This section is about people who decided to give up on their own egoism and decide to accept Jesus as their Lord. About how they came to take this step and how they experienced it. This is - without a doubt - an extreme change, a real tourning point in one´s life. And despite this being such a big step looking at it from the perspective of "Before Christ", everyone who did it agrees that it was the best decision in their lives.
Juerg´s story My story starts in February 2006. I had just had established a new and very intense relationship. Me and her clicked on a very deep level immediately and we grew very deep in a very short time. Right from the beginning of this relationship, I had a very strong feeling of big changes ahead and a long lasting relationship. At that time, I was a "normal" Swiss atheist, believing in the existence of a spiritual world, somehow fascinated by the thought of it. I knew that somehow I wanted to get involved with spirituality one day, but I was also scared about getting involved with the "bad guys", with the black side of it. I knew that the spiritual world must be huge and that there is bad and good. So I never really made a concrete step towards spirituality. Then one day my life took a turn. Through this newly established relationship, I felt evil working on me. In the beginning softly, as evil just wanted to keep me off her. For privacy issues, I will not get into details about her and our relationship. Evil started off killing my feelings for her, taking it one step at a time, until about one week later, on Tuesday night, April 4, it went full throttle on me. Why that very night? It was about a major decision to our relationship, whether we should meet each other or not. When I went to bed that evening, I could feel evil being close to me. As I tried to go to sleep, I could feel evil creeping up to me and getting into my body. There was nothing I could do about it, as soon as I tried to go to sleep, it started to flood my mind and my body again. Of course, it was only an illusion (evil works a lot with illusions, as I already experienced earlier and then also later during the "affected" period). Still, that night, I felt as if it was going to take me over. And I had no protection - nothing I could do. Or was there? That night, while not being able to sleep, rolling back and forth in bed, panicking, I tried to pray. I didn´t know exactly who to pray to, I just knew that I should pray to God, and sure enough, there were warm shivers of love down my spine every time I prayed. I did that a few times that night. The next morning, I was devastated. I knew that I could not go on like this. I had the choice to either let go of my new girlfriend or look for support. I decided to look for support. A few years earlier, I met Paddy who was studying with me to become an airline pilot. He was a Christian then already and we talked about God a few times. For some reason, he was the only one who could explain Christianity in a way that I would understand it then. So I knew that he was the only person who could help me, since he knows me and I trust him. At that point, he was my only link to God. Now check this coincidence: I remember that Paddy, who flies for MAF in Chad (Africa), mentioned to me that he will be in Switzerland in April, because his wife will give birth to their first child. It so happened that he had just arrived in Switzerland when my emergency call reached him. For the following days after that horrifying night, I decided to reduce the relationship with my girlfriend to a friendship level, as I was too scared of evil. Needless to say that my decision - as I mentioned it earlier - was to delay us meeting. I was too scared, and evil showed me how strong it can be. The following nights went ok, more or less, with me waking up every three hours or so, praying a bit and going back to sleep. Paddy and me met on Saturday, April 8, 2006. He came to my apartment and brought me a New Testament. Since I completely trust him, as we have always been friends, I told him the whole story and I told him that I need help. At that point, I didn´t know about the Holy Spirit and about the importance of Jesus. So we talked for a while and then we prayed. He prayed in a wonder- and powerful way, at least that is how I perceived it then. He prayed that Jesus would appear to me if He existed and come into my life, he prayed that Jesus may flood me with His love and peace. So in that hour, between 11 and 12 in the morning, I gave my life to Christ. At noon, Paddy left and I had to get on my way to a friend´s birthday party. His name is Beni and since it´s about an hour and a half drive to his place, I hopped in my car early because I had agreed to help him with setting up the decorations and music system for the party. I remember clearly, as I was driving south on the highway, on this beautiful and clear Saturday afternoon, feeling extremely relieved after this prayer session with Paddy, it just hit me. I was driving, talking to Jesus and it hit me! I felt like multiple waves of loving peace and happiness just flooded my heart. I must have had an ear to ear smile behind the wheel, driving south, looking at the panoramic alps, as God´s love filled my heart. There He was, coming right to me, filling me in, while I was smiling like crazy, driving and - He made me miss the correct exit! I was enjoying God so much, I missed my exit. I needed more then two hours for that trip to my friend when it usually would take about half an hour less, but it didn’t bother me at all. From that moment on, I knew I was saved. From this day forward, I can live under His protection. I decided to change into His sphere of control. That was one of the most powerful experiences of my life, if not THE most powerful. How did the story with evil go on? Well, evil was still there, but it couldn´t affect me that badly anymore from that day forward. It still was able to affect my mind by building illusions and affecting my emotions, but it couldn´t get into my heart anymore. Because in my heart, I now have the Holy Spirit residing, the spirit of God, as I learned later. Paddy stayed in Switzerland for a few weeks, as planned. Just long enough to introduce me with some of his Christian friends and to his church. Then he returned to Chad, back to work.
My girlfriend and I got to meet after that, we battled a time with evil. It tried to bring us apart by using strong illusions, by tempering with our moods and emotions and feelings. By now, evil has been removed, thank God. I thank you, Lord Jesus, for saving me, for Your grace, Your loyalty and Your love. Thank you, Lord, for removing my blindness and showing me the truth! Praise the Lord! Amen.
Devi´s story My life did not experience a drastic change after I received Christ. I used to envy people who said that they used to be like this and after receiving Christ they experienced significant changes in their lives. I had quite a normal childhood; I got scolded by my parents, fell down from a tree, bruised myself, etc. etc. But I do remember feeling a lot of resentments and I used to get angry quite easily. When I didn’t like the way I look, I resent myself for not looking as pretty or as tall as the other girls. When people don´t work the way I want them to work, I yelled at them. I also didn´t like being ´mediocre´ in my class, so I used to push myself to study. However, when I didn´t get the results that I wanted, I got angry with myself for being so lazy. One day I failed my undergraduate study and I got really depressed because I had never failed before in my life. You see … I was brought up with the belief that if I really work hard at something, I will be successful in it. So this failure really brought me down to the pit. I asked God why He let this thing happened to me when I really already studied so hard: was I still too lazy? Didn´t I put enough time in studying? It just didn´t sound logical to me. I became very depressed. I blamed myself and everybody else, including my parents for not giving me the ´genius´ genes (as if they can pre-order my genes before conception, right?). During my search for a reason, a stranger approached me in the campus while I was studying. She asked me if I have received Christ. I said I was busy (was she blind? didn´t she see that I was drowned in books?). But just to be polite, I let her speak to me for 5 minutes. I have known and prayed to God and Jesus since I was a child, so maybe I could tell her that later when she finished. She told me how the world is filled with so many hatred and destructions because of sin. We too could never become perfect because situations or other people would make us angry, bitter or sad. Life never comes up the way we planned them. There is huge gap that separates us from God because of sin. No matter how good we are, we can never reach God´s standard of perfection. Of course this news devastated me. If what I do didn´t matter to God, then why do I have to live on this earth? She explained to me that this gap can only be bridged with one thing and that is Christ. The cross is a symbol of the bridge connecting us to God. If we want to be made right or perfect with God, we need to have Christ in our lives. It is because God loves us so much and knows that our own work or effort can never reach His standard of perfection, He decided to send us His perfect and sinless Son to die for us so we don´t die a senseless death, but spend eternity with Him. The stranger then invited me to ask Jesus to come into my heart and I accepted. Nothing magical happened after that prayer. She invited me to discuss some issues in my life with her and I did that for the next few weeks. Slowly God changed my heart. I learned to control my anger through many life experiences. I have also felt less resentful towards life and towards others. I feel a lot more confident now because I know that God loves me for who I am, nothing more and nothing less. He always has my best interest at heart. I also feel that I always have a close personal friend wherever I go. Nothing can separate me from His love, not even death. He will never leave me alone and if I wander off, as I often do, He would bring me back to Him one way or another. The good thing is, He also knows our future and the best way to get there. So I can always trust Him to show me the way and I know that His guidance never fails. My life is now filled with a purpose and is definitely never boring when God is my friend. Sometimes God changes people quite drastically, but for me, the change is subtler. Like the slogan for one shampoo advertisement says: “it didn´t happen overnight, but it did happen!”
Ruedi´s story Please read it here. It is available as PDF and in german only. |
