Читать книгу Journey In The Kingdom - Ben BSL McGonagle - Страница 5

I remember the Christian crew in school.

They used to hang out together, played footy together, and had a good reputation.

Even though this Christian crew was there at school, I still chose to hang out with another group and as a result my life started heading down a dangerous path. I made a choice and I think, Man, if I had chosen to follow God then, things could have been so different. People might not have died. But that’s the choice I made, and this is that story.

I was 16 years old when guys from a rival group came into my house. Put a knife to my mate’s throat and started to beat him. They then came at me with the knife. We managed to get them out of the house, but later a baseball bat was put through my mum’s bedroom window. Mum came home the next day and asked me, “What if your little sister had been in the room when the baseball bat came through the window?” I realised that my life was involving my family in a bad way, and I chose to move out to another city to stay with some older friends.

When I was 17, my mates bought another car and I thought, They might give me this car to use for work. Then one day one of them decided that he wanted to trash the car. Pulled out his gun and started shooting it while others grabbed bats and started smashing windows and others jumped on the roof.

I then went to a party and a girl offered herself to me. I pushed her away, and she went to be with someone else. I didn’t realise that this was actually a cry for help. Her father had committed suicide, and she was hurting. If I had chosen earlier to follow Jesus, I might have been able to help her. She needed hope, and I could have showed her that this world’s only hope is Jesus. She hung herself. If I had chosen earlier to follow Jesus, her life may have been turned around. It comes down to the choices we make.

For my 18th birthday, my mates bought me a mirror. I was stoked. I thought, Man, these guys really care about me. No one else had bought me anything. I came home from work to find my mates doing lines of cocaine and speed on my mirror. Through wisdom which my dad had bestowed upon me years earlier (and I thank him for it), I had made a choice not to become involved with those drugs, so I moved to another house. Some of my mates are doing ok, but most got worse: Some went to prison, some lost their minds and some disappeared.

I started doing really well for myself. I was earning a lot of money, had free accommodation, had heaps of mates and was surfing up and down the coast of Australia. I had the perfect life so I thought. Everyone wanted the life I had.

Throughout that year of 1997, I started to feel conviction in my heart. I felt that God loved me. I had always believed in God. I thought, Yeah God is up there in the sky and if someone tries to kill me He will watch out for me. I had read the entire Bible but never got any revelation out of it. I even used to sing songs to God though I had only been to church a few times. I went to youth group when I was 15 because they had so much fun, but I had never chosen for myself to follow God and actually find out what that means. There were always things to distract me from making that choice.

That year I had even been stopped by a random guy in Queen Street, Brisbane who asked me if I believed in God and invited me to come to a church sporting event. I said, “Yeah for sure,” and then mates called me up about a party and I went to that instead.

I thought, God, You love me, so I’m going to be a better person. I was supposedly already a “nice guy” but I thought I needed to stop doing some of the things I was doing. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t do what I thought was right. A couple of drinks and I would mess up again. I’d go out to a party and then mess up again. One morning as I woke up I even started crying, thinking, God, I’m trying and I can’t do it. I know now that He was teaching me that I needed a Saviour. That we are the ones drowning and God is throwing us a rope and His name is Jesus. I told my flatmate, “I’m going to find a church.” He said, “What, are you crazy?” I said “I don’t care” and walked out the door.

I went for a walk and found a little church with three people in it and a minister up the front. I remember singing songs and raising my hands in the air and crying. None of the three others were raising their hands but it was something I just did. No one talked to me about God and I remember leaving the church feeling better and thought, Maybe that was all I needed to do. Go to church once and have a big cry. And I went straight back into all the parties and life I was accustomed to.

The day before New Year’s Eve 1997 I woke up in the morning after a big party. And it was so clear in my heart. Follow the world and everything in it or follow God. It was time to choose. I had no other friends that were following Jesus at that time. There were plenty of people that said they believed in God but that doesn’t mean they are following Him. The Bible says that even the demons believe in God (James 2:19) and they certainly aren’t following Him. I didn’t even know what following God meant but I chose Him. No one else can make that decision for you.

Two weeks later I got a message from my dad that a girl called Cherie had left a “Merry Christmas!” message on his answer machine and left her number. I thought, Man, I remember this girl from youth group. I called the number and a guy answered and said, “Wrong number, mate.”

I hung up and prayed, “God help me to get the right number” and I literally mixed the numbers up and called again.

I asked, “Is Cherie there please?”

The guy said, “Yeah, I’ll just get her.”

We went out that Saturday. I married her a year later. It was amazing that God had her there all along, just waiting for me to make the right choice so he could bring her along my side.

I thought that everything was going to get better now that I had chosen to follow Jesus. But I went through emotional turmoil for two weeks. I felt like I was being torn in two. I called up Cherie at about 3 o’clock one morning just crying. “I don’t understand what is happening.” She came over on her motorbike and shared a vision she had for me. I was a straight tree and throughout my life I had branched off into all these dodgy areas and God was coming with two big axes cutting off those branches and making me a straight tree again. It wasn’t that I was being broken in two at all. It was God freeing me from rubbish that I had attached to my life.

As well as freeing me from rubbish, He began to teach me things from His Word. I had moved back home with my family and was sleeping in the garage on a stretcher next to a big canoe. I still remember the canoe. I had no job, no money and no decent accommodation. As I read the Bible, I received a Word from God. It was like the Scriptures just stood off the page in bold and went straight into my heart. I read “in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). And then a strong presence of peace just filled the garage and I had peace in my heart. It was amazing! Regardless of circumstance I had peace.

I was experiencing freedom and peace for the first time and I wanted to share it with my mates, but many of them had left town or moved overseas and I had no idea how to contact them. After our wedding we were travelling in New Zealand. We were chilling out in this random little town and bumped into a mate I hadn’t seen in years and who back then was a drug-dealer. I had wanted him to come to my wedding but no one knew where he was.

I asked, “What have you been up to all these years?”

He then proceeded to tell me that he is a born again Christian! I’m like, “No way, me too!” It was classic!

He had read a book about Jesus that he found in a box while moving house. It was about Jesus dying for our sins and rising again from the dead, about forgiveness and healing. My friend read the prayer at the end of the book inviting Jesus into his heart and made a decision that he would live for Him. He hasn’t looked back since and is rocking on for God, faithfully serving in his church and on the mission field.

A year later we were living on the East coast of Australia and caught up with another mate of mine who I hadn’t seen for ages. God told me to go and share with him. I thought, I can’t tell him about you Lord, he will kill me! He was an angry guy. He was a tattooed, fighter who lost his temper easily. I prayed and prayed and wrestled with God about going to share with my friend. God gave me a Word from Isaiah 45:2: “I will go before you and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron.”

I knew that He would go before me and make the crooked places straight. That He was preparing my friend’s heart. I went down and started sharing with him. My friend turned to me and said the only reason he was listening to me was because we had been through so much stuff together he knew I would never lie to him. As I was leaving, I gave him a Bible and he put it beside his bed. Later on he opened it once, and it touched his heart so much that he couldn’t open it again.

God told me to go back to his place the following week and share more. I went and while I was sharing my mate got agro and suddenly stood up. I thought Man, it is on, we are about to have a fight right here.

He spun around, took a couple of steps and shouted, “SOMEDAY I WILL CHOOSE TO FOLLOW GOD!”

Boldness came over me and I stood up, walked over to him and said, “WHY NOT RIGHT NOW?!”

And he said, “Yes.”

I led him in a prayer; he invited Jesus into his life to forgive his sins and made a decision to live for Him. My mate changed so much without me saying anything else. A few days later I saw him again and when I looked at his eyes I could hardly recognise him. All the anger had gone and he was changed from the inside out. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

He began to immerse himself in the Bible and God started giving him dreams whereas he hardly remembered dreaming at all before. In one of the dreams he was in complete darkness and couldn’t see. It was crowded and everyone was surging in one direction but no one knew where they were actually going. My friend tried to stop but couldn’t. Everyone was pushing against him. He reached out his hand and suddenly felt a pillar. He grabbed it and with all his strength pulled himself out of the crowd. He went to the side and found a small door and entered through it into light. He told me that I was the pillar sent by God that helped save him but he didn’t understand the rest of the dream. I showed him the Scriptures: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14).

I’m so stoked God wrestled with me and persisted in getting me to go share with him. Now his drug using days are over, he has freedom and peace and best of all his eternity is secure in Christ.

A while later I was back in New Zealand and started going to the same church I used to go to for youth group. During the church service it became apparent that some things had gone down in the prior weeks, and for whatever reason the pastor gently said, “I don’t know what else to do,” and he walked off the stage and sat down in the front row.

An older man got up from the back and started walking to the front and said, “I agree with what the pastor is saying...”

The pastor stood straight up turned around and said “no” to the man.

The man started crying and knelt down. The next thing you know God has downloaded to me a vision and I felt like He pulled me out of my seat and pushed me forward. In my head, I was screaming thinking, What am I doing? I just saw the pastor say “no” to the older bloke and here I am walking forward as well? I got to the front and told the pastor my vision. He pointed to the stage and said, “Go.” A man of few words! I stepped up on stage and started sharing the vision.

I was on a narrow pathway and at the end of the path was the Kingdom of Heaven

The path looked like straw. And then it changed. The path was now light and each side of the path was darkness and God was holding my hand. I walked off the path into the darkness and then back on to the path of light and God was holding my hand the whole time. Then the vision changed again. Where the darkness was, it was now big spikes sticking up out of the ground, and when I walked off the path, I was walking on the spikes and hurting myself. However, the thing that hit me was not only was I walking on the spikes and hurting myself but also God was still holding my hand and He was walking on the spikes with me. I was hurting Him too. I shared this vision with the entire church and together we made a declaration: “We’re going to follow You God with all our heart. No more will we listen to the devil as he tempts us off the path. Thank You for holding onto us no matter where we wandered. We don’t want to hurt You God, You’re the One we love. We choose to walk Your path.”

You see our life is about choices. I was given a few different opportunities to choose God but some people only get one. Recently my friend told me about a guy he had shared the Gospel with, who told him “I’ll make a decision for God later”, and he then died the following week in a diving accident. My friend was very upset. I encourage you, if you have never made a decision, to follow God. He is waiting for you. He created you for a purpose, which is to be in relationship with Him. And He loves you. He sent Jesus Christ to die in our place and then raised Him from the dead to prove that with Him we can also have eternal life.

There is forgiveness of sins and restoration of relationship with God through Jesus who is alive today. And if you will invite Him into your heart to forgive you of all your sins and for Him to be the Lord (Leader) of your life, He will come in and never leave you. It is up to you. But I pray that you would choose Life and His name is Jesus.*

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” ( Jeremiah 29:11-13).

*If you have made a decision to follow God then you need to tell someone. Get a Bible, start reading, and get involved in a local church. Please contact us at www.benandcherie.com if you need some help or direction in getting established in a church in your community.

People aren’t perfect and people let you down. Don’t get disheartened with God when people let you down. God never will. He may not do things the way you expect, but He loves you and is Awesome. And if you see people that say one thing and do another, just make a choice that you won’t be like that. You can be the shining light to your world because of God in you. The adventure begins. Bring it on!