I Am the Word

by Sharon Hwang

Introduction

For the past month and a half, I journaled my thoughts as I read through the book of Acts because I started having doubts about the truth of the Bible. How can I trust the Bible is real? How can I trust that God is not something I created to console myself? What makes Christianity different? At first, I felt embarrassed sharing these doubts because I felt like these were foundational questions that I should know if I called myself a Christian, especially because I grew up hearing Bible stories every Sunday at church. However, I knew I didn’t want to delude myself or be deceived. I feel like I’m susceptible to this because I’ve grown up in church and constantly been told about God’s existence. I didn’t want to be brainwashed. I wanted to personally experience the truth.

In my first year of college, I experienced a hot and cold faith. I would turn to God during the Friday prayer meetings my church held and pour out – practically vomit out – my deepest emotions to Him. In these moments, it felt like my faith was sometimes on fire, but other times it felt dead.

However, in my second year of college, I lost these emotional ups and downs. Instead, my heart went numb. Because my faith was so emotion-based, I began doubting the reliability of all the experiences I had with God in my first year. It felt like my mind had created what I needed in that moment (relief, peace, etc.) and that I just attributed it to God. When I read the Bible, it felt like I was deceiving myself and extracting the message I wanted to hear instead of the Bible changing and transforming me. On top of that, I felt like there was no more of God to discover, that I had just reached the end, even though I knew that was impossible because the God I believed in was infinite.

Below are my honest reflections as I read through Acts. I chose Acts because I thought the Apostle Paul had written it, and I had previously read Philippians, another book he had written. Embarrassingly enough, Paul did not write Acts, although he does appear in the narrative in the later half. I did not want to reread any of the Gospels because in all honesty, they felt repetitive. I also realized that although I had heard a few sermons on select sections of Acts, I had never read the book completely and I had no idea what went on in it.

2/15 - Acts 1

I didn't really have any takeaways today. In an odd way, it’s satisfying to not get a message and to just read the passage as it is because whenever I feel like something resonated with me, my feeling just seems very fake, made up to console or help myself in the situation I’m in.

2/16 - Acts 2

I really really don’t want to do this… I just feel like I have to as a chore, but at least I’m doing it? Better than nothing. Although I have these questions about God and the Bible right now, in my heart I am trying to believe that God will bring me back to Him and on the right path.

2/17 - Acts 3

26 When God raised up his servant [Jesus], he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways. I am kind of jealous. God’s love for the Israelites, despite their sinful ways, has always been quite special. Oddly, it feels unfair that Israelites get this privilege because it’s not like I chose to be born the way I am.

2/19 - Acts 4

20 As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.

2/20 - Acts 5

If the experiences I have had and the Christian faith is not of God, but of human origin, maybe it will fail. In what way, or what this even means, I have no idea. But if my faith is fake and grounded on my own imagination, it will fail when trials come.

2/22 - Acts 6

15 All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

Wow, I just feel so horrible today. I got annoyed at everything and everyone, was so quick to criticize, had a horrible attitude, and was so rude (in my head/thoughts). I feel so embarrassed of the way I thought and acted today. I realized how rotten and evil I am on the inside. I wonder how it would be like to be cleaned, pure, rinsed of this hatred, judgment and just be filled to the brim with the Spirit that even my physical appearance reflects it. I just felt angry, empty, hollow today. I fall so short compared to someone like Stephen.

2/23 - Acts 7

Similar to when Jesus told the disciples to drop everything and follow him, God tells Abraham to go to a new land, leaving behind his family and inheritance at home. How did Abraham trust? Why did he trust? How was it not blind faith?

2/25 - Acts 7, 8

57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, Am I covering my ears so I do not hear God’s voice? Am I rejecting the message even though it is being told to me? How did God move in the Ethiopian eunuch’s heart? How did he believe after just being told the good news? How did he know it was even real or trustworthy?

2/27 - Acts 9

Why am I so bad with consistency? Why am I so weak?

God chooses the people we expect the least from. Who would’ve imagined: Saul?? Also, this must have been very difficult on Ananias’ part as well because Saul is someone Christians avoided in fear of persecution.

2/28 - Acts 10

Cornelius is a good man. He does good deeds. It almost seems though that he is able to receive the Holy Spirit because of his actions, not his faith.

Cornelius is described as someone who fears God, devout, gives generously, prays to God regularly, and does what is right. But are we not saved by God’s mercy, Jesus’ sacrifice, faith that Jesus died for our sins and resurrected?

Undated - Acts 11

The faith of the Greeks and other Gentiles is crazy. They were not familiar with God or Jesus. They also worshiped many gods (paganism) and had a different lifestyle, type of beliefs alto- gether. but the fact that they were able to forget, give up all these things and believe. Also, the men who went to Antioch are also blessed to have the chance to be used by God, to see God transform lives. To see God work. To be used by God. God could just do the work Himself (the easiest way), or entrust it to His angels, or give us the chance to do it. He gives us the opportunity to share the good news and be witnesses of God’s work.

3/3 - Acts 12

24 But the word of God continued to spread and flourish.

Undated - Acts 13

I want to get closer to the Holy Spirit and feel Him work in me. In Acts, the Holy Spirit’s role is very prevalent and He works and fills disciples endlessly. For me, who is confused about what I believe, or even my salvation, Acts is perfect because it endlessly repeats the gospel through the mouths of the disciples.

3/15 - Acts 14 12:58 AM

I skipped devotionals the entire spring break.

9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed.

What does it mean, how can you have faith to be healed? Paul tells the man to stand up on his feet and “the man jumped up and began to walk” Is this faith?

17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony. He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.

Even though it feels like God is silent, or that God is not in my life, even the smallest things in my life are set the way they are because of God’s will, design, plan.

3/23 - Acts 15-16 1:13AM

It’s so unexpected how the jailer became saved. It thought this story would be another one where God frees Paul and Silas and they leave the prison. However, they stay after the jailer’s pleas. Through this, the jailer and his whole household came to believe. It started from the jailer alone.

3/24 - Acts 17 - 8:39AM

2b he reasoned with them from the Scriptures

3 explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. I need to be reasoned with. I need explanations and evidence so my faith can be based on some- thing solid, not just going in blind.

11b for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

The Berean Jews have such an admirable attitude. Instead of expecting some solid proof, they themselves search Scriptures to see if what they find and hear from Paul is the same.

3/27 - Acts 18 12:43AM

Apollos refutes Jewish opponents through his knowledge of the Scriptures. For them, the Scriptures are where they find their faith. However, how can I refute people who do not believe the Bible is real in the first place? How can I show them that Jesus is the Messiah? I don't even know enough about the Bible or “secular”/science things. God uses people in their incompleteness and imperfection. But how can God use me to literally spread the gospel if I don’t know much? Also, I feel a sort of bitterness/anger towards God who won’t use me. If he can use people like Saul/Paul, but he does not use me, does that mean I am just not chosen? Sometimes, I feel like God’s child that He cares about to a certain degree but doesn’t love as much as He loved those in the Bible. Probably also because I also don’t have that devotion/love to God. I want to see and feel how God uses me, instead of being used without knowing it. Then how can I know, how can I be grateful or joyful about being part of His plan?

I want to be used in the lives of my friends, who are struggling a lot. I want God to use me very visibly so that I can have confirmation that He has chosen me.

3/29 - John 13:1-20

Jesus knew loneliness more than I did. In the hardest time, all his disciples were gone. When I feel loneliness, these questions always come to mind. What do I do with my life now, when it feels like I have no one? What have I been doing with my life? The only one who could truly understand my loneliness is Jesus. Jesus’ community of disciples and people who followed him was suddenly gone in his most difficult time. Yet, even though he knew that the disciples that followed him would scatter and Peter would deny him three times and Judas would betray him, he washes all their feet with love and humility.

I wonder if I’ll ever be able to obey God to death, like Jesus, and like some of the disciples did later.

Right now, the only answer I can produce is that I need to know more about Jesus and God’s character. The more I get to know God, the more I love Him, and the more I want to be like Him and obey His commands. Reading today made me realize that Jesus was a hundred times more familiar with loneliness, and that made me love Him and be grateful for what He has done, because I know that Jesus has experienced the sadness and hurt I have felt. Only He knows. And He is my example.

Reflection

Beginning this project, I doubted there would be any true change or realization, but a small part of my heart also hoped for a huge, unimaginable transformation like the disciples or Paul.

There was no huge, outwardly noticeable change. Even earlier today, I contemplated abandoning this piece because I felt like there was truly nothing that I could offer or anything to take away from this. I didn’t even finish the book of Acts like I intended to.

Ironically, I thought I would be done with Bible reading for a while after this project. Even during this piece, I had no consistency and motivation, constantly skipping out on reading the Bible.

Although John 13 was not part of Acts, I decided to include it as my final entry because as I was reading it with my bible study group, I felt a growing desire to read the Bible again. For the first time in a while, I saw Jesus’ character and truly felt love for Him, as well as hurt for what He went through. Because I saw His character, I wanted to read the Bible more out of genuine curiosity for who He was during His time on Earth.

One of the starting questions I asked was how I could trust if the Bible is real. Looking back, I realized that I hadn’t even read the Bible. How can I discuss the validity of the Bible if I have not fully read its contents and do not know the information it holds? Whether I want to discover more of God, or I want to prove the validity of the Bible, the answer lies in the Word.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.