* All blog posts are written by Jamie Chong-You unless otherwise noted.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

When Mercy Found Me

* Testimony from Rhett Walker

“He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy…” - Titus 3:5
Life is a weird thing. It has its ups, it has its downs. It’s full of great times and full of times where it feels like you can’t breathe. In this day and time, and in this culture, we are pushed to focus on me, me, me. Look around at any commercial or newspaper or magazine ad. Everything is focused on how to live your life, and how to do this and that, and gain this and that. So when something does not go our way, it’s easy to sit back and think, “What is the point?”. I know I used to.
Earlier in my life, I would run around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to fix everything, trying to run everything by working only for what I wanted. But that does not work. Never has, never will. The reason is because this life is not ours to have. It is not ours to run with, nor lead. I found out long ago that if I was going to amount to anything, I had to die to myself and let God have back the life that is His to begin with.
I didn’t have much to offer, because I was just an uneducated, 17 year old dad. I knew that everything I had placed my hands on was breaking underneath me. So I gave it up, and understood for the very first time what life and love was. Despite who I was, how I had acted, the mistakes I had made, Christ continued to pour out His grace, His love and His mercy. I had spent most of my time trying to figure this life out, when really I had no life worth living, till I found Jesus. That’s when I found a purpose in this world, and that’s when mercy found me.