Andrew (A.)

“I grew up in a small town, there was nothing special about me, I was an ordinary kid. I lied and I stole, you know the usual kid stuff, but like most of us it meant nothing back then, just kids being kids. I never thought about where I was going when I died, I thought God was just this man in the sky watching over us all and that we all went to heaven when we died and this was my thinking up until my early teen years, but we’ll get to that.

I lived life, went to school, played with friends, again just normal stuff. However, my life changed when I was 7 years old. I remember playing in my room, my brother was in his room, everything was fine, until my mum called us into her room. there she sat in tears with my dad standing beside her. they informed us that they were getting a divorce. a happy kid, thrown from happiness into confusion. Anyone who has gone through a divorce knows the emptiness that it leaves. Life, however, didn’t end. My dad moved out and my brother and I would spend the weekends with him. The world kept spinning, the clock kept ticking and I just got on with things.

When I was 9 things changed again. my mum met a man and we moved to another country, but not everything went with us. My dad and brother remained behind. Needless to say it wasnt easy, but I was young and didn’t fully understand what was going on. Life just kept moving, I started a new school, made new friends, gained new family members. Nothing spectacular happened. Just life. At 13 my mum and step-dad (they married when I was 11) started attending a local Baptist church. They would take me every Sunday and I would sit and listen to what was being said, things about salvation and hell and heaven. A whole new realm of things I had never heard of before. It was in that church I first heard the gospel preached, but I didn’t accept it the first time.

I liked my life, going out with friends, doing usual teenage stuff, I didn’t want that to change by becoming a Christian; so I didn’t. I went to church on Sundays, and lived my life the rest of the week. I was never opposed to going to church though, it wasn’t boring, it seemed alive somehow. As the weeks went by I started to notice the sin in my life: things like what I was saying or thinking. There was a pressure, a war going on inside me. The Holy Spirit was trying to do a work but my sinful flesh was resisting. Then, one October Sunday, we had a guest preacher in. He was teaching from James 4:14 which says “whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away“. This verse cut me deep to the heart. I had been putting off getting saved for so long because I thought I had all the time in the world, but this verse brought me to an inevitable truth.We don’t know whats going to happen tomorrow, sure we make plans and routines, but no-one can honestly go to sleep at night knowing they will wake up. Another truth that hit me is that our lives are short, they are compared to a vapour, they rise up and disappear in an instant. I knew then that I needed the Lord to save me. Realising that I could die and spend eternity in hell hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasnt saved, and I realised that I was in serious danger of hell. I also realised that I wasnt doing anything worthwhile in my life. I needed a purpose, a direction. So that evening after the service I was taken to a back room in the church and received Christ as my Lord and saviour.

That was 5 years ago. I thought that becoming a Christian would make my life boring and that I would lose all my friends, but how wrong I was! getting saved was just the start. To be able to commune with the One who made me is an incomparable experience. My life has not been dull since the day I got saved. I am not perfect though, I slip up a lot, but the Lord is working on me. I’m still a work in progress, like the potter’s clay I’ve been reshaped many times, but it is all worth it to know that one day when I die, I’m going to spend eternity with the One who died for me.” – A.