给上帝最后的机会

（在过去的两个安息日里，我们听到了上帝如何帮助査梅因学习如何尊敬她的母亲。今天，我们将听到她如何把自己的心献给耶稣。）

我大胆地祷告向上帝挑战。

“亲爱的上帝，我给你最后一次机会，”我祈祷道。“我过去参加过很多教会活动，但没有一个能改变我的生活。我仍旧软弱，这有什么意义呢？与其站起来一次又一次地回到你身边，躺平不会更好吗？我有一个两周的假期即将到来，我只想离家出走，我准备要去《圣经》培训学校。主啊，这是你最后的机会。如果这样不起任何作用的话，我向你保证，你将会永远失去我！”

我在马来西亚的基督复临安息日会家庭长大，从小就去教堂参加聚会礼拜。但我在属灵上找不到喜乐。我喜欢一个非基督徒的男人，并和他约会了八年。我喜欢我国际学校担任音乐教师的高薪工作，但我缺少平安，所以我祈祷并去参加教会组织的《圣经》学校。

我们花了两周的时间研究圣所的信息。我对圣所的道理一无所知。我不是读《圣经》长大的，去教堂也只是例行公事。教友告诉我如何做一名复临信徒，但是我从未与上帝之间建立个人关系。

在《圣经》学校，我读了以西结书37章4-5节，其中说，“祂又对我说，‘你向这些骸骨发预言说，“枯干的骸骨啊，要听耶和华的话！主耶和华对这些骸骨如此说：‘我必使气息进入你们里面，你们就要活了”。枯干的骸骨异象使我懂得，实现真正的复兴只有通过聆听上帝的话语和圣灵的气息。我需要和上帝建立直接的个人联系，并伴随着不断祈求圣灵的祷告生活。

在研究圣所的过程中，我了解了上帝的牺牲之爱。我知道祂有能力赦免我所有的罪，祂最深的愿望是永远和我在一起。

上帝的爱完全包容了我生命中所有的空虚和破碎。我把我的心给了耶稣，祂开始在我生命中大胆地工作。

当我重新担任5到6岁的音乐老师时，发生了一件意想不到的事情。在学校里，我被期望将圣诞老人，精灵，小仙子，和女巫们等世俗的庆祝活动融入到音乐课程。有一天，我给孩子们上了一堂听力课，让他们把我播放的录音与闹鬼城堡里滴答作响的外祖父钟声，拍打着的蝙蝠，和咯咯作响的骷髅的照片进行匹配。

令我惊讶的是，我最好的两个学生，伊森和卢卡斯没有参加。当我播放噪音时他们捂着耳朵，后来拒绝参加一场关于闹鬼城堡的演唱会。

课后，我问他们。

“你们两个今天怎么了？”我问道。“你们为什么不做你们该做的事？”

伊森转向我说道：“我是基督徒，我听不进去。”然后这个可怜的男孩哭了起来。卢卡斯转向我，严肃地点了点头。

这是我一生中受到的最大的谴责之一。上帝通过这这两位小男孩有力地对我说话。我想，“为什么我要教孩子们关于魔鬼的事情？”

在我接下来的两周假期里，我回到了《圣经》学校，在那里我们学习了但以理和他的三个朋友如何决志要在尼布甲尼撒国王面前立志忠于上帝。我记得伊森和卢卡斯是如何在我面前表明他们是忠于上帝的。

我确信上帝要我辞职，但我不能靠自己的力量离开。我和一位《圣经》学校的领导分享了我的故事。

“你的见证非常有力，”他说。“但问题是没有行动。”

大约在同一时间，上帝通过晨祷灵修对我说话。我在怀爱伦的书《基督比喻实训》中读到，“当圣灵的恳劝临到我们的心时，我们唯一的保障乃在于毫不犹豫地响应。当“今天到葡萄园里去作工”的呼召临到我们时，我们决不可拒绝这邀请。“你们今日若听祂的话，就不可硬着心，”希伯来书4:7节。迟延而不听从是很危险的。你日后也许再也听不到这种邀请了。”（280页）

带着一颗完全臣服于上帝的心，我写下并递交了辞职信。

在接下来的五个月里，我回到了《圣经》学校，但我的内在意志和上帝的意志之间爆发了内心的挣扎。我的教学工作薪资很高，我无法想象没有钱的情况。我渴望自给自足，于是我找到了一份比前一份薪水更高的工作。然而，我有时不得不在安息日工作。

当我向《圣经》学校的一位牧师寻求建议时，他直接地对我说：“你刚刚从前一个工作中解脱出来，现在你想再一次进去吗？”

不管斗争有多大，上帝是更大的，祂从不允许我面对一个在祂的帮助下无法克服的诱惑。在最后一刻，上帝打开了一扇意料之外的门。我得到了一份在泰国考拉省的基督复临安息日会国际学校担任教育幼儿园的工作。

我对祂的时机非常震惊！让我想起祂的话，“我的意念非同你们的意念；我的道路非同你们的道路。天怎样高过地，照样，我的道路高过你们的道路；我的意念高过你们的意念”（赛55:8-9）。

上帝是良善的，祂回应了我继续教音乐的祈祷。做了两年幼儿园教师后，我成了教会学校音乐系主任。我从未如此平静过，也从未如此快乐过。上帝赢得了我的心，现在我渴望把失去的灵魂带到祂的爱的美丽中去。

来源：本文译自《圣工消息》（社会青年季刊）2022年第一季

Last Chance for God

 (For the past two Sabbaths, we have heard about how God helped Charmaine to learn how to honor her mother. Today, we will hear how she gave her heart to Jesus.)

I challenged God with a bold prayer.

 “Dear God, I am giving You one last chance,” I prayed. “I’ve attended so many church events in the past, but none has changed my life. I still keep falling, so what’s the point? Isn’t it better to stay down than to get up and try to return to You again and again? I have a two-week vacation coming up, and I just want to stay away from home. So, I will go to a Bible training school. Lord, this is Your last chance. If this doesn’t work, I promise You that You will lose me forever!”

Growing up in a Seventh-day Adventist family in Malaysia, I went to church and participated in worship services from early childhood. But I found no joy in spiritual things. I enjoyed dating a non-Christian man for eight years. I enjoyed my well-paying job as a music teacher at an international school. But I lacked peace, so I prayed and went to the church-organized Bible school.

We spent two weeks studying the sanctuary. I didn’t know anything about the sanctuary. I didn’t grow up reading the Bible, and going to church was just a routine. Church members told me how to act as an Adventist, but I never had a personal relationship with God.

At the Bible school, I read Ezekiel 37:4-5, which says, “Again He said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God to these bones: ‘Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live’” (NKJV). The vision of the dry bones taught me that true revival can only come by hearing the Word of God and the presence of His breath, which is the Holy Spirit. I needed a personal, direct connection with God partnered with a prayerful life of consistently asking for the Holy Spirit.

In studying the sanctuary, I learned about God’s sacrificial love. I learned that He has the power to forgive all my sins and that His deepest desire is to live with me forever.

God’s love completely embraced all the emptiness and brokenness in my life. I gave my heart to Jesus, and He began to work boldly in my life.

Something unexpected happened when I returned to my work as music teacher to 5- to 6-year-old children. At the school, I was expected to incorporate worldly celebrations involving Santa Claus, elves, fairies, and witches into the music lessons. One day, I presented a lesson on listening and asked the children to match the recorded sounds that I was playing with pictures of a ticking grandfather clock, flapping bats, and rattling skeletons in a haunted castle.

To my surprise, my two best students, Ethan and Lucas, would not participate. They covered their ears while I played the noises and later refused to participate in a sing-along about the haunted castle.

At the end of the class, I confronted them.

 “What’s wrong with you two today?” I demanded. “Why aren’t you doing what you’re supposed to?”

Ethan turned to me and said, “I’m a Christian. I cannot listen to this.” Then the poor boy burst into tears. Lucas turned to me and nodded his head solemnly.

It was one of the biggest rebukes I have received in my life. God spoke to me powerfully through those little boys. I thought, “Why am I teaching children about the things of the devil?”

On my next two-week vacation, I returned to the Bible school, where we studied about how Daniel and his three friends had purposed in their hearts to be faithful to God before King Nebuchadnezzar. I remembered how Ethan and Lucas had purposed in their hearts to be faithful to God before me.

I felt convicted that God wanted me to quit my job, but I could not leave on my own strength. I shared my story with a Bible school leader.

“You have a very powerful testimony,” he said. “But the problem is there is no action.”

Around that same time, God spoke to me through my morning devotions. I read in Ellen White’s book Christ’s Object Lessons, “When the appeals of the Holy Spirit come to the heart, our only safety lies in responding to them without delay. When the call comes, ‘Go work today in My vineyard,’ do not refuse the invitation. ‘Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.’ Heb 4:7. It is unsafe to delay obedience. You may never hear the invitation again” (p. 280).

With a fully surrendered heart to God, I managed to write and hand in my resignation letter.

I returned to the Bible school for the next five months, but an internal struggled erupted between my will and God’s will. My teaching job had paid well, and I could not imagine being without money. My desire to be self-sufficient took over, and I found a job that offered even more pay than the previous one. However, I would have to work on Sabbath sometimes.

When I sought the advice of a pastor at the Bible school, he boldly told me, “You just got yourself out of your previous job, and now you want to get in again?”

No matter how big the battle, God is bigger, and He never allowed me to face a temptation that I could not overcome with His help. At the very last minute, God opened an unexpected door. I was offered a job teaching kindergarten at the Adventist International Mission School in Korat, Thailand.

I was so surprised at His timing! Then I remembered His words, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9).

God is good, and He has answered my prayers to continue teaching music. After two years as a kindergarten teacher, I became the director of the music department at the mission school. I have never been so much at peace or so full of joy. God has won my heart, and now it is my desire to bring lost souls to the beauty of His love.

Please find the original article at: https://am.adventistmission.org/mqa22q1-28