The Beautiful Tension of Bicultural Faith

The hidden gift inside wrestling with identity.

You Were Never Meant to Fully Belong Here

I recently watched Crazy Rich Asians again — funny, heartwarming, and, at its core, deeply familiar.

The movie wrestles with something so many Asian Americans (and Asian American Christians) feel: the loneliness of not belonging anywhere.

Not fully Asian. Not fully American.

Not fully accepted here. Not fully understood there.

In the movie, Constance Wu’s character is told bluntly — “She is neither Asian nor American.”

And for so many, that tension is not just cinematic — it’s a daily reality.

But after 38 years of living it, I don’t see it as lonely anymore.

I see it as something profoundly hopeful.

Because every Christian — not just Asian American Christians — wrestles with this.

Everyone is navigating the gap between where we come from… and where we are going.

Every believer is learning to say goodbye to old ways and hello to the new life Jesus offers.

For me, that means asking:

How much of my culture do I hold onto?

How much do I surrender?

And most importantly — is where I’m going looking more like Christ, or just more like my culture?

If my life looks exactly like the culture I came from — whether Asian, American, or anything else — I might be walking the wrong road.

Because the journey is not about erasing my ethnicity.

It’s about letting my identity be refined by Christ’s kingdom, not confined by my culture.

If you feel the ache of “in-betweenness,” hear me clearly:

You are not alone.

You are not behind.

You are not lost.

You are on the journey every Christian is called to walk — learning daily what stories to say goodbye to, and what greater Story to say yes to.

And the beauty?

You already belong.

Not because you fit into a culture perfectly — but because you fit into His kingdom completely.

You were made for goodness,
Phil