Testimonies of Searching and Finding the Truth

My childhood was not particularly pleasant. My mother married and divorced twice and I grew up alone with my mother and without my brother. I knew nothing about God or the Bible. After the second divorce my mum lived a free and promiscuous life. Then, one day before my 16th birthday, my mother died at the young age of 34.

In this Christian meeting one thing became very clear for me and this was that God did many things for me in my life but that I hadn't done anything for him. I knew that I had to take a decision in my life to either follow God 100% percent or to leave it.  

I must say I never really believed in God, but things changed when I met a fellow student at university, who gave me evidence for the Bible that I was not prepared for...

When I decided to buy “the illegal book” for a quarter of my monthly salary, I met ‘by chance’ some Americans, who gave me a brand new Bible as a present. There was no way I could call it a coincidence! The Americans also told me about having a “personal relationship with God” and this phrase affected me greatly, and I could not get it out of my head… not icons, not “saints”, not even the church – but only Jesus Christ as mediator between man and God.

When I was 19, in the year 1999, I was involved in a car accident in which my girlfriend and my cousin died. At this time, my uncle wrote to me saying I should be happy to be alive and not on my way to hell. I didn't agree... 

The next day I bought myself a Bible with the intention to show her that she wasn't right and if God was real and a loving one He would just let us do what ever we wanted, but as I read the Bible more and more over the next 3 months, I got convinced by the Word and day by day I started to think deeply about my whole life, the sins I committed... 

I grew up in an average home, finished school, and started to study librarianship in 1985. In 1988 my life was about to take another direction. It all started off with some kind of sleeplessness. For some reason I started waking up earlier and earlier. It was as if I had gotten myself into a swirl, and gradually began to see coded messages behind every corner. After a few days I had completely lost touch with reality, started to hallucinate, and found myself on an inner journey.

I realised that there was so much hypocrisy in the Catholic Church, so I stopped going there. I was drawn to an alternative life style and joined a group of friends who were into punk and heavy metal music.. and started reading people’s future from their hands (Palm Reading, Fortune Telling) after reading books about it...

I realised that if the Bible really is the Word of God, then I had better do something about it. So I spoke a lot to some Christians whom I knew, asking them questions about the Bible, about how it could be true, about whether or not it made sense and so on, but they couldn't answer all my questions... 

I was brought up in the Catholic Church and my parents took this seriously. We went to Mass every Sunday, as well as to confessions and prayed before each meal. When growing up and moving out, these habits got lost more and more. I still prayed sometimes while at the same time I got interested in autogenic training, yoga and new age. Eternity will be forever, without end. And there are only two places, where we can spend eternity….

I had not long started a new job in 1985 when I was first introduced to someone whom I was told was a ‘born again Christian.' I immediately thought she would be some kind of ‘Bible thumping' religious fanatic so I was cautious from the beginning.To my surprise however, she never actually preached to me, nor did she ram the Bible down my throat but she did make an impression on me by... 

I realised that I needed Christ in my life, and began searching the scriptures for answers. I struggled to know what to do, and prayed that God would help me. God answered my prayers and two months later I met up with a few people preaching the Gospel in Glasgow city centre. They showed me in the Bible the way of salvation.

A series of prayer answers and miracles showed me that Jesus is real and how He wants to change my life.

I did not have any peace or assurance of salvation... I wasn't 100% right with God and knew something was missing. For many years I lived in fear and asked myself the question “what does it take to be saved on Judgement Day?" 

I went to parties and did other teenage things and yet I grew more and more unhappy. I felt that something was awfully wrong in my life. There was a big difference between the things that happened in my own life and in my church and what I read about in the Bible. I felt empty and dirty...

"The following Tuesday I was meant to leave for three weeks to go camping in Bavaria. But what I had heard and seen from those Christians had captured me. I knew they had something which I wanted to have too, and I decided to get baptised. I did not want to leave before receiving from God the same thing as these people had..." 

Although I had many friends, I no longer had the joy and happiness in life that I had before this event. At this stage I was really desperate for something positive in my life... 

While my life was not ‘godly', by the standards of the World it was pretty blameless, although I knew that I could only be ‘saved by faith' alone, not by works. I knew the ‘God' part of my life was missing, my life felt incomplete, even with ‘success' with my career and a busy life. 

I'd like to tell you something exciting about ‘praying in the Spirit', (speaking in tongues), the prayer language that God gives you as a confirmation that you have received the Holy Spirit. There are a number of reasons why God gives you this prayer language, among them are to build up your faith and to encourage you. I faced a tremendous trial in my Christian walk, without going into detail, it brought me to the brink of despair, I was at the end of my tether and my mind went berserk. I then opened the Bible for guidance and specifically prayed that God would speak to me through His Word.

I saw all the different religions around and it never occurred to me that one of these might hold all the answers. In fact, I got to the point that if I had been asked whether I believed in God, or whether or not I was a Christian, I wouldn’t have known how to reply because everything was so unclear and uncertain. Furthermore, even when I did call myself a Christian, I didn’t read a Bible or spend my time with God...

One day, some buses arrived at the church with people from abroad. When they went inside, nobody was looking after their luggage, and I decided to steal it! I quickly went and took three suitcases, before running away as fast as I could;

When I was about 11 or 12 I became a catholic. I started to believe in God and thought that the Catholic Church was the only true church. During one Christmas sermon I started to become very disappointed as I realised how superficial everything was. At this time I felt like a hypocrite in front of God. I wasn’t there with my whole heart to worship God and sang songs without knowing what I was singing. I stopped going to church at that point but I knew that God was real and there was a way to God which I hadn’t found yet...

Before I received the Holy Spirit and was baptised, my life was pretty normal. I went to school, did my homework and played soccer with my friends in the afternoons. I didn’t believe in God or Creation but didn't believe in evolution either. For me was it enough to have a nice family, good friends and for life to just carry on...

God has performed a great miracle in him! ... When Peter flew over to Australia, he was depressed, desperate and unhappy with his situation. He did not have a purpose in his life and even entertained thoughts of suicide... 

When I was a little child, I was always thinking, “Why do people exist, anyway?” As much I puzzled over it, I never came to a satisfying conclusion...