A testimony is usually someone’s story of what god has done for them in their life and this is just that. However I think god was working in me to do something in all our lives but firstly I need to go back to the begin
Just a quick recap
Ok I was born in an unremarkable way to parents who were I guess upper working class if such a thing exists. I had a happy childhood and was educationally normal I tended to do quite well but I was older in the year and suffered from being a tad lazy. In my defence I would say I worked hard but was easily distracted. From an early age I was a committed environmentalist and signed up to Greenpeace (which came into existence the day I was born) at the age of 18. I remember doing an essay about how we needed to replant our forests as it was hypocritical to accuse the Brazilians while taking no action ourselves. I remember because the teacher marked it as naive turns out she was right.
Anyway I ended up dropping out of university when I had in retrospect my first encounter with divine forces. I stayed in a shared house for 2 maybe 3 months in the house was a girl called Sarah who had a boyfriend and there was nothing untoward but we would sit and chat on the sofa and well being with her gave me such a sense of peace and a sensation like rivulets of love forming at the top of your brain and flowing down. Ok so you would say we had chemistry nothing unusual in that. Yeah it was lovely the only trouble was when I wasn’t with her my life started falling apart I couldn’t think I would walk around talking to myself and indeed the day I moved out of the house it was as if huge rail points had moved in my inner being from some sort of happy bright future to a lesser one. Of course I was just a 22 year old lad I experienced it I had no idea what it meant.
But pretty normal we’ve all had experiences similar. I did eventually move on but it was a really powerful love even 5 years later I glimpsed her at a fete somewhere and my legs just gave way from under me.
So as an environmentalist I didn’t fly I did drive in fact oddly enough at work they made me drive long futile distances at the time I wondered whether they were testing my ethics in someway as they wanted to get rid of me. I needed the job I had a mortgage and having had a serious mental health issue you try your best to keep the job you’ve got. I wasn’t vegetarian though. I did like my meat but would go for the freedom food or the line caught tuna. As I was single so rarely holidayed I had a lot of money for food and well drink and I suppose I drank a fair bit we all did at the time. I also consumed some stuff gadgets but I didn’t go mad I wasn’t the new gadget every year type.
I was always nervous at dating and never very lucky in love although I did have a couple of sexual relationships both remembered fondly. However I always had a hankering for that feeling that love dripping down your brain. In fact I bought a house partly because I thought maybe you know Sarah might get back in contact.
Anyway 15 years later I go dancing at a rave and a girl asks for my number.
It seems like the whole world is smiling but it can do when you’re happy. I felt the feeling again it was curious because she brought up marriage and well it seemed a bit forward as we had only been on a few awkward dates but I did like her and actually if I thought someone would seriously want to marry me. I would have liked it to be her. It just seemed a bit far fetched that was all.
I was however in love enough with her so that when she asked if I had spare rooms, I rented them out. I said I didn’t but promptly gave notice to my existing tenants although that did mean me losing the house in the long run.
From an environmental perspective there seemed to be a real buzz around although I still had the car I was feeling pressure to go vegetarian and reluctantly tried and kept it up largely for 2 years but eventually caved as the guilt or lows when I failed were bad so just did a deal with myself to go flex. I did eat a lot less meat but bacon butties were back on the menu.
I was cautiously optimistic the labour government at the time had been insulating council housing and also crucially set a target of 20 Gwatts of nuclear to be built to cover baseload. Now I am no fan of nuclear but from an engineering prospect there are some myths like renewables never really have down periods well they do and some quite protracted and if you want to go properly fossil fuel free the figures on storage are MASSIVE and all that storage needs mining and metals etc etc. If you cover your baseload with nuclear they drop to manageable amounts. The reason I am no longer in support of nuclear is it takes 20 years and I’m not sure we’ve got 20 years but there maybe better options by 2045 but yes I am pissed that we haven’t got 20 Giga watts of nuclear I think it makes it near impossible to achieve net zero by 2030. Then everyone decided to go on holiday to Thailand and well I don’t actually run the world I fix computers for a living.
There are times when you want to explain the meaning of justice whilst still being loving and kind which is I think what Jesus was saying. Which is around about way of saying as you know your flight to Thailand could result in people starving ultimately is it fair to live in a world without ultimate Justice even if it is Jesus that received the punishment.
While we are on the subject of Jesus let’s get to the bit where Jesus introduces himself. This is covered in the other website fairly comprehensively.
Anyway the resulting being responsible for the end of the world was largely because the first song I did I never played it live. I always thought that if I had just played it live I would be living a happy life with sian and the world would be on a great trajectory. To be honest I have to confess the happy life with sian being the more important from my point of view although who doesn’t want to save the world ?
Basically god said right from the outset that I had missed my chance and I was better off waiting 15 years for my next chance. I don’t suppose you’ve waited 15 years for something and well I figured I would be what 50 I was 36 at the time I was already thinking I was a bit too old for the kind of love that people really want. You know young love like the Van Morrison song.
So I didn’t wait I dived in and well turns out we were both right.
The vision of the first love last rites picture was one I had back in 2009 it just took me 6 years to make it into an actual image.
First love last rites was a book of short stories by Ian mcewan early in his career.
Who knows whether a 50 year old who was unmarried and still owned his house maybe with a few solar panels all mortgage paid off and making pots as I had always dreamed of by the time I was 50 would have made any difference to prospects I suspect not.
Anyway the Sian period ended and I knew that I was a servant of god which was a good thing but disobedience had its penalties just as obedience had its peace. So when I’m forced out of my house due to financial and to some degree selfish reasons remember I think the end of the world is coming so going 3 days a week and regularly attending church while not the bravest of things may be considered not the stupidest. I married who he sent and looked after her mother as her father would have done I was always good at conflict resolution and was very much told that this was some sort of marriage “training” for my next chance. It wasn’t for ever because either the world would end (hoped not) or my third (and last) chance would come through and this time I would be successful and it wouldn’t be like the last one at all because I already had the song.I sing it everybody lives happily ever after. The world just getting better and me in the good life with my sexy wife who I adore beside me sound too good to be true well it was ?
Firstly my sexy wife probably doesn’t see herself shackled to some old nerd which is perfectly understandable.
Did I think as I embarked on this plan about how fair it would be on my “temporary” wife ? No not really it was god he was leading I was just following. In fact he told me that he knew all along but if he had told me I wouldn’t have followed which is probably true. At times though it seems such an emotional mess for all involved that it was planned seems crazy.
Then the fate of the world I was just wanting a better way to talk rather than through the rest of the world because some things were private others were secret and dealing with a dangerous entity somethings needed to be secret to protect people. Please have some empathy I am just an ordinary guy who has been in the past in the situation of being pressured to make world changing decisions based on guesses and I got them wrong in the past. You know I do understand I’ve been there how could I ever be angry I even predicted how it would go before I ever met you. Lets get this out of the way yeah I fancied you I thought you were cute like I say it was more than that and yeah I feel twinges of jealousy but not as much as you would think it is agape love a strong protective self sacrificing love and yeah I wanted someone to love you like I did though younger more attractive etc. So you saying No and god saying No its obviously disappointing after waiting 30 years but it never made me angry at you . It’s not your fault especially when I can trace the result back well 30 years in hindsight.
Obviously I might feel angry and bitter about some of the decisions I had made in the past but there’s no real point to it. So you’ve just got to let it go and go with the flow. Where the river takes me and it does exist I am 100% sure of that. There are times when I doubt if my soul is good enough you are attacked by the devil constantly he’s constantly telling you you’re not good enough putting horrible thoughts in your head. You just have to try and remember who you are and who you have been but it’s not easy and sometimes you get a bit anxious you know about losing your soul or well I’ve read the book when things are going well. I do worry that I’m going to do or not do something that’s going to mess things up because frankly its happened so many times before.
So by this time you probably think I’m mad with an overactive imagination. Well I will try and explain the lived experience. Even though I am aware of existing in the spiritual most of the time there are times it is more intense. At some times when it is intense you interact in the spiritual directly talking to satan. So how does this work well I’ve mentioned this “hive mind” well at those times the people in that hive mind “most of them where I work” speak at these times sometimes a couple of people speaking one sentence and I would just talk to the air almost. If you had observed it would have seemed crazy but they answered. I was literally well not bargaining with satan but pointing out the error of his ways and well jesus’s spirit flowing through me addressing satan with power and authority. A weird and wonderful if at times scary experience given the stakes.
I have seen God do great things too though.
- When I lost my house he provided me with just the person who needed to share her house and would allow me the freedom to do his work.
- He got me to sell my house a month later I received a legal request as to how I was going to pay back my outstanding arrears on what had been a flexible mortgage.
- I have written song lyrics years before suddenly practiced them a day before I’ve needed them.
- I have unknowingly taken photos that have contained significant symbolism that I have been able to use years later that I had no idea of when I took them.
- In the first battle when I felt like my life was threatened he protected me and there were some casualties.
Given this was a battle of songs and media God basically did it all he just merely used my hands and my voice and my mindspace. Although I felt all the emotions and it wasn’t always easy at times.
Lets face it though that never was my destiny and though I was angry once and like WTF !!… I know heaven exists I am assured it’s good and my death might help the world so….. I guess in the words of my gaming character.
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”
At least I think I can’t mess up dying ! and I would also achieve my dream of zero carbon use !
By the way Dying is something that is largely a surety when that will be I have no idea its in Gods hands.
You may think I like being “someone” but believe me I long for the days when I could just go down the pub with some friends and just listen to happy music and it wouldn’t mean anything. Just people loving each other in ordinary ways and that being all the meaning you needed. That was a long time ago now though. Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t not want to be a servant for Jesus just a bit less noise would be nice.
So what are you doing and why are you doing it ? I’m doing what I’m told to do and it’s because I know he’s the good guy so so good and I’m going to try my best for him out of love and I just worry about messing up that’s all I’m assured I won’t. I’m also doing it for all the other people I love it just is the right thing to do. Just don’t expect me to be perfect because like many others in the bible who god chose with the exception of Jesus I’m not but I’m trying.
We need to enable god to do his work now its his creation he loves it let him defeat the enemy who seeks to destroy it. Join him now.
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
