Will is a Sophomore Materials Science & Engineering major. He has a tendency to pick up endless amounts of hobbies; most recently getting interested in drawing, knitting and raw denim and currently on the hunt to find a shoe that can accommodate his wonky left foot.
I was raised in a Christian home and went to church all my life. Through my time at church as a child, I passively accepted the teachings of Jesus, but they didn’t affect my life beyond the fact that I believed the Bible gave a bunch of rules that I should follow. So I attempted to fight my sin and read the Bible by my own power and of course I failed. Eventually, at the end of my junior year of high school I realized that my life didn’t reflect that of a born again Christian. I didn’t love God or hate sin. I was indifferent to both and was ready to walk away from the faith. Thankfully, a friend of mine who truly cared about my soul implored me to keep looking for God and since I had to keep going to church so my parents wouldn’t know about my unbelief, I figured, why not try to find some faith. And that’s the mentality I had going into GOC — let’s find some faith.
Through this ministry at UCLA, I was able to meet people whose lives were transformed by the Gospel and they were so loving and caring when I asked them essentially, how do I make myself love God? At one point, I was talking to a Senior guy and he asked if I had ever prayed for my faith. And that was so strange to me; I had never considered looking to God for faith, so I answered no and right then, we prayed that I might receive faith. It was later that night, as I was walking home, reflecting on what we had talked about, that I began praying to God. And at first I was kind of surprised because it was so natural and I had never prayed before unless someone prompted me to. It was from then on that God began revealing the sin in my heart, its cost and the payment of Christ Jesus’ death through my reading of scripture. I was convicted and repented of my sin of cursing, crude humor, my lack of devotion to Him and numerous other ones, and I began to grow a love for God and His commandments. The difference was day and night in my way of thinking thanks to God’s work in my heart. And I know it was God’s power, not mine, that saved me as Ephesians 2:8 reads, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God.”
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