A lot of you have never heard my full testimony, most have heard only little bits and pieces. So I thought I would write this, as something happened today during my lunch hour that amazed me, a touched me personally.
Hope you enjoy reading, and sorry if it is a little bit long!
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When I was about 5 or 6 years old, I started wondering where everything came from. How did the earth get created? What are the stars? How did humans come to walk the earth? I would ask parents and other grown ups, and would get the same answer "The big bang created everything, then we evolved from apes". Which I think is bad advice to give a young child, as children hang on their elders every word! How many people out their originally believed the moon was made of cheese because their dad made a joke?
Just me? Ok never mind then! But you get the idea.
I took the info in about the big bang theory, but for some reason it still never made sense to me. (If a 5 year old can work out that the big bang theory is a load of baloney why are these scientists still trying to work it out?!?)
But one day at school, during assembly we had a guest speaker in. A man who had come to talk to us about God, and tell us stories of the bible. He came once a month to tell these stories, and he used to paint them at the same time on this big canvas on big easel at the front of the hall. As he tells the story the painting gets better and better and at the end you would have a beautiful painting. (A picture is worth a thousand words right?)
I always used to like this mans stories, and because of him I started learning about God, and Jesus, and the real explanation on how the world was created and we come to live here!
I remember praying one time during one of his assemblies, when I was a little older, about 8 or 9 years old, and saying "God here I am, use me, send me, I will go wherever you will go!" and I meant it with the earnest desire! Thinking back now, I realised what a powerful prayer that was, coming from such a young child!
Then as I got older I kind of forgot about all this, until I was about 17, when my best friend at the time invited me to start going to church with him. I started going, and every week pastor Ronnie would do an altar call, but I would just sit there in my seat too scared to raise my hand and go up. After 2 or 3 weeks, the pastor came and asked me if I knew Jesus, did I want to invite him into my life and into my heart. I said yes and on Sunday 1st of September 2002 I gave my life to Jesus, I was born again!
After a few months of going to church my parents decided that I was "acting weird" and it was down to church, and were very against me going there. They said I was not allowed to go again and banned me from attending completely. But this did not stop me! I would to wake up at the early hours of the morning, and get ready for church and sneak out of the house! Or I would say I was sleeping over at a friend's house on Saturday night. I just "forgot" to mention this friend was the pastor's son Graham, so as you do I attended church on the Sunday after the sleepover!
My Parents eventually caught on, and "agreed" to a compromise. They would let me go to church every other weekend. But I still was not happy, I wanted more of God. So decided at the age of 18, I was going to move out of my parent's house and rent a flat with my friend.
At first everything was going great, I had my own place with my best friend, I got to go to church every week, I had been asked to sing on the worship team, and I had a great job. Things couldn't be better!
But then something happened, my best friend left the church. He had been living in sin. I had suspected it for a little while but it all eventually came to light and I learnt the truth.
I didn't know what to do. My relationship with my best friend was painfully torn apart, I lost other friends, I had to move out of the apartment we shared, I got depressed, and I even lost my job.
I didn't know what to do, my best friend, the one who introduced me to church, the reason I was now a born again believer, the one I looked up to, had fell.
It took me quite a while to recover from this. I don't usually talk about it anymore, I like leaving the bad parts of my past behind me. I still pray for my friend, even though I don't have contact with him anymore except for the occasional "Hello" when we pass in the street.
Quite a few years on now, I am now back on my feet, still totally in love with and committed to God as I was on day one. I am now a youth leader at our church, looking after the under 13's, and I also sing and play guitar in our church worship team.
But my testimony doesn't end there, as I just wanted to mention something that happened today down on the streets of Bradford. I decide to pop into town for my lunch hour, and noticed a man, with an artist easel set up, paint brush in one hand, bible in the other, and he is preaching to all the passers by.
I was so amazed! I went over and introduced myself and said I was a born again Christian. I got chatting with him and it turns out that he was the guy who came to my school 15-16 years ago, when I was just 5 or 6 years old, and was one of the first people to ever talk to me about God, Jesus and the bible!
I was totally in awe! I had prayed for this guy regularly. Even though I didn't know exactly who he was, his name or anything, I prayed for him because he had planted a seed in me from such a young age, he had seen a "gap in the market" and started going round to primary school kids telling them about the wonderful love of Jesus!
I used to pray God would bless him and that others would have been touched by him and are now living a life of love, knowing Jesus. I also asked God if it was his will we would meet again, so I could thank him! If not on earth but in heaven! So when I bumped into him today it was great!
As we were stood there chatting, two young school girls came up and asked what he was painting. So he started chatting to them about Jesus, and after 10 minutes asked if they would like to get to know Jesus. One of them said yes, so right there and then, in the middle of Bradford city centre during a busy lunch hour, we both prayed for her and she gave her life to Jesus! She walked away smiling with a tract in her hand, her life changed forever!
The guy then said "I hope she starts going to a church and starts really living for Christ" to which I replied, "you never know, in 15 years time that girl might come up to you and ask 'are you the guy who used to do the paintings about God' just like I have today!"
So I just thought I would share my testimony with you all, because not many of you have heard it, and to encourage you. When you tell people around you about Jesus, don't be disheartened if at first you don't see results! In 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years time, you might have someone come up to you and thank you for being faithful all those years ago, and sowing into their life, planting that seed in them, and introducing them to their saviour!