My Testimony

I have never really sat down and wrote out my testimony of how I came to Christ, so I thought I would give it a shot. Probably the main reasons I haven't are that it was quite gradual, and it maybe wasn't that spectacular. But I figure EVERY story of a person coming to Christ is spectacular! So here goes--

I was raised in a Christian family, and my parents were missionaries in the Northern Territory. I grew up going to church, and Christianity was always there around me. I never saw a reason to doubt what I heard about God, and always just believed that He was real, even though I had never seen Him personally-- maybe like I believed that China was real, even though I had never seen it with my own eyes. But as I didn't really give China a second thought, I didn't really ever give God a second thought either.

The first time I remember thinking about Him, was when I was about twelve years old. I had been listening to tapes of Keith Green's music, and I found myself being very moved-- particularly when I heard songs like Rushing Wind and The Sheep and the Goats. I would be so moved as to get a lump in my throat, and I think those were the first times that I really thought of God as Someone, rather than Something.

Then came high school and rebellious teenager stuff, and God was pushed aside as I cherished the idea that I was the centre of the world, and that the world revolved around me. Though I believed in God, and continued to go to church with my family, I felt no real twinge of conscience about the way I was living. I find it bizarre to think about now, that I was so exposed to the word of God, and to the lives of Christians around me, and yet it was all like water off a ducks back to me. What i really needed, was a bit of a shake up in my life.

This shake up came in 1996, through a combination of things. I was in my first year of university, and had joined a Bible study there. The leader of the group asked me to start meeting with him one on one, to look at the Bible together. I was really happy to do this, and we started reading through the book of Colossians. At the same time, there was a new student minister at my church, and I struck up a friendship with him. The influence of these two guys was massive. They were different to all my other mates. They seemed very gentle and humble, and very honest. There was no bravado. They seemed to genuinely care about me, and where I stood with God, and this all had a very big impact on me.

At this same time, two people close to me died, both within about five or six months, and this really knocked me for six. The first was the sudden death of the father of my baby nephew, a guy a few years older than me who I had really looked up to. I really did not know what to make of this, or how to deal with it. It is all a bit of a blur to me now. But the one thing that sticks out to me, was that the guy from church came over to my house to see me and talk to me. He listened while I cried, and then he prayed for me. As he was saying goodbye, he grabbed hold of my shoulders and pulled me in to a big hug. This took me by surprise, but it really meant a lot to me. He genuinely was feeling my pain, mourning because I was mourning.

Later in the year my grandfather also died, and this kept the ground feeling shaky beneath me. I really had this sense of realising that the world was a lot bigger than me, that I was definitely not in control, that I couldn't bank on things staying the same forever, and that death could come anytime. All of this finally pushed me to look at my Bible, not with a passing glance anymore, but as the place where I might find answers, relief and comfort.

I looked at Ecclesiastes, and at one of the gospels, and the penny, after all this time, finally dropped. Belief in God was one thing, but trust and allegiance to His Son Jesus was something else. This was the one thing that I needed. So I prayed and asked Jesus to be MY saviour, and I said to God that I wanted to follow Him wholeheartedly from that point on. It hit home at last that Jesus had died FOR ME.

This was no longer some words repeated at church, or sung in a song. This was a fact, a real thing that had happened for me, to me. With the realisation of the depth of the love of God, I found so much joy, and my life suddenly seemed to take on a much deeper sense of worth and meaning. My life had a point now.

Anyway, that's about it. That was twelve years ago this year.