Lazarus

Recently, I discovered this song as I was going through my music app to find some interesting songs to add to my playlist. When I first saw this song, my interest was immediately piqued by its title, “Lazarus.” “A song about Lazarus? Hmm. This would be very interesting.” At first, I thought that this would be a fun, exciting Christian song for kids. Yet, as I was listening to this song, my tears began to flow, especially when the singer sings, “You raise me up like Lazarus.”

In his messages, announcement, and Bible studies, Missionary John often portrays the significance of the work of God we are doing as helping people to cross over from death to life. I’ve heard this phrase so many times, but I never really understood it. “What does he mean that when they receive one word of God, they will cross over from death to life? They are not dead. They breathe, and they can move.” So, I only accepted this as a theological expression. Yet, this song helps me see the dead condition I was in, and how, by God’s grace and his kindness, his servants have helped me to cross over from death to life.

I was indeed alive at that time, but at the same time, I was also dead. Each day, I lived like a dead person. I went to school, I studied hard to get good grades, I made many friends, and I did many activities, but I did everything with no purpose and motivation. Many times, when I gathered with other people, I just isolated myself, and I would just stay quiet the entire time that many times, people did not even notice that I was there. I lived my life like a dead person because I thought that my life was nothing more than just waiting until the day of my death. Even though I was physically alive, my heart and my soul were so dead that many of my relatives and friends complained to me because of my lack of expression, sympathy, and emotion. In my first six months of studying the Bible, the word of God was preached powerfully to me, but I did not show any response whatsoever. Like what Missionary John often says, I just came to Bible study, sat down, and blinked. 

Yet, fast forward to 2019, my life is completely different today, and there are clearly many signs of life in me. My heart can respond to God’s love now, and when I see students walking in darkness in my campus, I come to have compassion for them. Now, whenever I am with other people, I do not just stay quiet like a dead person anymore, but I am much more talkative that sometimes, I even talk way too much. And when I am on my campus, that is the time when I am most alive. I am actively and willingly involved in God’s kingdom work there. Sometimes, I hop around, and I run from one student to the next one. As I do the work of God, I get rejected and even humiliated by many students, but I keep on getting up and fighting again. And I smile a lot with much excitement as I talk about the God whom I love and the wonderful life I am living today.

Indeed, this is my testimony: “From death to life, you fill me up with holy fire, and you have raised me up like Lazarus.”