My coming to Christ was a pretty exciting adventure for me and completely life-changing.
My first experience of Church as a child I found quite off-putting. I, rightly or wrongly, felt there was a lot of hypocrisy in the churches we were made to go to, people seemed a long way from anything supernatural, exciting and meaningful.
As I grew up, I put my hopes in film and music to try to satisfy my spiritual needs by stimulating my imagination with scenes from other worlds and realities. I was subconsciously misled into believing there was some truth in this, and sought after the fruits it offered by rejecting Christian philosophies, and embracing anything that seemed supernatural or fun. I thought I had it all worked out. I believed it was all psychology.
I spent time reading and involving myself in any philosophy that seemed interesting, but in reality, failed to grow spiritually much at all. I always remember feeling unsatisfied, that reality was not nearly as exciting as the ‘New Age’, spiritual type books suggested it would be. I slowly became more aware that according to my belief system, my life was utterly meaningless, and like most secular people, I spent my time trying to distract myself from the ‘unyielding despair’.
As I grew older, I became sad and fearful at the pointlessness of life and the inevitability of death. The mainstream philosophy of life, the pursuit of happiness, just wasn’t enough. I knew there was a big hole in my life and nothing I could do would satisfy it. Sometimes I’d forget about it, other times it would be achingly obvious to me. I knew I was missing out on something but I didn’t realise that who I was really missing was God.
Anyway, for one reason or another I woke in the middle of the night from a nightmare, feeling full of dread, and really scared; at the back of my mind I knew this all related to the despair that was at the root of my beliefs. In my fearful and very aware, middle of the night state I cried out to Jesus. I said, “If you’re there, please come into my life and help me.”
Well, I had all but forgotten about this event when I set about my work the next day. Then, as I was driving home on my motorbike, I was struck by an almost overpowering and somehow familiar sense of love and care and understanding. I felt as though I was being hugged and comforted. I was being told that everything would be all right. That I could come home now. Just “go to church on Sunday and you will understand”. The experience was so powerful and tears welled up in my eyes and I drove along on my motorbike with them coming down my face. I got home and told my then girlfriend (now wife) my experience, and she agreed that she felt the need to go to church so we decided, with some trepidation, to attempt to go on Sunday.
This all happened on a Friday. The following Sunday morning I gathered a list of churches together from the Internet, and set about with the intention of visiting them in alphabetical order. The first one was Anerley (Christchurch). Debbie and I walked in, and I had at the back of my mind the worry of repeating my earlier church experiences. Anyway, I was shocked to discover a building full of people genuinely seeking after God, a vicar standing at the front playing an electric guitar and the presence of the Holy Spirit I recognised from my experience on the motorbike. Mike the Vicar invited us on the Alpha course, which was starting in the next few weeks. I am so glad to have come home to my Heavenly Father who was running towards me, arms outstretched, desperate to welcome me back.