Personal Testimony: A Calling- Pastor David Rim

My desire in this personal testimony is to share one aspect of my relationship with God: the call to ministry.  By narrowing the focus, my hope is to open my life a little deeper at a key moment in my journey.  

My parents immigrated to this country with one goal in mind: a college education.  Preferably a good college.  Study something in computer programming or engineering, graduate, and get a good job.  But life did not turn out the way we expected.  It started in the second semester of my freshman year.  I met several study aboard students from Korea.  They were an entirely different breed.  Living in a world I was an alien to.  Two things defined them: high end stereo equipment and gambling.  I fell into both traps.

I still remember applying for government loans to pay for tuition.  I took that money and went out and brought a Bang and Olufsen turntable, Nakamichi tape player, M&K symphonic rated speakers, the very first generation CD player, and a subwoofer that could make our dorm walls shake.  Apparently, you can buy a lot of stereo equipment with your college tuition.  With that purchase my stock within the group rose quite a bit.  For once, I was the cool kid.

Then there was the gambling.  I got introduced to Korean playing cards and we played quite a bit.  From Friday right after classes all the way into Saturday morning.  Winner brought breakfast for all.  Slept all day.  Started playing again Saturday after dinner until Sunday morning.  Slept all day.  Panic studying ensued to finish all the assignments.  You can only imagine how much my grades suffered

On top of that, I had to make up for all the money spent on the stereo.  To pay for tuition.  I did not want my parents to find out what I did, so I got a part time job as a cashier at a newsstand.  Biked three miles each way four nights a week to work the evening shift.  Rain, shine, or snow, it did not matter.  Tuition was tuition.

Before I knew it I was failing almost all my classes.  By the first semester of my second year, the school had noticed.  They sent me a letter warning me of suspension.  If my grades did not rise about a 2.0, I would need to leave for a year.  Mine was hovering around a 1.25.  I was not going to make it.

One of the hardest things I had to do was call my parents to tell them I was getting kicked out.  They had to come and get me.  I was supposed to be the first member of my family to go to college.  To graduate.  Not fail out.  They were more confused than angry.  It wasn’t that I was not smart enough.  Apparently, I didn’t care enough.

I was home for a year.  Drowning in shame.  My parents asked me not to come to church.  Too embarrassing trying to answer all the questions of why I was home.  I had no direction.  Lost.  I could not sit around home all day, so I got a job driving for Domino’s Pizza.  And one of my oldest friends, Mike, got a job there along with me.  Just to be near me.  He knew I was struggling.  He invited me to a Navigator’s 2-7 Bible Study.  Told him no.  Kept on nagging me.  Finally, I said yes just to shut him up.  I would go once.

I went and everything changed.  Saw something I had never seen before.  In all those years of going to church, I had never seen kids my age truly personalize their faith.  In the beginning of the study, they went around sharing what God was doing in their lives.  And it was so personal.  So real.  Like God was a part of their everyday life.  I envied them.  I wanted what they had.

And so I kept going back.  No longer because of Mike.  But in search of something more.  A career.  Salary.  Home.  Family.  These were no longer enough.  And God was there to meet me where I was.  As lost as the Prodigal Son, he invited me back home.  Reminded me that while I had left him, he had never left me.  That he was waiting.  This is the first half of my story.  Redemption.

But there is a second half.  Calling.  The question of what to do with my life was still looming.  What did I want to live for?  I knew God must be somehow involved.    But what?  During my suspension, I took summer classes at UMBC.  To get back into studying.  Earn a few credits.  

One day I came early to class.  Wanted to get some assignments finished.  And there was a high school kid sitting there.  One of the high school programs had finished and he was just hanging out.  I said hi and sat there to work.  Then I felt this prompting to talk.  Talk?  Me?  Yes.  So I started a conversation.  Asked him what program he was in.  How he liked it.  Then he asked me what class I was taking.  And for some reason I started sharing my story.  The one you just read.  How I went to college and blew it.  Came back home not knowing what I wanted to do.  How I reconnected with God.  Then I asked him if he knew God?  If he had a personal relationship with Jesus?  That question led to a conversation and the gospel.  I asked him if he wanted to receive Jesus.  Right then and there.  To be forgiven.  To return home.  And he said yes.  I could not believe it.  Talk about unbelief.  I led him to the Lord through a prayer.  First person ever.  I will never forget the memory of my classmates coming into the classroom, as he and I prayed to receive Christ.

That was the foundational moment for me.  There was no greater joy in all my life than that moment.  To help another person to connect with God.  I returned to Carnegie Mellon.  Started a Bible Study.  My roommate came to know the Lord through those meetings.  Finished as a math major.  Went off to seminary to become a teacher and a pastor.

This was my life calling.  I did not find it.  It found me.   To be a bridge where people can connect with God.  Perhaps I could be that meeting place for others.  If you had known me back then, I would have been the last person you would have imagined getting up in front of a group of people to give a message.  Quiet.  Introverted.  Painfully shy.  Yet, with God’s call came God’s grace.  Who could have imagined.  Getting kicked out of college may have been the best thing to have happened to me.