It’s been a roller-coaster ride of faith for me since the Lord Jesus Christ chose me to come out from the world and follow His way.

It’s worth noting that the ‘downs’ on that ride have always been my fault, for the Lord never changes in His manner (which is totally perfect), and He severely chastens those He loves, pruning them hard so that they bear fruit in the future. Nevertheless, because of the way I respond and react to life’s circumstances, I find the Lord changes in the sense of the way that He deals with me in any given situation; sometimes very gently as in the way a mother would stroke your sick brow and check your temperature, and other times in a furious rebuke of righteous anger that has your knees knocking together in fright.

As those of you who have heard my conversion testimony know, the first day of knowing the Lord was a very good one for me. In spite of being a flagrant and debauched sinner at the time, full of pride and indulgence, He revealed His awesome presence to me in that moment as though none of that mattered to Him at all. It could have been mistaken for apathy; I now know that this wasn’t the case. I must state here and now (before I go on) that He deeply cares about us investing our time and money into sin instead of His kingdom, for it is THE very method of the eternal destruction of the souls that He so wonderfully created, all of us remaining in rebellion to His will with it, just as the devil desires. I know with all my heart that it greatly bothers Him that we continue to do this (especially if we profess to know Him). 
Still, this was not made apparent to me on that first day; all that I was made aware of was of an overwhelming love, rooted from a spiritual source that can only have been *the* truth. 
He graciously told me His name when He introduced Himself to me; I (surprisingly to myself) readily accepted it, in spite of my love at the time for the Buddha and other mystical eastern gurus who already had that special place in my life. I accepted Him because instantly upon hearing Him speak, I suddenly realised that I had always known He was the truth, but that I had (for whatever reason) suppressed it. He dealt with me ever so gently and graciously despite that though, and I fell truly into real love for the first time. Love like no other, I can vouch for it!

Cut to a few weeks later. My drug experiences hadn’t succeeded in recreating what I had experienced that day, even though I tried my hardest to discover Him again and again through that method. You see, I was hammered and on a come down when I initially met Christ that first time, and (what I now know to be) the devil tricked me into thinking that the drugs were the gateway to finding Him fully. Thus, I now find myself top to toe on a comfy bed alongside a sorcerer friend of mine, who is also deeply involved in witchcraft, inhaling laughing gas whilst stoned (the best method that I found for breaking through this physical reality into the spirit realm), completely immersed in the spiritual battle of my life, in a sort of ‘duel’ with him. He was also there at my conversion at the festival, although I’m not aware of whether he was aware of what happened to me at that time. In this scenario, I know he is also astral projecting with me too, but we are both searching for completely different things, and I believe he is fighting to try to open my third eye wider to what he is aware of, and deeper.

On that first day, when the Lord wooed me towards His kingdom at the festival, He had dropped the spiritual scales from my ears after telling me that ‘this was what I was aiming for’, so that I then heard the unspeakably astounding glorious noise of heaven rejoicing in full throttle; in this moment on the bed however, I suddenly heard something very different. Upon reflection now, and even in the moment (in spite of my shock), I know for sure it was hell that I heard, even if only scratching the surface of it. The utter darkness I was swimming in at that moment was so tangibly dank, and thick like molasses; the screaming was eternally unbearable even for the milliseconds I was exposed to it, sounding like every screech demon giving it their full whack with as much chaos as possible; and the torture of it all was perfect in it’s absolute judgement sentence, and I somehow just knew it was totally righteous upon me. It was just then that I realised that I was so totally and utterly lost, without hope, stranded in a kind of limbo from hell, when a very small voice (that I have regrettably to my shame thought of as pitiable since I’ve mused on it since) whispered so sadly to me; ‘don’t you want Me?’, and I was totally overcome with a genuine sadness and regret as I beheld myself writhing in spiritual anguish and even mental pain on the bed, completely oblivious to my friend now, certainly knowing that this was Jesus reaching out to me in one final attempt to save my soul from complete destruction.

I wish I could tell you everything, but this is a blog, not a book.

Cut again to a few weeks later than that, and I’ve realised that I’m unavoidably addicted to the gas. I just can’t help myself. It sounds so disturbingly crazy, but even the hell experience didn’t stop me, even though in my heart I had heard the voice and desperately wanted to find grace without it (the gas). That’s addiction for you; you might want to quit, but you just can’t; not when the devil has such a stronghold. It takes real repentance and a miraculous move of God, and in my own way, I had now got to that point. I was just unable to act it out, for even as I was seeking God, the only way I felt I could find Him was breaking through this normal reality with the gas/weed combo. There were many other spiritual experiences during this final time on the gas, that I just don’t have room to speak of here; but to make my point, I want to tell you about my very last balloon of gas (that was the way my drug of choice was ‘injected’ into me, by inhalation). In reckless abandon to find Him, I was stood outside the front door to my parents house under the heavy dusk (everyone was out at the time), and the Lord knew I was searching for Him with all my heart. As soon as I started to come out of my body as the gas took effect, I suddenly experienced the most fearsome, devastatingly hot anger pouring onto me like molten lava. I felt ever so small and insignificant, and I was severely humbled by it. I knew that what I was feeling was the righteous indignation of the Lord, and that I was in big trouble. It was fury like I’ve never beheld before; if one can even get over how utterly terrifying it is, its power is just sheer awesomeness (in the truest sense of the word). And there it was; the divine confrontation and ultimatum in one, which thankfully completely stopped my horrid satanic habit forever. I was so terrified by that time in fact, that to even to think of another balloon or joint of weed scares the life out of me. I just simply COULDN’T. He has decreed it, or I shall eternally die (and quite right too).

You might think that God would never do this to someone, but you’d be wrong. And I’m glad you’re wrong, for knowing the depth of my depravity only serves to emphasise His holiness and grace upon wretches like me. It is much better to be judged and rebuked in anger before judgement day, than actually on it. At least now there is still hope in repentance, however hard that life might seem for us after it. He can melt our hearts, or He can harden them; it’s according to the way we react to His method of purging evil from us.

Yes, He wants all to be saved; but no, not all will be saved. Every one of us knows deep down what displeases Him, and if you don’t, dare to ask Him…He’ll tell you.

‘If you hear His voice today, do not harden your hearts’… amen and amen.