- Lester Liao
Let
me tell you about my friend, Hao Li. He
is the greatest encouragement to me of all my fellow medical students. Why?
Because I have seen the Spirit of God in his life; life-giving and
soul-transforming grace at its finest.
And it is just about the most invigorating and wonderful a thing that
can be seen.
Hao
was not a Christian when he entered medical school. If you asked him, though, he would have said
he was a Christian. He now vehemently
denies he ever truly knew Christ upon entering.
In fact, he identifies himself even as an impediment to the Gospel in
his earlier days. When I first presented
the student club CMDS and took it as an opportunity to briefly share the Gospel
with my class, Hao spoke to me afterwards and stated that I should not talk
about matters like sin in a public forum.
In my mind I thought, “Whatever, this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking
about.” Only a few months later God
rebuked and humbled me for this attitude.
God
was at work in Hao’s heart. Despite what
he would call a lukewarm heart to God, Hao would come to our regular CMDS
meetings and we would discuss at length the Christian life. One evening we watched a sermon by Francis Chan
called “Lukewarm and Loving It” and discussed amongst ourselves what genuine
faith entailed. I do not recall Hao
saying too much that evening. Little did
I know then that he went home that night, got on his knees and begged God to
forgive him for his lukewarm heart and to really be Lord of his life.
The
change in Hao’s life has been stark. He
now speaks about Christ with a boldness reminiscent of the rejoicing apostles
leaving the Sanhedrin after a flogging (Acts 5:40-41) and challenges me to
consider my own lukewarmness. Between
lectures, he engages in all manner of spiritual dialogue with classmates. His dedication to his church has drastically
changed and he has a true passion to eradicate the plague of lukewarm
faith. He is hungry to soak up the Word with
a rare humility and willingness. He
questions every facet of his life in terms of whether it is built on the solid
rock of Christ and His Word. Now he is
even involved in leading our local CMDS chapter.
Hao
is such an encouragement to me I often cannot express it very clearly. Often times when I see him or after our
conversations, I will just pray and thank God without words. What a brother the Lord has raised up and
what a comrade he has been on this spiritual battlefield!
I
share this story firstly because I want to encourage others with Hao’s
encouragement to me. I also share this
because there are others like Hao, who have yet to experience such
transformation by God. He has appointed
His people to go out and spread His Word to bring many in medicine to
Himself. What if we all began to pray
regularly for one or two of our colleagues and asked God for boldness to speak
to them about Christ? What if we
committed this truly to the Lord? We
have friends out there that may not have a single other person in the world
earnestly praying for them. Consider Augustine’s
words about his mother.
You
sent down your help from above and rescued my soul from the depths of this
darkness because my mother, your faithful servant, wept to you for me, shedding
more tears for my spiritual death than other mothers shed for the bodily death
of a son. (Augustine, Confessions III.11.)
May
those we love around us say a similar thing of us one day.
