This article originally appeared on the New Growth Press blog to promote The Jesus I Wish I Knew In High School: Asian American Edition, published by New Growth Press. We hope you’ll read it with the teenagers in your life.
“If you were a pie, how much of the pie do you think your parents know of you?”
This is a question that I like to ask students. It’s a fun question because it touches on one’s sense of identity, perception of how they’re seen by their families, and it invites many more questions for further discussion.
The answers are extra interesting for the Asian American college students I minister to, because like me, their family histories have been touched by immigration and its effects. When households have experienced the immigration process within a generation or two, language and cultural differences have profound impacts on family relationships. Parents or grandparents may primarily see the world through the lens of their origin country’s norms and values, while children or grandchildren spend their formative years immersed in the cultural norms and values that surround them—norms and values that parents and grandparents may not understand. In turn, how students and their parents relate and communicate with one another are indelibly marked. The pie question pokes at all of this.
My own answer to this question is that my parents know one-eighth of the pie that is me. I immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong when I was six. Throughout my early years, I felt that my parents knew or understood only a fraction of my heart (thoughts, feelings, affections, desires) and my history (circumstances and happenings). To me, we were worlds apart in how we processed and experienced the changes in our lives.
In my teens and twenties, I wrestled with my need and longing to be known and loved by my parents in ways I could comprehend. With a language barrier in the home, it was a challenge just to communicate about superficial matters, never mind the deep things. Conversations never strayed beyond the practical and the material. What was in my heart remained buried there, unearthed and unknown.
This experience resonates with many Asian American students. I tell them that I return to Psalm 139 time and again, clinging to the truths found there that continue to comfort and sustain me. It’s a psalm made true and powerful for those of us who rest in Jesus. I share that even if our parents do not know the depths of who we are, our loving heavenly Father does. We are not alone; we are fully known and fully loved, and this gives us an unchanging identity and a stable foundation. This is true for us no matter our background or family situation.
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
Psalm 139:1–6 (ESV)
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
God’s Knowledge of Us Is Personal
God’s omniscient knowledge of us is accurate, factual knowledge. He knows our physical whereabouts and when-abouts (“when I sit and when I rise”, v.2), our futures (“my path”, v.3), the number of our days (v. 16), even the number of hairs on our heads (Luke 12:7).
God’s knowledge of us is not something he had to work to acquire. Nothing is new or surprising to him. He doesn’t need to examine us to learn information about us. Yet God’s knowledge of us is also experiential and personal. He “discerns” our thoughts (v.2) and “searches” us (v.3), the way a partner or a friend would search our hearts by sitting next to us, paying attention, looking and listening deeply. God’s “searching” and “knowing” depicts an action that he intentionally and actively undertakes. Even though he can instantly recall everything about us at any moment in time, he turns his face toward us and his eyes search us. He hears us.
That he chooses to do so must mean that it pleases him to know us in this personal way (Psalm 115:3). Ultimately, God’s knowing of us is an expression of his love for us. In Jesus, God’s love for his children is the perpetually attentive, searching, familiar love of a perfect Father.
Not only does God know all of us—the full pie—but he cares to and wants to know us in full.
“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me!” (v.6)
We Can Rest From Code-Switching
Code-switching is defined as the “process of shifting from one linguistic code (a language or dialect) to another, depending on the social context or conversational setting.” Whether we are going from home to workplace or moving from speaking with children to speaking with adults, we must all code switch from time to time. We do it for various reasons—to maintain professionalism, to fit in with different groups. For the people who have always known a language barrier in their home, we do it so that our parents can comprehend us.
More than a matter of translation, of syntax and grammar and pronunciation, code-switching is an internal mind-shift we undertake to connect with the person in front of us. Our tone, mannerisms, our reactions, and what we should and should not say, among other things—all of this we consciously and subconsciously contract and stretch and squish to accommodate. We are not only adjusting our words—we are adjusting ourselves.
So to us, verse 4 of Psalm 139 is especially beautiful: “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.”
Our heavenly Father gets us. We don’t need to strain and contort ourselves for him to see us and hear us. Without any work on our part, he not only comprehends us, but he understands what’s on our hearts at the deepest level, in the most intricate and nuanced ways. Before our thoughts have been fully formed, he knows the meanings behind them—before the words are even on our tongues.
Yet he wants to hear us speak our thoughts and feelings to him, and he patiently listens (1 Peter 5:7). Praise God, what a love we have in Jesus. And what rest for us!
Offering the Gospel ina Language Teenagers Understand
There are many other wonderful truths in Scripture that offer specific comfort and help in each sphere of our students’ lives. We love our students well by coming alongside them relationally, getting to know them, and seeing their hearts when they choose to share with us. We help our students by delivering to them the good news of God’s love for suffering sinners in their “language,” by using words and illustrations that speak to the unique individuals we have come to know.
And if we have walked their road ourselves, we have the added opportunity of ministering to students with the empathy and hindsight gained from our own experiences. In doing so, we offer them the comfort that we have received from the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-5), who, in his love, satisfies our longing to be known more than we could ever hope or imagine.
In 2024, Rooted had the honor of publishing three new books for teenagers: The Jesus I Wish I Knew in High School, Asian American Edition (by Rooted authors); Longing for Christmas (Rooted authors), and Identity: Discovering Who You Are in Christ by Lindsey Carlson.
