God-given Identity

By Kevin Mak

Hi, my name is Kevin and I am a recent graduate of a UK university. This is my testimony on how the Lord transformed my university journey and inspired me to live for more – the usual saying of “making the most of your university experience” was reshaped entirely by Him and His people. From being a “self-made” man preferring the world to God, I claim Jesus Christ’s sovereignty over my life and I desire to choose and commit to Him more and more faithfully.


Hi, my name is Kevin and I am a recent graduate of a UK university.

I was raised a cradle Catholic, even though I never really fully understood what that entailed. By God’s grace, I had the privilege to attend the School of Witness (SOW) in 2017 where I came to a deep knowledge and encounter of the present day sovereign of my life – Jesus Christ.

Prior to my conversion, I lived largely as a “self-made” man. I worked hard in all areas of my life as I believed that I was the only person capable of controlling my own destiny. If I succeeded in my academic or extracurricular pursuits, it was because my sheer will and determination got me through. If I failed, I had to work harder. By and large, my personal motto of “you reap what you sow” got me through most of my schooling years. However, this also made me my own god. It is no wonder that St Cyprian boldly declares “whatever a man prefers to God, he makes a god to himself”!

It was at SOW that these things were revealed to me. I slowly realised how much I had placed myself and what others thought of me on a pedestal. Conversely, God was nowhere in sight. It was at SOW that I decided to give God a chance in my life – I no longer desired to live the life that I wanted for myself but I wanted to live the life He desired for me.

Consequently, moving to the UK to pursue my undergraduate studies post-SOW was the first real spiritual challenge that I had to navigate. I remember the spiritual loneliness and isolation I felt when I first moved to the UK. I no longer desired to live out the materialistic and hedonistic plans for my university days.

Since I had made a commitment to the Lord to live the life that He desired for me, I started to put in place measures to ensure that Jesus remained King in my life. This saw me planning my days around daily mass, spending time with the Blessed Sacrament at least once a week and praying the Divine Office each day. This allowed me to make active commitments to the Lord despite the lack of spiritual support around me. Gradually, I started noticing that my priorities shifted – the pursuit of stellar grades, a killer career path and a thriving social life slowly abated. Instead, my prayer life was deepened and my priorities revolved around the Lord. These moments were reflected by St Augustine’s prayer: “I sought this world and chased its finer things, yet were these not in You, they would have not been. My ceaseless longing hid the deeper truth – in all my desiring, I was desiring You.” This gave me the conviction to continue to pursue heavenly things.

The past few years have seen me get involved with OYP’s Anchor Community – a gathering place for Singaporean Catholic students who study in Europe. Even then, being in community meant saying ‘yes’ to planning events for the community, travelling to meet fellow community members and sacrificing my study/rest time to meet members across various cities. Conversely, this meant saying ‘no’ to hanging out with friends, running for committee positions in societies and travelling. It is in these moments that St Oscar Romero’s exhortation “aspire not to have more, but to be more” gives me assurance over my human desires.

Nevertheless, God continues to inspire me through His moving hand in the lives of the Anchor community members. In a similar way, I have also been left edified by how my ‘yes’ to Him has opened the doors for others to encounter Him deeply. 

As I prepare to start work abroad, a similar sense of apprehension grips me – one similar to when I first started university. Yet, John 6:68 says “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life”. I claim the truth that Jesus Christ has saved me and continues to save me. Brothers and sisters, to whom have you been going to? I pray that in this Catholic200SG, the Lord will continue His salvific work in us and that we will allow Him to take His rightful place in our lives.

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