A work in progress

I very obviously fail at this whole blogging business so hopefully this monster makes up for over a month of not posting.
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CHEM 210
What do you want to be when you grow up?

“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:2

For me, the future is like a Tootsie Pop. Both are mysterious and uncertain -- does anyone know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop? Both also have a core that remains to be seen. In many ways, this year I have learned to revel in that uncertainty, because it makes me realize how sovereign God really is over our lives and it makes the certainty of Christ that much more amazing. Even though I have so many questions about the future -- Who will I become? Where will I live? What will I do? Who will I fall in love with and marry? How is it all going to happen? – I know that the Lord will determine my steps and lead me down a path of his calling.

Raised in a Christian household, I was familiar with all the bible stories from an early age. My mom tells me I was quite the eager student, as I would march around church reciting the Ten Commandments and making sure people were abiding by them. I first welcomed Jesus into my life when I was six. I had nearly drowned in a pool, but my dad pulled me out and then went on to explain the idea of salvation to me. Looking back, it’s hard for me to comprehend how I could have understood at such a young age, especially since I still feel like an infant in Christ. I always was very “Christian,” but I think I had a distorted understanding of “belief” and largely lived the way I did out of habit and routine.

In the middle of eighth grade, everything changed. My dad got a call and before I could blink, think, or process, my parents and I were whisked away to a faraway land, Shanghai. Having grown up a Texan, I expected a huge culture shock, but surprisingly, I almost immediately felt at home. For the first time, I was part of the majority; I felt a connection to my heritage and was proud to be Chinese. While most of my classmates lived in gated, expatriate compounds, plastic replicas of American suburbia, I lived right in the city, my neighbor a bootleg vendor, the view from my window a rack of drying panties. At the same time, I joined my first fellowship and for the first time was “on fire” for Christ. It was here in China that I first confronted my identity as Chinese and Christian on my own terms. Two years after moving to China, I made my way to a boarding school in New Hampshire. While there, I met brilliant people from all over the world. Most of them were not Christian; many of them were and will be very successful. I joined a fellowship there, but did I really need God?

Fortunately, God has an interesting and surprising way of working in my life. I never expected to be at a school like Rice and never imagined I would be back in Texas for college, but God has really blessed me by bringing me back “home.


“You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify god in your body”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Right now, I have one clear ambition for my life. I don’t want to waste it. While this may seem like an uninspired goal, reminiscent of someone who lacks ambition, rather it signifies my foremost desire to live a life for Christ. As important as selecting a career may be, I’m more concerned about who I’ll become than what I’ll become. I want to be someone who glorifies God in everything he does. When people see me, I hope they see Christ within, and I hope that they will be drawn all the more to God’s purpose and promise. Whatever field I’m put in, whether it is on the front lines as a missionary, or in the confines of a cubicle, I hope to be a humble servant and a shining light. I hope that every passion I have, whether for a person or a hobby or a job, will be secondary to my passion for God, and that no thing of this world becomes my God. The way I see it and the Bible tells it, if at the end of my life I’m not right with God then what was the point?

Of course, this is all easier said than done. I mess up every day. Naturally reserved and easily perturbed, I’m quick to judge and resent. I often talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, and I’m not a very good student – I flee from responsibility and often collapse in the face of deadlines. When it comes to faith and trust, I am so fickle. There are times when I wonder if it truly is my desire to put God first. Who am I fooling? It’s times like these that I thank God for the comfort and stability he offers through both his Word and through fellowship.

I praise God for allowing me to find a fellowship that pushes me to grow and yearn more, to want to know God more. In high school I understood what it meant to have faith and passion, but only since coming to college have I realized how important it is to know and understand God by reading his word and praying continually. It’s been a blessing and a great joy to learn from and draw off the more mature, motivated, and driven members of the group and I hope God can use me in the same way to impact those who are to come. Although I have never really savored any leadership roles, almost always shying away from the spotlight and opting to be in the background, I hope to rise and be a leader in the fellowship if that is God’s will for me (I realize I have to become a better student first though, both academically and spiritually).

Without a doubt, the most important reason why I must become a leader is so that I can one day become a father and husband. Aside from my desire for spiritual growth, my hope for a family is foremost in my mind (in fact, to be completely honest I think I sometimes might even put it ahead of my spiritual aspirations). I hope some day that God will provide me a “soul mate,” with whom I can spend and share my life. The kind of kid in high school that would write love letters and make mix-tapes, I always had a romanticized notion of love, but I’ve realized how fleeting feelings can be and how necessary it is for relationships to be God-centered. I hope to find someone who inspires me and understands me and will keep me accountable to Christ. In turn, I pray that I will be a ready husband, patient and kind and faithful. If kids come into the picture I look forward to telling them stories/showing them pictures (will Facebook still exist then?) and teaching them about life and about loving God. I think I’m eager to have my own family because I feel like family is one of God’s greatest gifts to us. It’s also just nice to have people around to share your life with (being an only child can be a lonely experience).

In contrast to my spiritual and familial goals, my career goals are rather murky and uncertain. This lack of focus and direction is in part the result of constant change of interest. At different points in my life I’ve wanted to be an architect, an NBA star, a writer, a professional poker player, a general manager, and a sports journalist. It’s also in part due to my unawareness of the opportunities out there, my hesitance to commit to anything I’m uncertain about, and my tendency to dream and contemplate but not act. That said, in the past few years, I’ve started to see some shape to my future.

Through discussions with my dad earlier this year, I began to develop a curiosity in commercial banking. Although I once viewed it as a very stiff profession that involved a lot of suit-wearing and hand-shaking, I’ve come to see it more as a way in which I can serve others (as a doctor of their finances). In the ways my dad describes it, banking seems to fit my personality and skill set. It also appeals to me because I have an interest in microfinance and microcredit. In high school I took a class called “Why are Poor Nations Poor?” and read about the work the Grameen Bank did in Bangladesh, and here at Rice, I’ve seen the amazing things Rice Microfinance has been able to accomplish and been exposed to all the possibilities and opportunities out there. All this has made me more and more intrigued by the ways in which we can really change the lives of people in need. Earlier in the term, Dale Dawson, formerly a banker and founder of Bridge2Rwanda, an enterprise committed to creating a “new generation of well-educated, entrepreneurial, servant leaders in Rwanda,” came to talk on campus. His talk, mostly covering his company’s mission to build schools and businesses in Rwanda and to cultivate a crop of Christ-seeking individuals equipped to bring about sustainable change, planted a few seeds in my brain and my heart. With a love for traveling and seeing new cultures (I’ve been to 21 countries), and an ability to adapt to new places, I’m drawn to the idea of living, working, and ministering in a foreign country. It’s true I haven’t invested myself in this enough to call it an aspiration just yet and maybe it’s just another “phase,” but something I’ve considered is one day starting or becoming a part of something like Bridge2Rwanda or the Grameen Bank or Kiva (online micro-lending). For now though, I just hope to take advantage of the opportunities at hand and prepare myself for the future. Over the summer I will be able to attend a training program with HSBC (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation), which will hopefully shed some light on my future prospects as a banker. I’ll also be working on my Chinese, so that if I’m ever called to China in the future I will be ready.
As I continue to embark on this journey of exploration and development, I finally aspire to be daring. I wish for the ability to push myself out of my comfort zone every now and then and not be afraid of failure and embarrassment. I hope for a shameless faith and an undying passion for Christ so that “when he appears, [I] shall be like him.”