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Testimonies & Experiences
Want to know how great God is? Read on.
God is at work in the lives of people everywhere. He reveals himself in many ways and brings with him encouragement and hope. Below are two testimonies/experiences which demonstrate this. I hope that you find them to be an encouragement! |
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Why I'm Going to China.
Do you ever wonder what God wants to do with your life? Well, I did, so I asked him and soon afterwards I began to wish I hadn't!
I was baptised in February of 1998 and later that year I decided to ask God what he wanted me to do with my life. (Let me say at this point, if you decide to ask him, be prepared for an answer that you perhaps don't want to hear!) Anyway, over the next few months, I began to get the feeling that God wanted me to be a missionary abroad. - Practically every sermon I listened to seemed to be pointing towards overseas mission - It was quite strange because every sermon I listened to, even those that were not directly about mission, seemed to strike a chord in my heart. It would suddenly start to beat very fast and hard. Then I would get sweaty palms, and by the end of the sermon my knees would start to shake!
The thing was, I didn't really want to be a missionary - I would have to be in a strange land where I probably wouldn't be able to speak the language. The culture would be completely alien to me and I wasn't a very confident person anyway, which would make things harder. As a result, I kept thinking to myself "Oh it's probably just me thinking this - it can't be God". But then I'd go to another service and the sermon would either be directly or indirectly about mission, and it would have the same effect on me as before. So eventually I gave up the idea that it was just me, and decided that maybe it would be a good idea to accept it!
Finally, I had a sense of peace when I listened to sermons again! Then I thought to myself "OK, I've accepted the fact that God probably wants me to be a missionary, so maybe it would be a good idea to ask him where he wants me to go." So I did. Not long afterwards, I began to regret that decision!!
After asking God where he wanted me to go, the first place that came into my mind was China. It didn't just kind of 'float' into my head, it was more like a punch in the nose! "No, that can't be God - it's just me" was my next thought - I can be really stupid sometimes!! China was the last place on Earth that I wanted to go - It's a communist country and it could cost me my life to go there.
Anyway, I put China to the back of my mind and started to think about all the other places on earth that I could go to. Then the whole sermon thing started to happen all over again and each time China would 'pop' back into my head, so I'd quickly push it to the back again.
This carried on for about the next year and a half - When I look back, I can't believe how stupid I was being!! It was so obvious and I knew it deep down, but I didn't want to accept it.
Eventually, I said "Look God, if you really want me to go to China, make it blatantly obvious, and then help me to accept it." I know it was pretty much blatantly obvious already but I just wanted to be sure!
Then on the third Sunday of September last year, my tutor took another boy from my school and I to his church, like he did sometimes on Leave Weekends when most of my friends went home from school for the weekend and I stayed. Anyway, this church is amazing - really on fire for God, and the sermon was really good. Except, as you can probably guess, it was about mission! At the end of the service people were invited to go up to the front for prayer as usual. I stayed in my seat. Then a few minutes later, the preacher stood up again and said: "I felt God wanted me to say this, but I don't know any details and if it is for you then you will know ... I felt that there is someone in the congregation who did not come to the front, to whom China means something!" Well, that hit me harder than ever before!! "Ok, I get the message!" was my response. As soon as I accepted it, I felt a great sense of peace and all my previous fears left me.
Now, I'm going to China some time in the near future and I know that God will be at my side so it doesn't matter if I come across difficulty because he'll help me through it. I don't even mind if it means that it will cost my life, any more! Death is not the end - it just means that I get to be with my father and best friend!
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Through Thick and Thin
God has let me know that he's always there for me, through the good times and the bad. He has taught me to rely on him when things get tough. And you know what, the times when things have been hardest have always been the times when I felt closest to God. I hope that you find this encouraging!
My life so far has not exactly been easy - ok it hasn't been as hard as a lot of people's but still hard enough.
My Mum suffers from depression and my Dad is very strict - I am not close to either of them. For much of my childhood, I felt more like a parent than a child because I am the eldest of four children and when my mum was to ill to do anything I felt responsible to take her place. My parents divorced when I was 11, so I felt even more responsible for my brother and sisters. Now when I think back to my childhood, I find it difficult to remember any happy memories. I do remember some of my dreams and ambitions though.
I had three major childhood dreams. One was to have a horse because I have always been passionate about them! Another was to go to Israel to see the places where Jesus lived and stayed - to walk in his footsteps. The final one probably sounds strange or insane even! I longed to go to boarding school! I think that deep down I longed to be away from home and to be my own person. I wanted to be able to have a proper childhood and to not have to worry about anything.
There was one major problem though. My family is not really well off and there's no way that we could afford to buy and keep a horse, let alone go on a trip to Israel or pay school fees so that I could go to boarding school as well! But when you are young and have dreams, it can be hard to understand that they are probably impossible to fulfil if you don't have money.
Anyway, someone once told me that you should tell God the desires of your heart because he loves to hear you talk to him. So that's what I did. Whenever my dreams floated back into my mind, I would tell my heavenly father about them because I knew that he could do anything!
Well, exactly a year after I was baptised, when I was fifteen, I was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and through the streets of Jerusalem! That same year I joined a Christian boarding school!!
God has really blessed me! A relative payed for me to go to Israel on a school trip and it was the best trip of my life. When I think back to it, I can see Jesus walking with me in my memories - It really was amazing! Then after writing to the headmaster of the school that I am at now, and praying about it for just under a year, I was given a place here at this school! What's even better is the fact that I don't have to pay any school fees!! I got a full scholarship!
Now here I am two years later. Coming here was one of the best things that could have happened to me. I have gained so much confidence and self esteem over these past two years that when I go back home, my old school friends can't believe I'm the same person!
As I started to feel comfortable with the people I was with, I started to open up - something that I had never really done before. Soon I realised that there was so much stuff in my life that I had just buried and kept hidden. Stuff that I needed to get out before God could bring His healing in. He provided me with a fantastic bunch of Christian friends - both pupils and teachers, who have helped me so much.
Of course, God had to do a lot of work on me to get me to where I am now. I'm still not completed yet but one day He will have fully restored me and I will become the person that He intended me to be.
Never forget that God is always by your side, through thick and thin. When things get tough, rely on Him to carry you through. Take it from me - He will!
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