How I Became A Christian
This is the text of the testimony [story of God's work in my life ] that I gave 24th December 1995 when myself and four other people were baptised at Toongabbie Baptist Church.
My life before becoming a Christian was characterised by flirting with God. Hearing alot about him - church or Sunday School until I was 13 when I was confirmed and then chose to leave church altogether and about 5000 hours of devotions when I was a Boy at Boys’ Brigade. But God was just knowledge in my head. I ran my life my way and did what I wanted. In November of 1990 my parents announced that they were going to separate. I felt my world was coming apart, my stability and the ordering influence in my world was breaking down. I tried to pray to God, a God I wasn’t sure about. I was on my knees crying and praying and I suddenly felt alone. I felt that either God wasn’t there or that if he was then he didn’t care.
I said to him, “Well get stuffed then. If you’re real anyway, I‘ll deal with this myself” - I rejected God.
And so I tried to to deal with what was happening to me by going out and drinking heavily most weekends and trying hard to have fun to fill the emptiness that was forming within. The Boys’ Brigade company I was with shutdown at the end of 1990 and so I had no Christian input.
In the middle of 1991 I was out at Coonabarabran on Practice teaching and in the midst of the darkest period of my life. Jeff Hockey called from Sydney and asked if I wanted to come to Leadership Development Course as a leader. I said yes because I liked it the year before and I knew I could pretend to be a Christian and give all the right answers. I was wrong.
At that course I ran into God, in a way that I had never met him before - a God that was real. In particular I saw the reality in Kirk Mercer, Rowan Butler and Jay Watson.
I returned home to an empty house and that night I was very angry. I let out a lot of the rage and loss and hurt that I had felt. And then I started thinking about everything that had happened in my life and especially the reality of God from LDC and the facts about God that I knew. I thought about all the little things that had lead me to this point in time. I thought either this is a coincidence and everything was meaningless or maybe this God thing was real.
Everything was too well planned, I looked about and thought - there must be a God, a God who loved me. But I was in trouble because I had offended him in a big way. In all areas of my life I had denied him his rightful place as ruler of my life. And I remembered how I had actually verbally rejected him and told him to get stuffed.
When that happened all the knowledge in my head flooded into my heart and for the first time I understood what it was all about. I understood that God did love me and would always be there to help me. My heart was also able to understand that because of Jesus dying in my place and taking the punishment for my rejection of God I was now free to relate to God as my father and me as his son. And that I was 100% assured of heaven when I died. The words “Jesus died for me” were real.
That night in July 1991, I prayed for forgiveness and accepted Jesus’ death as being for me. Since then I have changed enormously. I now have a new pattern for living based on the wishes of my creator. I have a changed attitude. I seek God first when things are hard because I know that in him is an unending source of love and strength and that the tough things in this life are sent to strengthen my faith in God and to build my character to make me more effective for him. When things are good I know that a loving God has sent them and I thank him. I strive hard to bring people to know God. I try hard to relate to people in a loving self-sacrifical way. I know that I will never be perfect now, but I also know that God has forgiven me and that he’ll never let me go.
God has blessed me with two great churches - in Paramatta City Presbyterian and here. He has brought me new brothers and sisters and a feeling of love and acceptance that I had not felt from friends before. He has provided me with great teachers like David Thurston and Christian examples like Rowan Butler, Peter Sondergeld, Peter Smith and David Bell to name a few.
In the Boys at Brigade he has provided me with many young brothers who he is working in in a mighty way, showing me once again that he is real and life changing and trustworthy.
He has helped me through my first year of teaching when I felt a failure and alone again and wishing to kill myself to escape what was happening. I ran away then, but I ran to God. To his love and his guidance which told me to persevere. I did and God has helped me and strengthened me through that experience and brought me heaps closer to him.
My growth isn’t complete and there are many areas in my life where I still have to allow God to be the one who calls the shots. I still doubt and find it difficult to trust God at times. Mostly I still have to work on my relationship with my parents to get to know them better and to let them be a part of my life again. With God’s strength I know that that will happen over time.
Tonight I am getting baptised as a public declaration of my faith. This symbol does not in anyway make me a Christian. I am a Christian already and have been for 4 and a half years. What makes me a Christian is that I acknowledge my rejection of God and accept that Jesus died to pay for the punishment that is a consequence of that rebellion.
Finally I am now accountable to you all. I have stated my faith and any of you are free to question it and to challenge me when I am not living consistantly and also to encourage me as I will endevour to do the same for you.
