Many things happened throughout this trip: joy, sadness, challenges, struggles, and many more. But through all of it, I learned a valuable personal lesson.

I do not think I realized how much of a sinner I was before a holy God until I came to Taiwan. The realization that nearly every motive for my actions stemmed from my sinfulness was a jarring and humbling experience. Each week of our month-long trip highlighted a different aspect of my weakness and failure, but ultimately refocused me on how Christ is perfect and gracious. There was so much to learn from each week, as we did everything from hosting a kids camp to university campus evangelism, to meeting missionaries and exploring Taiwan’s religious culture. But I want to share specifically about our second week, where our team staffed a mission conference that hosted missionaries from all over Taiwan, and was tasked to lead a youth conference.

As the ministry coordinator of the team, I was tasked to lead our team in planning and running the youth conference. Despite being involved with ministry for several years, planning anything relatively close to a 5-day conference, let alone leading it, was not in my résumé. Although the role of leadership/administration is not something new to me, the scale of the conference was a new experience, and new experiences/unfamiliarities always exposed my genuine heart posture before God. It was quickly made apparent to me, by God's grace, that my intentions in planning and leading were shallow, as I was most fixated on "getting it done well". You may question what's wrong with such a posture, but the problem arises when "getting it done well" is the sole reason for my planning/leading and as a result is missing the motive for the gospel. Why was I so concerned about performance and blinded by it? Was I not in Taiwan to advance the gospel? Am I not living for the sake of the gospel? Through such questions and realization, God revealed that I was fixated on performance because of my insecurities; so that I could feel a sense of worthiness and validation in who I am. By performing well, I would have taken credit for "controlling" the impact of the gospel on the attending students and "earn" His love. The underline of my heart posture was that I did not have faith God loved me despite my worthiness in Christ. What a wretched sinner I am! Who am I to believe that I could control the impact of the gospel, and who am I to think that I could ever earn His love? Will my works ever be enough to be considered worthy before God (Is 64:6)? Thanks be to God, who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:57)!

My experience that week ultimately brings me back to the righteous life that Christ lived on my behalf. The natural tendency of my sinful heart to believe that I must work to earn His love ultimately undermines the perfect life Christ lived and places a curse on me (Gal 3:10). It emphasizes my need for God's grace to believe that the propitiation of Christ is sufficient for me and I am now forever considered worthy of love by God the Father. Therefore, whenever I feel obligated to work or perform to "earn" something, I can look to the cross and be reminded that I am already considered worthy of love in His eyes! 

O Lord, the temptation to perform and work is a common struggle for many of us. Whenever I am caught in such an act, would you extend grace over me to realize it and repent of it? Give me the faith to believe that the righteous life of Christ is imputed upon me and grants unconditional love from You!