My Story

I'm sure by now you've noticed a habit that I have with most of the blog posts I've put up. Towards the end of a lot of the posts, I quote parts of the Bible. This is because I believe it to be the word of God and in its authority. I owe this all to having put my faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and saviour, and in His death and resurrection. My coming to this decision of faith, is a story that I would like to share with you if you don't mind. 

The story starts at my nativity, I was born in Zimbabwe, a country where about four fifths of the population is Christian. In my growing up, I was surrounded by Judaeo-Christian values and concepts. The values of the Bible were very much in the culture that I grew up in, as well as most of the education that I received. However, being surrounded by the culture did not equate to me being in the faith. There's a saying, "Just going to church makes you as much a Christian as going to MacDonald's makes you a burger". I was practising cultural Christianity, where I would just have to sit through a service on a Sunday, then afterwards just do my own thing. 

Morally, I grew up being taught about the ten commandments, not to lie, not to steal, to honour my parents, and so forth. I understood these to be God's ordinances, because of this understanding it also lead me to realise how much I was disobeying these rules. This meant that I was not up to God's standard. Innately I knew that a godless life is life not well lived. On the other hand following God's laws proved to be a herculean task.

Living a life of purity was so unattainable, I felt helpless. I got to a point in time where I genuinely knew that I could not be able to face God on the day of judgement because of all the errors I made. One day, for history class, we were watching Forrest Gump. There was one character in particular that stood out to me, Lieutenant Dan. I saw a bit of what I was struggling with in him. After the war his life changes, and it was not for the better. The character showed mainly emotions of anger, bitterness, sadness and fear, as I remember. There's one scene where he gets to a turning point, it's where Lieutenant Dan and Forrest Gump are on a boat, and the lieutenant jumps off the ship into the water and floats peacefully. I think it was the narrator's voice that described the change in the lieutenants demeanour. The phrase was used was, "The lieutenant had made peace with God". I knew that's exactly what I wanted too. To have a relationship with God and to be right in His books.

It was a Friday afternoon, I had gone to a youth centre that I habitually went to. There were little booklets about the gospel there, I didn't give much thought to it, it must have been out of curiosity but I took one home with me. After digesting the book, it resounded with the matter that was on my heart, how I could live a life of relation with God although I had sinned so greatly against him.. There was a schematic in the book, it showed how man on his own, by his own religious or philosophical efforts cannot attain this. However, the bridge between man and God was displayed as the cross where Jesus died or the sake of the sins of all mankind. I chose that one way, I acknowledged how futile my efforts at saving myself were.

Finally, I could have peace with God in my life. This was only just the beginning of God had in store for me. My walk with the Lord has been far from perfect, but it has been full of His grace. Each day is a step closer to Him, as I learn from spending time in scriptures, in prayer and in fellowship with others of like faith. If anything I can only hope that this will be the one blog post you remember, and for those who are in Christ I encourage to share your testimony. No matter how ordinary your story may seem, your salvation is an extraordinary act of God.