically and mentally could not bring myself to because what if God’s plan for me was to not do engineering? This thought scared me because I didn’t have a plan B. But God did. 

As exams came closer, my hopes of engineering grew further and further away. And when my results came out, sure enough, I didn’t have the grades to get in. Of course, I felt disappointed. But at the same time, I realised that the plan I had made for myself had failed. I didn’t trust God to lead my life but how could I trust myself? Then I prayed for God to take the wheel, that whatever happens in my life is part of His glorious plan and that He will never leave me, nor forsake me. 

As a back-up, I had also enrolled in Computer Science at the University of Auckland because since my original plan was to specialise in Software Engineering, I figured Computer Science was close enough. I am now in my second semester of my first year of Computer Science and I love it. I look at what my engineering friends are doing and it is definitely not what I want to do. I find this amazing and such a blessing. God’s plan was never to harm me and He knew and will always know what is best for me. 

I thank God for His unfailing love, even when I refuse to obey Him. God’s will is perfect and we need not worry about what tomorrow will bring because God is bringing it to us and He is almighty and everlasting. 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11