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Drawn To Love Christ
To date, I have been fellowshipping with Christians on Campus for five
years. Here, I would briefly like to testify of the revolutionary
impact that Christians on Campus has made on converting my relationship
with the Lord Jesus from being a relationship driven solely by
religious duty to one that is driven by love and restful understanding
that God is pleased with Christ and Christ alone, not anything that I
could ever do or accomplish for Him.
I was born into a very poor peasant family in nothern Ethiopia that
literally existed on a "hand to mouth" basis. In 1984 a devastating
drought struck northern Ethiopia, bringing in a period of famine that
killed hundreds of thousands of people, including every member of my
immediate family. So, at the tender age of six, I was orphaned. It was
at this time of dire need that I first called out to God for help. The
Lord miraculously provided by sending a woman who gave me food and
directed me to the refugee camp where I met the American missionary
doctor who eventually adopted me. But even more, the Lord Himself came
into me as my life that day and thereby brought me into His wonderful
family.
From a young age, I had a strong awareness of God's mercy and care for
me. Of the thousands of children in the same situation, why was my life
preserved? Within, I knew it was God. What I did not know, however, was
why the Lord had preserved my life. Rather than seeking the Lord for
the answer to this question, I assumed that He had spared my life for
some purpose and that I should, in thankfulness to Him for physically
sparing my life, serve Him in some way, shape or form. So, for the next
ten years of my life, I invested myself in anything and everything that
I thought might possibly contribute to the accomplishment of the
purpose for which God had preserved my life. I was busy with much
activity related to the Lord, and at times, for the Lord, but still
felt, in the words that I used in my diary on a misson trip to Russia,
"like there was something missing." It was not until my junior year of
college at the University of Texas at Austin that I discovered what
that missing piece was. That piece was the need to love the Lord.
In the first meeting that I attended with Christians on Campus, what
impressed me the most was the very genuine and visible love that these
young people had for the Lord. I had never seen or experienced anything
comparable to it. It so impressed me that I e-mailed my parents that
night and described to them how I had never seen young people with such
a fervent love for the Lord. What I did not realize, however, was that
I too could love the Lord as they did and indeed that this was the very
"thing" missing in my Christian life.
A few weeks after that meeting, while studying the Bible with a young
believer involved with the group, I began to relate to him how I felt
that there was something very important and even crucial lacking in my
Christian Life. I knew it was not zeal or consecration because by that
point, I had already made up my mind to be a missionary for the purpose
of spreading the gospel. At this juncture, the believer shared a verse
that will forever remain a governing vision to me. The verse, located
in John 3:29, begins, "He who has the bride is the bridegroom". Through
this brother's expounding of this verse and my own study encouraged by
him, I saw for the first time that Christ is the bridegroom and we the
believers are His bride. The relationship beteween a bride and
bridegroom, I realized, is not one of duty or obligation but rather in
one of love. For the first time in my life, I saw what Christ wanted
from me. He wanted me to love Him in the deepest most intimate way
possible--as a bride loves her bridegroom. I cannot describe the
tremendous sense of rest, satisfaction and relief I experienced when
this magnificent truth became mine.
Words fail in attempting to express the gratitude that I feel for the
brothers and sisters with Christians on Campus who have so marvelously
affected my life. Their love for the Lord and their leading me into the
same kind of love and devotion to Him has resulted in my taking a
course that eagerly awaits and anticipates His return.
Abey Bruce,
Austin, Texas.
