I was 17 when I first finally understood what the gospel was really about.  Before that the God thing was all a bit vague and confusing.  But when the truth hit me it  was like lightning.  Instead of watching TV I would disappear into my bedroom and read the Bible every night.  For hours.  I couldn’t put it down, and when I did it was just to pray about what I had read.  What had previously been a dusty old book, archaic, irrelevant and outdated, was suddenly revealing its hidden secrets to me and my imagination was captured, my spirit was ignited and my heart was soaring.  Jesus was in my bedroom and the accounts of his time on earth were playing out in front of me, confronting my own sinfulness, re-writing my philosophical paradigms, confronting my assumptions, challenging my inadequacies, breaking the chains of my inhibitions and fears and it was all redirecting the trajectory of my life in the most radical way possible.   But to anyone else observing, I was just a teenager who had disappeared into his room.

And with that I walked toward the telephone KNOWING that it was going to ring. I then put my hand out to the telephone KNOWING that it was going to ring, and when it did, I was not at all surprised!

Those early months of my being a believer were important foundations. I was going through a transitional stage where I was not only being immersed in the written word of God, but I was being baptised and immersed into very essence of Jesus, the logos Himself.  I remember kneeling atop of my bed as waves of love flooded over me, penetrating deep to the very core of my innermost being, giving me a sense of pure satisfaction and completeness and fulfillment that I never thought possible.  It was like, as the scriptures said, a river of living water flowing out from within me.  Such was the state of ecstasy that I asked the Lord for it to stop, lest I come to love the feelings more than Him Himself. 

I had come to believe through the witness and testimony of a Chinese Malaysian student who was studying in Bendigo with my older brother.  Joshua had come to stay with us in Castlemaine for the weekend and I seized that opportunity to ask him all of my questions.  Up until then I had been desperately seeking the answers for 6 years after God answered a prayer right in front of my eyes on the shore of Lake Eppalock (that’s another story).  I had started to read the Bible, but I had also been desperately searching for answers reading everything I could about Eastern religion, psychology, philosophies, paranormal events, UFOs and ESP.  As tantalising as all of those things were, there was a gnawing emptiness within me that just kept drawing me back to the Bible and to Jesus.  The problem that I had was that among the believers that I knew then, I didn’t know anyone who seemed to have any great certainty that they had found the answer to anything.  To me, Christianity seemed to be about rules and ethical guidelines and I had heard enough of that to already know that I was a sinner in need of redemption.  But I didn’t know any Christians that seemed to be very excited about what they believed, which made me wonder if they really believed that they were truly redeemed themselves.

Meeting Joshua changed all of that – including my brief fixation with Eastern religion.  Joshua had been raised as a Buddhist before becoming a disciple of Jesus. I found that fascinating.  I was drawn to Eastern religion because of its apparent focus on personal spirituality and I had gained that impression by watching a TV show, Kung Fu which was popular in the 70s.  I particularly admired the main character, Cain, who as a gentle and thoughtful Shaolin priest who wandered the American old West, seeking a path of peace and reluctantly fighting for justice using Kung Fu martial arts when he was left with no other option (which happened in every episode!).  To me he was an archetypal messianic figure, characterised by strength, gentleness and legitimate moral authority.  He was someone who knew what he believed and lived it intentionally, with great courage, conviction and authenticity.  Uncertain as I was of my own identity, I wanted to be like him.  For the teenage me, that fictional character was the closest thing that I had to a spiritual teacher… until I met Joshua.   And Joshua, just wanted to point me to his master, who was Jesus.  Through Joshua I first understood that Jesus wasn’t just an extraordinary man who went away a long time ago.  Through Joshua I learnt, and observed, that Jesus is actually still here, evidenced by the fact that His Spirit lives in every genuine believer who has taken the step to become His disciple and to follow Him no matter what the cost.  It wasn’t long before I no longer needed Joshua to guide me because Jesus Himself took over as my personal guru and teacher, opening up the mystery of the Bible to me and revealing Himself to me.  Those days were also filled with extraordinary answered prayers and convincing proofs.  My personal encounters with the Lord were such that I really didn’t need any external proofs, but the Lord graciously supplied them anyway. 

One extraordinary example of this occurred on a Saturday morning when the family were out and I was home alone.  I’d been having a late breakfast at the kitchen table and I had no real plans for the day. I had recently struck up a relationship with a girl that I had met through Church and normally I would have seen her that day but she’d had other plans with her family.  The random thought struck me that even though I couldn’t see her, perhaps I could ask the Lord to get her to call me.  Just as I was pondering whether or not this would be a reasonable request to make of the Lord, a Bible verse streamed through my mind, as if going in one ear and out the other.   It was from the gospel of John, chapter 15, verse 7, which I would surely have read.  But came to me clearly in its entirety, even though I had never made any attempt to memorise it.  It is the words of Jesus, which says:  “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it shall be done for you.”

This verse came to mind “out of the ether” with such force and conviction that my attention was completely arrested and laser focused on that request.  With uncharacteristic boldness I stood up and prayed, overtaken by a spiritual unction that filled me with absolute and undoubting faith.  I prayed, “Heavenly Father, I ask in the name of Jesus that you will get Angela to call me!”  And with that I walked toward the telephone KNOWING that it was going to ring.  I then put my hand out to the telephone KNOWING that it was going to ring, and when it did, I was not surprised!  I answered the call and it was Angela, out of breath.  She then told me that she had been overtaken by a sudden urge to call me and had run to the phone to make the call. 

You can be as skeptical as you like, but there’s really no way to reasonably rationalise things like that away.  Of course this made a big impression on me.  It didn’t “prove” anything to me because by this time I was already a believer, but it did strongly affirm what I had come to believe.   It was also a great source of encouragement to me during the many trials and tests to my faith that inevitably followed.  It was also a theological puzzle for me for some time.  For instance, if the Lord was so willing to respond with such a remarkable demonstration of His power to such an inconsequential and whimsical request of mine, what else could I ask for?  Was this like a blank cheque or magic formula that I could use to get anything that I wanted anytime?  What were the boundaries? What were the limits?  What were the guiding principles and conditions for the use of such a powerful force?  Was it mine to wield freely? Or must I wait until such a strong spiritual unction hits me again?

John 15:7 is a verse that is easy to misunderstand in a number of ways.  You could, as I quite immaturely did at the time, try to use the power of prayer for entirely selfish ends.  But you can also err by dismissing that power and assume that it doesn’t apply to our own mundane and everyday needs and desires.  So often we don’t get what we desire simply because we don’t ask for it with faith – I am convinced of that.  But as selfish human beings our focus can also tend to fall on the area of our own self-interest.  We often focus on“what you wish shall be done for you” part, which can be a bit of a lottery ticket mentality.  But as I have come to understand, for someone who is a disciple of Jesus, the the real riches of that verse is in the, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you…”   These days that’s all I want:  to be with Jesus and for Jesus (the logos, the ‘word made flesh’) to be in and with me all the time.  And if I’m in that place of close abiding, then I will automatically know when it is right to ask for food to clothe and feed the hungry or if it’s right or not to ask for things for myself. 

Many people stumble along in their search for truth and answers, not knowing the Jesus is right there, speaking to them through the circumstances of their lives.  They block out his words with their own constant noise and cluttered ideas.  They look in the wrong places because their false beliefs and assumptions lead them astray.  They spend their lives busily doing activities that will bring them no closer to knowing the truth at all.  And all the time He’s only a humble, sincere and penitent prayer away.   God’s got your number and He knows where you live.  He’s calling you now to come and follow Him.  Why don’t you pick up the phone and begin an honest dialogue with Him?  There’s nothing that you can say that will shock Him or turn Him away.  He gave Jesus, His only son, so that you could find your way back to him. Look a little harder and humble yourself a bit more and you’ll be sure to find Him.

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