I Met Jesus at the Shop

By Hong Soon-mi

It didn’t seem that life could get much worse. My husband was stricken with bone-marrow cancer. Then his parents died. I had to pay for my mother-in-law’s funeral on my own and then take on responsibility for my family’s livelihood.

Image © Pacific Press

Sometimes I didn’t even have 1000 Korean won (U.S.$1) to pay for my son’s school supplies. My salary wasn’t enough to cover my husband’s hospital bills. Every day, I worried that I wouldn’t have enough rice to feed my family. I wept. I felt so alone.

Then I met Park Yeon-sook. She wasn’t a relative or even a friend, but she tried to cheer me up. She saw that I was struggling financially, and she gave me additional work at her shop in Hanam, a suburb of South Korea’s capital, Seoul. The extra money helped pay for living expenses and hospital bills.

I was so grateful for the work. But I noticed something unusual about Yeon-sook. She seemed happier than other people. I thought this was strange, but I was greatly moved by her joy.

As I got to know her, I saw that she went to church on Saturdays. She didn’t worry about the income that she lost by closing her shop once a week. I was an atheist, but I wanted to go to church with her and find out why she had such joy and peace.

Yeon-sook never invited me to her Seventh-day Adventist church, but I resolved in my heart to go. So I started studying the Bible on my own. As I learned about God, the peace of heaven came into my life. I gave my heart to Jesus and joined West Hanam Seventh-day Adventist Church, where I now serve as a deaconess together with Yeon-sook.

There are many things that I don’t know, but I believe in God from the bottom of my heart. Yeon-sook never spoke to me about Jesus a lot, but I saw Jesus in her life. The same Jesus whom I met through her life is living in my heart today.

This year, my husband and son also were baptized and joined the Adventist family. It doesn’t seem that life can get much better. Thanks be to God for reaching my family through Yeon-sook and her shop.

This mission story illustrates Mission Objective No. 1 of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s “I Will Go” strategic plan: “To revive the concept of worldwide mission and sacrifice for mission as a way of life involving not only pastors but every church member.” Learn more at IWillGo2020.org. This quarter, your Thirteenth Sabbath offering will support two mission projects in South Korea. Read more about Yeon-sook next week.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

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Further Thought:

For a deeper and very well thought out study on the great controversy theme, based on the idea of God as love, and written by a Seventh-day Adventist, see John Peckham’s Theodicy of Love: Cosmic Conflict and the Problem of Evil (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018).

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

The fact that this work has been published by a non-Adventist press shows how good biblical scholarship can reveal the reality of the great controversy as depicted in Scripture.

“In brief, I argue that God’s love (properly understood) is at the center of a cosmic dispute and that God’s commitment to love provides a morally sufficient reason for God’s allowance of evil, with significant ramifications for understanding divine providence as operating within what I call covenantal rules of engagement.” — John C. Peckham, Theodicy of Love: Cosmic Conflict and the Problem of Evil (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018), p. 4.

“The decree that Israel was not to enter Canaan for forty years was a bitter disappointment to Moses and Aaron, Caleb and Joshua; yet without a murmur they accepted the divine decision. But those who had been complaining of God’s dealings with them, and declaring that they would return to Egypt, wept and mourned greatly when the blessings which they had despised were taken from them. They had complained at nothing, and now God gave them cause to weep. Had they mourned for their sin when it was faithfully laid before them, this sentence would not have been pronounced; but they mourned for the judgment; their sorrow was not repentance, and could not secure a reversing of their sentence.” — Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 392.

Discussion Questions:

<–Thursday

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Key Thought: This quarter we will look at the themes of Deuteronomy: the everlasting covenant, law and grace, present truth messages, and the love of God.
October 2, 2021

1. Have a volunteer read Genesis 12:1-3.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. From our perspective today, how do we understand what God was promising to do through Abraham?
3. Personal Application: How do we see ourselves in relationship to the world and the call to give the three angels’ messages? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “How much of what God was telling Abraham did he and his descendants really understand what God was saying?” How would you respond to your friend?

2. Have a volunteer read Exodus 19:4-8.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. Why did the Lord call the people out of Egypt?
3. Personal Application: Do you consider the church members a kingdom of priests and a holy nation? Why or why not? Share your thoughts
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “They said that they would do all that the Lord commanded. Isn’t that legalism? How do we discern between obedience and legalism? How do we discern between legalism and obedience? What could turn obedience into legalism?” How would you respond to your friend?

3. Have a volunteer read Numbers 14:28-35.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
2. What was the punishment given to the nation because of their refusal to trust what the Lord had told them to do?
3. Personal Application: Since disobedience usually comes from a lack of trust in God’s word, how can we learn to have more faith? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states: “Since God seems to destroy those who don’t follow His will, we should obey just so we won’t get punished, but my heart wouldn’t be in it.“ How would you respond to your relative?

4. Have a volunteer read Genesis 3:1-7. 

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
2. What does this show us about the truth of the freedom found in love?
3. Personal Application: Take a mental note of your thoughts throughout the day. What does this teach you about the state of your own heart?” Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them.

(Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared.”Ministry of Healing, p. 148).

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“All that the LORD has spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8; see also Exodus 24:3, Exodus 24:7). Though, no doubt, the people had meant those words each time they said them, sacred history shows that, unfortunately, their actions time and again contradicted their words. Though they were the chosen people, though they had entered freely into the covenant with the Lord, they didn’t keep up their end of the deal, which really came down to one thing.

What was the crucial component for Israel in regard to the covenant? ( Exodus 19.4-5).

Image © Kevin Carden Goodsalt.com

The call to obey God, to keep His law, was no more legalism then than it is now (see Matthew 7:24-27; John 14:15; James 2:20;  Romans 6.11-12), and yet, over and over the children of Israel failed to keep up their end of the deal.

Indeed, early on, even in the very sight of Mount Sinai itself, they fell into rank apostasy (see Exodus 32:1-6). Unfortunately, unfaithfulness seemed to be more the norm than the exception, and thus, instead of quickly entering into the Promised Land, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.

Read Numbers 14:28-35. What was the punishment meted out to the nation because of their refusal to trust what the Lord had told them to do?

Then, as now, so often disobedience comes, not just from outright rebellion (though that does happen) but from a failure to trust in what God tells us. What made this sin even more heinous for Israel was the fact that, as God Himself said, all these men had “seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times” (Numbers 14:22). Despite all that they had seen and experienced, they still refused to obey the Lord and to take the land, despite God’s promises that they would succeed (Numbers 13-Numbers 14).

<–Wednesday Friday–>

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This video is produced by the South Pacific Division Discipleship team.

Week 1_ Preamble to Deuteronomy_ study this lesson for Oct 2 from SPD Discipleship on Vimeo.

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