My journey...
As a young child, I never grew up in a faith family. Faith wasn't something that was ever discussed at home. My knowledge of Christianity was limited to what I learnt at school but I must admit, looking back now, I was very blessed with the school that I attended. Going to primary school in the 1990s I remember vividly that every morning we would gather together in the main hall for assembly. As standard for us during assemblies, we would sing Christian hymns and songs, and pray. And this was in a state school, not a faith school. Every Christmas we would do the Nativity play and so because of these things, I would say that I've always believed in God. I remember praying most nights as I would go to bed and so I believe the Lord was at work in my heart even from an early age, even though I wasn't exposed to anything of faith at home up to that point.
Around the time I turned 10 years old, I ended up having a conversation with my parents about faith and asking why I wasn't Christened as a baby. Not that I understood what that meant. My mum told me that my dad had wanted me to be old enough to decide for myself if I wanted to do that and so I made that choice. My parents took me to the local parish church, where I was 'Christened'. My mum started to take me to church every Sunday and the church became a normal part of my life. But even though that was the case, the Bible never became a book that I would read often. But then High School happened.
Not long after starting high school I remember an assembly being led by The Gideons. Whilst I don't remember much about the assembly itself, what has always stayed with me is the little red book of the New Testament and Psalms that was given to each student as we were leaving the hall. That New Testament stayed with me most of the time and I would often bring it to school with me and read it. Sometimes you never know how precious something is to a person, and the little red Gideons NT and Psalms was something that I treasured. This helped me often, especially with the suggested Scriptures at the front to read if you were feeling or struggling with different things.
However, even though I was going to church often and had my Gideons NT, there was something that my heart just wasn't truly getting. I wasn't understanding about the relationship that God invites us into. Looking back, my heart was of the impression that it was more about following the rules to be part of the club. I may have had the mental understanding but without the heart revelation.
It was after I left college and started a full-time job that that revelation came. I was at a low point in life. Like so many in society, I had fallen for the deception that says that if you only have more 'stuff' to live a materialistic life you will find happiness. What an empty promise! I was struggling with a lack of meaning in my life, not understanding what my purpose was. It felt like a constant weight of hopelessness on my shoulders. Then one evening at home, the thought came to me that I needed to switch God TV on. Looking back now, I know it was God but at the time it felt like a very strange thought. I started to watch a teaching program that I was able to engage with and when I realised it was on every night, I started watching every night. One evening, after the Bible teacher had been explaining about how God wants us in a personal relationship with Him, the invitation was given to come and give our lives to Jesus if we wanted. I knew in that moment that I needed to make that commitment. Even though I would have said that I had done that 10 years previously, now I truly understood what I was doing.
As soon as I made that commitment, I felt that heaviness lifted off of me and was filled with joy instead. I felt like a completely new person and it is safe to say that life has never been the same.
I had the strongest impression immediately that the Gospel was not something that should be confined to the four walls of the church building. I started to ask the Lord to place someone in my life that had a heart for discipleship and the Lord answered in a rather unexpected way. One evening one of my non-Christian friends messaged me to tell me that a Christian had started to meet with them in Starbucks on Monday
evenings. He told me, "You'll really like him!" Not long after that I was contacted by this guy, Steve, who invited me to connect. It turned out Steve was the former director for my town's local Youth for Christ branch. I got on with him like a house on fire, as they say. As he was explaining to me that he and his family were church planting and that their heart was to make disciples who would make more disciples, I
knew that he was the Lord's answer to my prayer.
This was the next step in my journey of faith with the Lord. Which has now taken me to being an international missionary for Christ in the country of Macedonia, to take that culture with me of disciples who make more disciples.
I think that there are often things that are strong memories on the journey of faith or what the Lord has been using to draw people to Himself. Even though I was 20 years old when I truly committed my life to the Lord, I look back in wonder and awe at how the Lord had been at work in my life years before, with seeds sown into my heart through those school assemblies and the Gideons New Testament and Psalms. They will always be things that I can look back and say they were blessings from God in my life.
Scott
