January 22, 2003
Jay S.- My parents prayers made a difference
My name is Jay S. At one point in my life, I was very far away from the Lord, even though I had given my life to Him at a young age. Like many people, I misunderstood who God was, and it was difficult for me to separate God from Religion. Because of the impotence that I saw in the church, I assumed that God was either not real, or not interested. I decided that I had put up with all I could take, and now it was time to do whatever I wanted to. I had “long suffered” long enough, and so now I was going to have some “fun”.
My parents were praying for me, and one of the things they were praying was that satan would slip up and make a mistake. That is exactly what happened.
One night I had decided to vandalize someone’s car by putting sugar into the gas tank. I had been trying to get work as a “hit man”, but no one that I knew needed anyone dead at that point. There was this one guy though, who offered to buy me a bottle of booze if I would vandalize another guys car. When I got to this fellas car, the owner had a locking cap on his gas tank. I noticed that he had locking pins on the hood,though, so I figured I would put the sugar in the carburetor. Just about the time I started to open the hood, I had a funny feeling that something was wrong. I stuck the box of sugar behind one of the tires, and started walking down the street. Just about that time a city policeman cruised by. He looked at me, but did not stop. This shook me up so bad that I gave up on the idea, got my sugar and went home. I got just as drunk as I could that night.
A few days later I was at a friends house preparing for war. A few weeks earlier there had been a fight at one of the bars in town. Three of us had beaten a man unconscious. The word on the street was that this guy had ten friends, who were going to get revenge. We had decided to take the offensive and go looking for them one by one. While we were getting ready to go, this one guys says, “We need help from someone stronger than us, we need to enlist the help of supernatural powers.” I told the guys that I didn’t want anything to do with satanism. I didn’t mind living my life as a sinner, but I wanted to keep clear of satan. I figured that if I left him and God alone, they would leave me alone. This, of course is completely wrong. If you don’t belong to God, then you belong to satan. No one just belongs to themselves, no matter how much satan would like for you to believe that. They told me, “This isn’t the devil, this is just a demon. They’re not the same thing.” So, being stupid, I agreed. These guys cut themselves and wrote a pentagram in their blood. Then one of the guys started chanting. They had given me the job of turning the stereo on at the crucial moment, to play a song by a heavy metal band. While I was sitting there waiting, it was like a lightbulb lit up in my head. It literally felt like light came into my head. Suddenly I could see that demons were the same thing as satan. I got mad at being lied to and I wanted to get out of there.
Eventually we did go out hunting for those ten guys later that night, but never did find anyone.
Some time later, as I was sitting in front of the TV looking at a horror movie, I started to see that I had hardened my heart to the point that I no longer could tell that I had any feelings. It seemed to me that I was just a machine, I had become Iron Man. I didn’t really care about anything, or anyone. It kind of scared me, and at this point I started thinking about getting back to God.
A few days later, I took some acid, and started hallucinating. I had a bad “trip”, as they say. Finally, after they had calmed me down enough to get me to lie down on the couch, I just lay there with my eyes closed, seeing geometric patterns drawn in blood. Then I started having a conversation inside my head. One part of me said, “I’m in charge here.” Another part of my mind spoke up and said, “No you’re not, I’m in charge!” This went on and on for what seemed like hours, even though it was probably only twenty minutes or so. Finally, I shouted inside my own consciousness, “Everyone shut up, I’m in charge here!” The voices ceased, and suddenly I was “straight”. The effects of the drug were gone, even though I had only been high for a few hours. Usually the effects of that type of drug would last for twelve hours. I was so freaked out that I had to go smoke some dope because it was so weird to be straight. I am convinced that if it had not been for prayer, and God’s mercy, I would probably be in an insane asylum somewhere, not knowing who was in charge of my mind.
After I returned to God, I had a dream. In this dream I was at the bottom of a very deep hole in the ground. There was a ladder going up to the top of the hole, and a door in the side of the hole. I reached out to take hold of the door handle, and just as I touched it I heard a voice say, “If you go through this door, you can’t come back.” I turned and put my foot on the bottom rail of that ladder, and started to climb out of the hole. Then I woke up.
I believe that God was trying to show me something in this dream. In my life I had reached the lowest point I could go. Everyone has a point beyond which there is no return. For some it is worse than others, but for me, I was there, apparently. God was saying to me, “This is where you were. You were this close.” I am so grateful to God for His mercy. He answers the prayers of praying parents, and He cares about every single one of us. Even if you, or I, were the only person on this planet, God would have sent Jesus to die. Jesus came for the whole world, but He also came just for me.
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
|
|
