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The Narrow and Wide Paths Matthew 7:13-14 Hello, I am Joseph Yosuk Lee. In 1994, I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley as a physics and applied math major. In 1997, I also graduated from UCI in the materials science and engineering department with a Master's degree, and I play the piano and violin. I was very devastated when I was an undergraduate at Berkeley. I realized that I was not as intelligent as I thought, and I had a lot of pride. I was one of the top students at high school. At college, I was average. While I was struggling with a B average, my electrical engineer friend Sam (alias name) made a 97% on the midterm. I, myself, received a 70% average on that same exam, and even my professor made a mistake in his own midterm. My professor is an intelligent man when he is a physics professor at Cal-Berkeley. Despite this, I felt that Sam could easily surpass him, although Sam was an electrical engineer and computer science major. While I did not have the faintest clue how to solve any of my 7 physics problems, he could easily solve all of the problems in the textbook spending only three hours per chapter. I was very hurt, as well as humbled. I thought that my greatest friends were my GPA, test scores, and professors' recommendations until I met Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ became my best friend and He loved me so much that He gave His life for me. You are My friends if you do what I [Jesus] command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I have learned from My Father I have made known to you. John 15:14-15 There are many stories of mothers dying while giving birth to their children. There are also many stories of men dying for their comrades in a war by throwing their bodies on top of a grenade. However, Jesus died for sinners like myself, for strangers like myself, and for the rest of us, who are chosen. He did it because He loves all of us as His friends. Grades and academics can not love you nor I. Only the Lord can do that. I depended so much on my happiness on school that I became miserable when I was not doing well. At Berkeley, I was alone and did not have many friends. I used to believe that school was far more important than family, friends, people, and my own life. I almost wanted to use some illegal drugs so that I could enhance my school performance. When I was at the bottom of my life, I finally accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior during a church retreat at the mountains of Santa Cruz. I gave my testimony about my bitter life telling every brother in a circle that I study a lot and that my parents were disappointed in me when I did not make it to MIT or Harvard. After we left the circle, I talked to my pastor outside in the dark and cried on his shoulders during one Saturday night on October 20, 1990, and he comforted me. After I accepted Jesus Christ, I finally gave up my pride. I really wanted to share my faith with Sam and I realized that it was too late. Sam killed himself by jumping off the Holiday Inn Hotel at Emeryville, California. To this day, I do not know why he did it. All I know is that if I had not accepted Christ, I would have taken my own life. Sam and I took two different paths in our lives. God helped me chose the narrow path while Sam chose the wide and easy path. So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Ecclesiastes 2:17 ----------------------------------------- Click HERE to return to the edited story Click HERE to create a banner that links to this story! Your e-mail address will be kept private!
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