❝
You didn’t get a testimony on
your own - God gave it to you. Whether you give God glory or not for
it, He gave it to you and enabled you to tell it to others. Your
testimony is valuable.
— Rev. Brian Bowen
My testimony.
I have a million and one excuses not to tell my testimony: I don't like talking about myself, I don't think my story is very interesting, I suck at self evaluating, I have a terrible memory.....
But I have the most important reason to, to tell others about Jesus. So to those excuses I say: My testimony is not about myself, it is about Jesus, every story about someone coming to know Jesus and seeing His work in their lives is amazing, it is amazing that he chooses any of us, I do suck at self evaluating and I do have a terrible memory but God knows my story and He will use it for His glory.
There are parts of my story that I am not proud of, that I will forever regret, but instead of leaving them out, I will let God use them as he chooses.
My story starts out as many Christian testimonies do: I was wonderfully blessed to grow up in a Christian family, my parents and sister knowing Jesus. As a kid I went to Sunday school and Kids club. I loved all the old testament stories, Joseph, Moses etc and I wasn't bad at reciting the memory verses. I remember when I was about 12 I heard somewhere that "you are not a Christian just because your parents are, that you must make that decision for yourself" and sometime after that I became a Christian. I recall sitting on my bed with a gospel of Mark and writing the date that I gave my life to Jesus.
You see my conversion story is a simple one I knew that I had to make a decision to follow Jesus for myself, I knew all these things about Jesus, becoming a Christian was an easy choice.
However my journey from that time until now has not been smooth sailing. There are times, time and time again that I forget about God I push Him away for weeks at a time, I am sinful and unrepentant.
At high school people knew I was a Christian but I didn't live a radically different life. In my group of friends I was one of two Christians. My friends at school lived (and still live) very different lives to me. It was hard not to get sucked in to the things of the world. I love them dearly and it is such a struggle not to envy them their lifestyle. I am getting ahead of myself.
Forgive the disjointedness of the rest of my testimony as things didn't
really happen chronologically from then on, these are various chunks of learning
different things about God and about myself that I think are relevant to
the story.
In year 7 I was amazingly blessed that my best friend from primary school (who went to a different high school) invited me to her youth group (I had been going to the one at my church but it was very small and had no one my age). So I went and long story short I have never left. I learnt so much at 'Cactus' and what eventually became 'Fight club'. I have always been inquisitive and with our youth pastor Dan no question was off limits. I loved it so much I wanted to know everything! Looking back on this time I feel ( and I still sturggle with this now) that I knew much about God but I did not know Him. I could answer all the questions correctly but it did not effect me I guess. I have often struggled with the concept of head knowledge vs. heart knowledge. I know about God but I struggle with the personal relationship, the relationship that I can have because of Jesus. Jesus who stuffed all his great and awesome magnitude into the body of a tiny human so that he could die to take away my sin. That truly blows my mind.
At the end of year 9 I was asked with a couple of other people to join the leadership team at the younger youth group. This has been an awesome opportunity for me to grow and to walk in my faith.
There is more to the story and I am not proud of many things that have happened. After high school I decided I wanted to serve God in camping ministry, I had decided that this was the best way for me to serve God, I was going to serve him this way whether he liked it or not... so I spent two years of my life not really doing anything because I had chosen that I knew best and this was what I wanted for my life. I thought it would be great I loved the outdoors, kids and Jesus. I didn't listen I was hard hearted, God kept telling me no time and time again that he knew better and had great plans for me. But I am stubborn and at the time I hated hearing Jemimah 29:11 (For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future"), it ended in quite a lot of heart break and disappointment. I ended up saying to God look really what do you want from me all I want to do in serve you with my life and you are stopping me. But God is more faithful than I could have eve imagined and he placed me where I am now studying photography and loving my work. I am not God He knows what is best for me.
The summer holidays after high school I met a boy and we started dating, I grew to love him very much. But we fell into a lot of sexual sin and were much more physical then we should have been. I thought that we would one day get married. I pushed God away time and time again. I knew what he demanded of me and I pushed Him away. We eventually and inevitably broke up. I was hurt and angry at God and full of guilt and shame, but our great a awesome God has been faithful to me time and time again. He constantly reminds me that I am totally and completely forgiven because of Jesus. Because of Jesus I am made totally clean and have a clean slate with God. There are some song lyrics that God recalls to my mind whenever I need reminding of this.
"When Satan tempts me to dispare and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look and see him there who made an end to all my sin."
I guess it was a slow road of coming into a deeper understanding of God and truly accepting what he has done for me. I still struggle with many things. But God has always been faithful to me. That is a very brief account of the work of God in my life so far. I hope that I have done it justice. And that through it you made be blessed.
