MY   TESTIMONY

 

 

Before I was saved no one ever told me about Jesus, sin, salvation or being born again. But I was searching for God. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork.” Ps.19:1 “For the invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so they are without excuse. ”  Rm.1:20
Nature spoke to me of the existence of a God who is real, true, and powerful, compared to the Hindu gods I prayed to.

I said to myself: there is a God who made all this, and He is the one and only and living God, and we are meant to know Him, and I shall know Him before I die (meaning if it takes me all my life).

My search lasted seven years ( it seems God deals with me in seasons of seven years), during which time I wrote poems about God’s creation – sun, moon, stars, birds, trees, flowers, rivers etc. and praised Him in His creation and at the same time longing to know Him.

It is God who takes the initiative towards us, causing us to seek Him, until we find Him; but we must do the seeking; that is our part. “Ye shall seek Me and shall find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.”
Looking back now, my mother and grandmother were silent evangelists in their own way. As a child I used to sit on my grandmother’s rocking chair and gaze upon a picture of the sacred heart of Jesus hanging above the front door.

When I was older I started praying to Hindu gods which my paternal grandmother prayed to, but I felt there was a barrier, a wall I couldn’t get around or over. I felt I could not get through to these gods. (no wonder!; they are only pictures and idols, and any devotion and feelings are only a figment of our imagination.

Man was made to worship God, and until we come to know the one true God through Jesus Christ (who said-I am the door; no man cometh to the Father but by Me.”) we go off in different directions to worship an unknown God, and everyone of them wrong. I am God; there is no other saviour beside Me.

I remember reading the Psalms in the bible, although no one had told me to do this. I felt David knew the God he was talking to, and I wanted to know God that way. I was also surprised at the way he wished
evil on his enemies; at least that’s the impression I got at the time.

 

 

I also read The Bhagavatgita (wrong spelling maybe!) by Rabindranath Tagore, who, like David, talked to the “lord” whom he seemed to know. And I wanted to know God like that. Now I know this was definitely “lord” he was talking about and not the “Lord of lords”.

There was an unrest and inner turmoil although at the same time I was praising God in nature in my poems. I also wrote lines such as- “dry and thirsty in a desert”.

My mother’s evangelistic contribution was a Christian book she gave to me, written by an American evangelist, Oral Roberts.  After reading it I wrote to him saying that when I pray I feel I can’t get through; it’s like a wall in front of me.(This is scriptural, I see now-“Your sins have separated you from your God.” ) He must have prayed for me because within three weeks I was saved. I was lying on my bed looking up, still gazing at the sacred heart I had made with card board, covered it with sea shells and
painted red with oil paint from school. Suddenly I “heard”
the words within me as an audible voice Jesus is all. At that moment I felt peace. The inner turmoil was gone. “ Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you.”

No one had witnessed to me and told me about Jesus being our Saviour. While I was searching for God it was the holy Spirit who told me about Jesus. And this is scriptural: “Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself… He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.” Jn.16: 14-15.

 

No one told me to read the epistles, but as I read it I came across the verse- “ Christ is all, and in all,” Collosians 3:11, confirming the words I had heard- Jesus is all.

After I was saved I started going to a Pentecostal church and was soon baptised with others by full immersion in the nearby sea! It wasn’t the Jordan river but close! Today I have water from the Jordan in a little bottle, while my great grandparents had water from the Ganges river in a huge glass jar. We are water collectors, but only Jesus is the water of life, the river of living waters.

Amazingly, four months before I was saved, and when I was sitting in the auditorium of the Teachers’ Training College, on the first day of the second term, I “heard” the words behind me saying: Go to England and do nursing. This is scriptural: “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.” Isa. 30: 21.

You may ask, how can God lead you before He has saved you? St. Augustine wrote: You could not have sought Me unless you had already found Me.” I had been seeking God for seven years and found Him in His creation, and I would say that as far as God was concerned I was already saved, and He knew that within four months I would definitely be saved.

Five months after I was saved I left home to do nursing in England as the Lord had led me to do. I did not have time to be grounded in the Word, and as I never went to a spirit filled church for twenty years after conversion, I was a backslider although I did read my bible for which I had the grace of God to go out and buy.
Then, when I was working in the Middle East I came to the point where I said, Father, I feel so far away from home; I was talking about my spiritual home, far away from God Himself. So I resigned and decided to go to Tulsa, OK, USA for a holiday, hoping that in that Christian environment at ORU something good would happen to me.
On my way to the airport I came to realise that I might be late and decided that I was not going to go all the way to the airport and find I was right. So I came back and made another booking for this holiday. The earliest was one week away so I had no choice but to wait.
And when I did get there and was checking in, I saw a leaflet mentioning a Word Explosion conference at ORU. Had I travelled a week before, I would have missed this conference.

At the conference there was an alter call for recommitting your life to God and I went forward. But when I returned home it was business as usual.

I still did not belong to a church and I was not looking for one.

Then one day, about eight months later I suddenly sensed the presence of God, or an angel in my room. He was just under the ceiling on the right side of the room. I did not hear a voice, but the words were strong within me- Are you going to do My will? Are you going to obey Me?- I just knelt down and cried. Needless to say I started looking for a church, and found one in the yellow pages!
The first time I went there was a word- somebody has returned home like the prodigal son- that was certainly me, because after 20 years since I was saved I was now in a spirit-filled church.
I went to two or three other churches after that where I learnt something new after all those wasted years.
Finally I was led to where I am now and God has been working in the last eight years I have been there.

 I have been set free from all kinds of bondages and bad habits which are bondages in themselves; from a negative mindset, and He is not finished with me yet. But He is continuing to be faithful to keep the Word I had received soon after joining this church- God is going to do great things in you, and through you.
God is a God of variety.

Everybody’s journey is different; some are longer, some are more harrowing, others’ faith is on trial more, but God knows it does not matter because He does not give us more than we can bear, although it never seems so at the time.
Also, He is with us through it all, giving us the grace to endure, persevere and to get the victory; and He has written the end from the beginning. He either plans or permits the journey, and the end, as it was for Job.
And we have to know this and press in and press on no matter how difficult it may be.
The process is a purging and refining process, and to grow more into the likeness of Christ and realise that nothing matters more than our relationship with Him. This is where our faith is put on trial and we must never give up. We have the example of Joseph, Job, David, Abraham to name a few people in the bible. It’s not over till it’s over, and it’s not over yet!
God wants us to develop in to the measure of the full stature of Christ. He wants us to develop in our character. The best is  yet to come! Jesus has saved the best for last!
I have had many prophetic words spoken over me over the years in regards to different aspects of ministry, and about my own healing and wholeness.
Thank God I understand all this during the journey and not just in hindsight. Otherwise it would be unbearable and very frustrating, to say the least. “… we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” Col.1:9
(next time – My Freedom From Anger, Rage and Swearing.)

FREEDOM

I have been a christian for decades, but it  is only in the last five years   (2005 )    I have been set free from anger, rage and swearing.

It has been a rough, horrendous and sometimes frightening journey. But praise God, He has set me free. It is not that I have learned to control my anger, or that I have learnt anger management, ( this is only putting a plaster on a gaping wound), but I have been set free! Glory to God!

I used to get in a rage and swear when I was looking for things, or I was trying to do something  and it did not work. I always got angry waiting in a queue, and sometimes I would slam my bag down  in the ticket queue. At one time I shouted in the queue and then I was immediately shocked and ashamed that I was behaving like that.

 

Once I was waiting for the train after 10pm, changing from one to the next on my journey from work. It was dark of course at that time, and very cold. After what I thought were confusing announcements I was just about to board a train when the doors closed and the train pulled off. That was too much so I kickd the side of the train as it was pulling away! Today that will be called unsocial behaviour and I might have to pay some price for that!

But God is merciful. I discovered that train was going in the opposite direction from where I wanted to go. Had I boarded the train I would have gone out into the night to some undesirable destination when it was already so late at night! All things work together for good… .

I tried to get help from different sources. I prayed. I asked pastors to pray for me and they did, one to one, all of no avail. I bought tapes teaching about anger; no help. I wrote to a pastor asking for help, and I got a reply inviting me to join their church because it was not good that I should be like I was.

 

The worst part was that when I prayed to the Holy Spirit to help me that day before I went to work, things were worse that day. It was frightening.  What can you do after praying and things get worse, and nobody else can help you. Well, God always has a way when there seems to be no way!

I could only say that God led me to a book on thoughts. As I read I realised that I had a negative mindset, a negative view of life, people, the world and of myself.  I had to repent of a lot of things.

      I was a passive aggressive type, but I chose peace because I did not want to rock the boat or make a scene. To express anger openly seemed too hateful and humiliating. Just keep it in; stuff it down like a raging storm or swirling cauldron inside. This is very dangerous and self-destructive. You erupt like a volcano suddenly and what to others may seem inappropriately. Also, suppressing anger can affect one’s health leading to high blood pressure, stress and most illnesses are said to be stress related, including cancer.

I was led to a book  which was all about our thoughts. Our thoughts shape our world. What we think, how we think, is what we get, what comes to us , what happens to us. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”    Proverbs.23:7

When I learnt about renewing my mind, all the negative thought patterns and wrong beliefs in my mind,  and line up my thoughts and beliefs with the word of God, Rm.12:2,  I repented of having a negative mind-set, thinking  negative things about myself and having negative expectations about everything.

Although I had started before to make positive confessions based on God’s word, I was really building on this negative foundation, therefore there was no good result; my confessions were unproductive.

Years before, I had repented many times of anger towards my father, unforgiveness and death wish. The only good that came out of that, and it was worth it, was that I was no longer angry with my father. I felt compassion towards him, and realised that he could not give us what he himself  had never received from his parents, emotionally speaking.

When I realised how negative I was and repented of having a negative mind-set, I started to retch and cry over and over for some time. It was my moment  of deliverance from this spirit of negativity.

Now  I do not get angry  or swear or get in a rage. Impatience and irritation I may still have but that is expected; we are not perfected until we see Jesus face to face!

Another thing I had to repent of was anger with myself, and anger towards my father. This was probably the tap root of my anger.

 

The root of the anger we express in different ways is not in the thing itself, the incident of the present moment,but the root is in the past -anger with father or mother or both, with life, with other people, relatives,  inlaws,  with all in authority, with the world, with oursrelves and even with God. We have to truly repent of all and forgive them.

I still get irritated sometimes in queues, but this is a far cry from from the demonic trio of anger, rage and swearing from which I was delivered.

That has  been a journey by itself, but God knew the end from the beginning.

And it has been a blessed end. Praise  God!

DELIVERANCE   FROM   BONDAGE

I’ve smashed  it!   I’ve smashed  it at last!   I have smashed the idol of  watching too much television   for 6 to 12 hours a day!    Recently I cut it down to two hours, but started to binge again.    I fasted from TV for  Lent  over two years, then binged again!      It’s four weeks now since I have not watched  television except for the news, max  half hour  a day.      I was always convicted  when I watched too much TV,  but self determination and effort did not help.  For me this was an addiction, and even  worse – it was a  spiritual bondage.    Four weeks ago   I quietly decided I should stop this.

And I know that I have done this by the grace of God.  Joyce Meyer says – grace is the power of God to help you to do easily and effortlessly what you could not do before  by your own self-will and self effort.   That is my experience in this case.  Of course  grace is also the unmerited favour of God.    Now I must be careful not to watch too much u-tube as a substitute, even though it is more beneficial than TV.

This breakthrough might have been the result of an information fast I did about three months ago.

Around the start of Lent this year  I heard a pastor  say that God told him to go on an information fast- and he did it with his entire church over Lent.   No TV, no mobile, no newspapers,  no emails, not listening to worship music even, no radio.    At the end of the fast people had breakthroughs and miracles.  I thought I could do with some of that so I went for it!                It is interesting that it was an information fast, and I have been delivered from bondage to the main source of information in the house – TV!   And this is a deliverance I  needed for a long time.

There were times when I would stamp my foot on the floor and say, I smash this idol of  television,  in the name of Jesus.  Nothing happened.   I really understand this scripture now – Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord. This mountain shall be removed. This bondage shall be broken!     Praise God for His grace and deliverance.