Moving
“I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my
dwelling.”
2 Sam 7:6
I made my first move from the village where
I was born to a city about a two-hour bus ride away to work at chicken farm at
age fourteen. I suppose the Lord made the move with me, for even though I had
no idea of his presence, he nonetheless was with me during that year when I
labored all day feeding the chickens, picking up the eggs, and drying and
packing chicken manure.
About a year later I moved to Taipei and worked as an electronic store clerk for a few months and
then became an assembly line worker, working the grave shift at a GE plant.
There was no doubt the Lord made the move with me from a small town to the
largest city in Taiwan, for although I didn’t know the Lord, he certainly knew
who I was and took great interest in my development as a young man.
I often went without food when I became a high school student, but the Lord took pity on me
by moving one of my classmates’ hearts to share his lunch box with me for an
entire semester. I didn’t know the Lord, but surely he knew me; and I didn’t
love him, but he must have loved me.
Three years later, I failed to get into a college and the Lord took the opportunity to lead
me to a school where I heard the gospel for the very first time in my life and
I started to get inkling that there was an invisible someone who loved me.
Then came the most difficult three years in my life when I was drafted, but the Lord must
have moved with me into boot camp as well, for apart from his protection I
could not have survived the kicking and beating during those months. When it
was time for me to move to the army engineering corps the Lord also move with
me, and with his help I was able to survive the hardships and boredom of the
next two years and nine months.
The Lord moved to Taipei with me after I was discharged from the army. It was during this time
he revealed himself to me and I finally came to realize I was his beloved and
the Almighty had been wooing me without me knowing it.
There were many more moves that I would make during the following years, but it finally
dawned on me that the Lord didn’t have to move with me no matter where I went
for he was omnipresent. I have since moved away from my country and settled in
a place thousands of miles removed both physically and spiritually from my
home, but there hasn’t been a single moment that the Lord wasn’t standing next
to me, caring for me and whispering in my ear how much he loved me. I have been
a sojourner in this world for close to sixty years, but I have been able to
make a home on this foreign soil, this planet earth, an enemy’s territory, for
wherever my heavenly Father is, I am home.