Finding My God in Canada

Key verse:
Hebrews 3:1 
"Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix 
your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess."


Part I.  A boy of curiosity

Hello, my name is Daniel James Lee.  I was born on January 9, 1980 in 
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  My parents, Daniel and Deborah Lee, are both UBF 
missionaries from Kwangju, S.Korea.  I have two younger sisters, Sarah and 
Esther, who always seemed to be a burden to me.  Being the firstborn son, my 
parents laid heavy responsibilities of taking care of and setting a good example 
for my sisters.  I wanted to be free to do whatever I wanted to do. Needless to 
say, I did not have much of a shepherd heart at the time. When I was seven, my 
father got a teaching position at Shippensburg University, and the whole family 
moved to Shippensburg, where my parents began a new UBF chapter.  I do not 
remember a whole lot about my early childhood, but for the most part, I obeyed 
my parents. Junior high school rolled around and my world began to change.  The 
academic difficulty began to pick up, as I was required to do more work to 
maintain the same grades.  At the time, school carried no importance to me.  I 
did the bare minimal work to get the best grades I could, but I didn't get the 
grades to please God or myself.  Any academic struggles I displayed were to 
please my parents.  Ever since I was very young, my parents always set high 
academic standards for me and my two younger sisters.  Anything less than an A 
seemed to mean that we didn't put enough effort into studying.  It was in junior 
high that I began to despise my parent's high academic standards.  I wished that 
they would just let me take naps, watch TV, and play video games rather than 
telling me to read books and study.  But as to not displease my parents, I did 
everything to get good grades.  Many times I even lied about my test scores just 
so they wouldn't get mad at me.  Here, my sins of lying to my parents began 
small. Junior high school exposed me to many new things.  I now had peers who 
smoked cigarettes, I began to pick up and use vulgar language in an attempt to 
fit it, and I saw that guys and girls started noticing more of each. Although I 
would have liked to have been popular, I didn't have too many friends.  I was 
considered and looked upon as a geeky kind of guy, one who wore tacky clothes 
and thick glasses and one who seemed to care more about school and learning than 
anything else.  Social skills were definitely not my forte, and I had a timid 
personality. I studied the Bible on and off with my parents as a child, and it 
slowly built up my background knowledge of the Bible.  The problem was that 
Bible studies never carried true importance in my life.  I was a very 
superficial sheep, storing bible lessons in my head and not my heart.  I would 
rarely prepare and answer the Bible study questions in advance, and many times, 
I would fall asleep during my Bible studies.  I had no deep desire to study 
God's precious word.  I would rather spend what I though was quality time 
playing video games.  In fact, that is how I treated life in general.  I felt 
life was one big video game, nothing but fun and games.  I found school to be a 
bore and somewhat dumb.  It was hard for me to grasp that I had to spend the 
first twenty-some years of my life just to prepare me to work in the "real 
world."  As I look back on my spiritual life then, I realize that my attitude 
toward the word of God was very poor.  I was edging towards becoming a lukewarm 
Christian, leading a very hypocritical Pharisee-like life.  In my mind, I knew 
how God wanted me to live, but my heart had become attached to things of this 
world.


Part II:  Liar, liar, pants on fire

Sooner or later, I found myself in high school.  Again, I found myself in the 
same ituation as before.  The classes were getting harder and I was introduced 
to more and more sins.  Rather than being the same geeky kid as I was in junior 
high school, I was determined to become popular and socially accepted by my 
peers.  I went about trying to make friends with everyone in my class.  I made 
friends with all kinds of people, from jocks and preps to the skaters and drug 
dealers.  I began to use curse words more frequently and had to start attending 
parties that all the "cool" people went to.  At hese parties, I slowly picked up 
a social drinking and smoking habit.  In my heart, I knew my parents would 
completely disagree with all that I had done, but with my eyes I saw that I was 
reaching my goal of being popular. To avoid confrontations from my parents, I 
did my best to hide all that I did from them.  At first, when I lied to them, I 
was hit with a wave of guilt and my heart would beat wildly.  But with each lie, 
it seemed to get easier and easier, until I could lie and feel as though I has 
just told the truth.  Often I would tell my parents that I had to go to the 
library or had to meet with some classmates to study for an exam, when I really 
was going to friends' houses and parties.  My lies had torn apart my 
relationship with my parents.  I would never talk to my parents about anything. 
Even when I was struggling with some sort of problem, I still wouldn't come to 
my parents.  Rather, I would try to manage things on my own. My spiritual life 
through high school sank even further than in the past. Bible studies for me 
became a rare event, where I would sometimes go months without studying the 
Bible.  I still attended Sunday worship service every week, but it didn't do 
much good since I made it a ritual to sleep during the message.  I had become 
like a Pharisee, knowing God's word with my head, but living a very worldly 
life.  At Bible conferences, I acted out a different role.  Rather than being my 
normal, sinful self, I played the innocent, warm-hearted second generation 
missionary from Shippensburg.  I did my best to look good before all of my 
parents' coworkers, so I wouldn't get a bad rep, but this did not effect my 
attitude towards God's word.  At conferences, I continued to sleep during 
messages, was unprepared for group Bible studies, and wrote very generic 
testimonies.  It was still all a game to me, and since I was never rebuked for 
my insincere attitude towards God, I thought I played the game quite well. My 
mind was set on things of the world.  As college was approaching, I wanted to 
enter into an actuarial science or math & stats program for university studies. 
This leads me to my next topic...  One of my biggest sins is laziness.  Due to 
my laziness, I would often procrastinate on everything I had to do.  My 
procrastination carried over even to my college applications.  I applied to four 
schools.  By the time I finished writing all the essays and filling in all the 
required information, it was the end of December, only a week before the 
application deadline.  Then, after a couple months, the rejection letters 
started pouring in.  Penn State Honors School... rejected.  University of 
Pennsylvania... rejected.  Johns Hopkins University... rejected.  I was 
beginning to lose hope in myself and began to think of going to Shippensburg 
University, since I had been accepted there since my junior year of high school. 
God had other plans.  The fourth school I had applied to was McGill University, 
located in downtown Montreal.

I had no plan or desire to attend that school, but my parents were encouraged by 
Montreal co-workers to have me apply to McGill.  I was accepted to McGill, and 
though I did not really see God's working then, it was clearly God's will for me 
to go to Canada. After graduation, a group of friends and I went to Ocean City, 
Maryland for a week of what is called senior week.  Senior week is infamous for 
the amount of underage drinking which occurs then.  My group managed to obtain a 
couple cases of wine coolers and several bottles of hard liquor.  We were all 
sitting in our hotel room, drinking away when a knock came to our door. Who else 
could it be other than your lovely Ocean City police officer.  We were all cited 
for underage possession of alcohol.  One by one, all of my friends began to call 
their parents to tell them what had just happened, everyone except for me.  I 
thought that I was smarter and could hide this mess from my parents.  We all 
went home, and the weeks of summer slowly rolled by.  I was at a friend's house 
when the phone rang.  It was my parents; they had just received a letter from 
the Ocean City courthouse to confirm my trial date.  To say the least, my 
parents were mad, but I was also mad.  I wasn't mad at what I had done; rather, 
I was mad at the fact that I had been caught.  This incident scarred my 
relationship with my parents even deeper.  By this point, it was almost the end 
of summer, and I was happy that I could soon leave and go to Montreal, a place 
far from home.


Part III:  God's leading to the Great White North

Montreal is a fascinating city.  It was almost a heaven for any university 
student.  The UBF ministry in Montreal is quite large.  Though I have been in 
UBF my entire life, it was a completely new surrounding to me.  I never was used 
to having growing shepherds and shepherdess around, who struggled constantly to 
please God. I began to study the Bible with S.Ernest Chan. Again, playing the 
role of the "good second generation missionary," I did my best to be a "good 
sheep."  I prepared Bible questions and began to write testimonies for our 
weekly Friday meetings.  Slowly with the help and prayers of Montreal co-
workers, my attitude towards God began to change. Before I came to Montreal, my 
God didn't exist.  The only God I knew was the God whom my parents served whole-
heartedly.  The fact is that I had no personal relationship with God.  Through 
Bible studies, I realized that God had been faithful to me and desired to have a 
relationship with me, though I kept my back towards him. I am very thankful for 
the rebuking I received there.  One was from M.Luke Hong, the Montreal chapter 
director.  After one Friday testimony sharing meeting, he commented that my 
testimony was very insincere.  He hit the nail straight on the head.  In fact, 
he said that the format of my testimony was correct, but my testimony had no 
content or sign of struggle.  He said that it was as if I had used a computer 
program to write my testimony.  From then on, I spent more time meditating on 
God's word to receive one word before actually writing my testimony. Another 
memorable rebuke I received was from my shepherd.  We were studying the Bible 
when he pointed out that all of my answers were very shallow.  He asked me how 
long I spent preparing for the Bible study, to which I replied, "half an hour." 
I have never been much of a philosophical person.  I don't like to spend time 
thinking about things.  As far as Bible studies go, I would much rather just 
have the answers told to me, than having to think and come up with them on my 
own.  My shepherd realized this and told me that knowing the answers isn't as 
important as meditating on God's word and understanding deeper meanings from it. 
This taught me that the purpose of Bible studies wasn't to store the lessons in 
my mind but in my heart. Something new I experienced while in Montreal was 
campus fishing.  This is something I had always been dreading to do, because I'm 
a person who tries to avoid confrontations.  Asking random people to Bible study 
wasn't exactly my idea of avoiding confrontations, but thinking of Jesus' world 
mission command, I began to challenge students to study the Bible.  Most of them 
rejected our invitations in many various ways, but a few showed some interest. 
God blessed me with a sheep who was only able to study the Bible three times.  I 
began to realize how difficult shepherd life can be, especially when sheep 
aren't very willing to come to the center.  To prepare the Bible study 
questions, rather than my usual half hour, it took me three hours of meditating 
on God's word.  It really helped me to see what serving sheep was like.  Later, 
I studied the Bible with another sheep.  He was fourteen years old, but was the 
perfect sheep for me.  The reason is that he is exactly the same as I was at his 
age.  I could relate to him, and he could relate to me. Bible studies seemed to 
really open his eyes and heart to God's word.  It gave me true joy to see him 
grow through Bible studies. Apart from all the spiritual training God gave me, 
he also trained me academically.  In high school, it didn't take too much effort 
for me to succeed.  McGill was quite the opposite.  Though I realized that it 
would take a lot more studying and work to do well in McGill, my study habits 
remained the same.  Because of this, my grades suffered as I received to F's in 
the spring semester of my first year.  Sins of laziness emerged more and more as 
I tried hard to improve my study habits.  I began to realize that my attitude 
towards school had been wrong from the beginning.  I was still trying to please 
only my parents through my grades.  I had no motivation to study because I 
didn't feel it was worth my efforts. As my second year at McGill began, I began 
to learn how to study to please God.  I tried hard to study more than I ever had 
before, but a twelve year long bad study habit didn't die instantly.  It was 
often hard to choose studying over taking a nap or surfing the internet.  Satan 
was definitely tempting me to continue in my laziness, but through prayers and 
Bible studies, I was able to slowly overcome most of my laziness.  My attitude 
towards school began to change, and now I have the desire to study and learn for 
the glory of God.  I thought things would go well and that I could turn around 
and succeed in school, but to my dismay, I failed another class last spring.  I 
prayed to God asking why I couldn't improve my grades, despite my changed 
attitude towards school studies.

Part IV:  God's calling me back home

Over this past summer, I have been thinking and praying about whether it is 
God's will for me to continue studying at McGill.  Slowly, I felt God leading me 
back to Shippensburg, to finish school.  Looking back on why God would want me 
to go to Montreal, I saw that my spiritual life had been at a standstill and I 
needed the two year training to establish a personal relationship with God. 
Now, I have the desire to study hard in school and struggle hard in serving 
God's mission. The key verse of my life testimony is Hebrews 3:1, Therefore, 
holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, 
the apostle and high priest whom we confess.  Though I have made a huge turn 
around spiritually through my training in Montreal, I still fall into sin every 
time I focus on myself or things of this world.  I pray that I may struggle to 
keep my eyes and thoughts fixed on Jesus.  I feel God leading me to continue my 
studies and become a professor in computer science.  I pray that through my 
studies in Shippensburg, God may continue to grow me spiritually into a man of 
God.  I pray to be a blessing to Shippensburg co-workers and that I may feed 
sheep there.

One word:  fix your thoughts on Jesus