- Hi everyone, my name is Diane Lee and I'm a first year student at UC Irvine. Growing up in a Korean Presbyterian church for the majority of my life, I was always surrounded by God's word and the church. I collected biblical head knowledge, which was something I prided myself of as a young child.

However, I was not able to accept these biblical truths in my heart. Although I never doubted God's existence or Christ's sacrifice that was mercifully gifted to us, it never became a personal testament to my faith until much later in my life. At the age of 12, during a junior high summer retreat, I experienced what I thought was true salvation.

It was the first time my biblical head knowledge pierced my heart and allowed me to see what it truly means to follow Jesus and live for his kingdom. However, my emotion driven spiritual high died down as soon as we drove off from the retreat site. This pattern continued for the rest of my years in junior high and high school.

I saw my spiritual life in waves that would rise during and after a spiritual revival and later die down during the stagnant periods of my life. I was afraid to let go of my sinful desires because I was self driven and prideful in my worldly accomplishments. I had no desire to turn away from sin.

In fact, I wanted to reap the benefits of salvation without dying to my worldly desires. Despite my lack of true salvation, I was under the impression that I was truly saved because of this, I made the choice to get baptized in ninth grade through the sprinkling of water, motivated by my selfish desire to join an exclusive club of young baptized believers.

Even in my sprinkling baptism, I was driven by external motives and I lacked a true heart of repentance. During my senior year of high school, in the midst of the pandemic, I fell into a period of depression that stemmed from the contentment I felt sitting in my sin. At this point in my life, I pushed God away and placed my trust on the world rather than God's promises.

I was a slave to sin, feeding into my own desires while still considering myself a believer because I believe the events of the Bible to be true. I try to fill the emptiness I felt with sinful pleasures and although only God can bring true joy and fulfillment in my life, I had no real desire to turn to God nor put my trust in him.

After all the time I spent constantly relying on the world, my older brother urged me to read the book of Ecclesiastes as a reminder that the pleasures I find in the world are fleeting and temporary, but God's promises are forever. Ecclesiastes 2, 11 says, "Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun." Through the book of Ecclesiastes, God convicted my heart and reminded me that my depression stemmed from my desire to worship myself through what the world had to offer.

For the first time in my life, I understood the weight of God's promises and how they are so much greater than the futile pleasures I had been pursuing for my entire life. Coming into college, God continued to reveal his glory to me and ultimately led me to a church that would grow my faith and give me a solid foundation of the word.

I came to Berean by mere chance when a mutual on Instagram recommended me to come to Berean's college welcome event. God led me to Berean in the strangest way and continued to get me plugged into the church by his grace. Towards the beginning of my first winter quarter, I felt a deep need to examine my heart and where I stand before God.

I realized how much of my life had been displeasing to God and how much I went to church for my own self-justification. Although my head knowledge of the Bible led me to think that I had salvation, I couldn't let go of my worldly desires and try to love both God and the world thinking that I can enjoy the pleasures of both, although God's promises truly outweigh the world's.

I became a true believer at this time when I truly died to my worldly desires and offered up my whole life, not just part of it, to Christ. By his grace, God planted this conviction in me after 19 years of being a superficial churchgoer. The spirit has allowed me to see the weight of my sin and how it isn't possible to love both my sin and God.

As a sinner, through the resurrection of Christ on the cross and the atonement for sin, I am truly able to come before God as his child. Ultimately, as a true believer, I now live not to fulfill my own desires, but I live to glorify God in all that I do, for his promises are eternal and much greater than anything that this world could possibly offer.

Thank you. >> And you understand when you go into the water, you're in the United States, right? >> Yeah. >> And you're in the United States, right? >> Yeah. >> And you're in the United States, right? >> Yeah. >> And you're in the United States, right? >> Yeah. >> And you're in the United States, right?

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