Preface
I got baptized today for the second time in my life which is bizaare to some but I saw it more as a confirmation of my faith as obviously as a baby you can’t wholeheartedly accept Christ as your Lord and Saviour and my church recommended it so I did so. I have been washed of my sin once more and am on my journey to become a better Christian so what led me to this point to truly believing in the divinity of Christ? I’m writing this article to describe just that and hopefully talking about my journey to Christ once more and the realisations that led me to the conclusions that Christ is Lord will help others to have the courage to accept him also. To clarify before I carry on: Yes I truly believe in God, I believe Christ died on the cross and I believe in the authority and truth of the Bible.
History
When I was a kid and teen I didn’t take God very seriously, I in fact found it silly. I obviously took part in the navities as a kid and attended church now and then but I never took God seriously. I just couldn’t comprehend a God out there existed that loved me and was all-seeing and knowing, I as an edgy teen even defiled Christ’s image and drew a Cthulu Jesus which offended a Christian teacher I had in senior school; I was a proper idiot lol. However as I got older around 16 I did try and give God a go seriously, I went church and tried reading the bible but quickly I fell out of it as I just didn’t truly understand how faith worked and also I couldn’t say certainly I believed in Christ which turned me away and quite unfortunately I fell into Paganism as I saw that was cool at one point, it was an embarrassing period and I’m not proud of it, especially how I attempted to worship ancient European “Gods” which was just cringeworthy. Too much Varg Vikernes and watching other pagan schizos did me no good.
Anyways, I ended up turning away from any religion entirely as I saw it as dumb and became Agnostic at most, believing there was some kind of God but not really particularly the Christian God. I stayed this way for awhile until 2022 came along which was the worst year of my life.
2022: The Year that Broke Me & Reshaped Me
2022 was awful and the year honestly broke. I’m not going 100% what happened that year as it’s quite personal but I went into 2021 feeling shit and by late 2022 was feeling worse by a large margin. To share a bit of it: An old mate betrayed me and tried to ruin my life, I broke an expensive piece of equipment at work and had to pay up a lot of money I didn’t have for it, the crowds of people I were around were quite toxic and always put me down, I lost a girl I really liked for and was seeing for over a year because my bad behaviour as a teen caught up with me; it was a whole load of things. All this caused me to become very erratic, gloomy, and generally not nice to be around. It all concluded with me having a full mental breakdown in August of last year and with my life becoming so unsatisifactory and depressing I was genuinely thinking about killing myself, it’s really dark to think about now as I’d be in Hell if I did but it was an actual consideration at the time as I saw no light at the end of the tunnel. Eventually I did leave those toxic environments and find better work but I still wasn’t happy and wanted some hope so I guess out of some impulse or desperation I did something I hadn’t done in years: I prayed. I prayed to God that if he was out there to please have mercy and at least make something anything good to happen and bless me despite me ignoring him for so long. I made an effort to attend church again and read his word and I can’t explain it but things did quickly get better: I got better work, better friends, I started going out more and being more social, I became more confident, outgoing, and social. I don’t know how but it happened so quickly and I feel that prayer was a strong bit of divine intervention as whatever happened that day changed my view on God forever. I did have other signs pointing to the truth of Christ such as every major institution hating him and the media constantly dogging on Christianity and how every other major religion such as Islam, Hindiusm and even Buddhism revered Christ and see him as divine in some form, but I feel that one pray changed something and made me realize the awesome power of pray in general.
We are all gonna make it
I credit Christ to where I am now. I wouldn’t have fixed up without Christ, I wouldn’t have gone uni without Christ, I wouldn’t have gained this new drive and confidence without Christ, honestly I credit who I am now to God taking mercy on a sinner like me. I do not deserve the blessings I have got this year and despite the hardship which may come going forward I know through Christ I will get through it as anything is possible through him. The fact he died for my sins despite me not even deserving that and loves me despite my mistakes is amazing and I will happily serve Christ best I can despite how I may stumble as I grow in him. That’s why I got baptised again as I see it as a showing of faith that I do truly believe and want to serve the Lord, now and forever onward. Honestly if you haven’t yet you gotta give God a try, he will happily embrace you as he has me. I’ll end this with a speech from Connie Coleman which has always stuck with me as he is a man stood strong in his faith in God and achieved amazing things through him
—
Originally Posted by Khastle on the Mariana Bay Forum on 3/9/2023 (https://forum.marianabay.com/threads/how-i-came-back-to-christ.247/#post-2166)
Nice post bro. Thanks for sharing a bit of your story.