I was an atheist. I hated the church. Hated God most days, and that’s assuming I actually acknowledged Him or even a higher power. I was not born into the church as some were, if there is such a thing. People who grew up in it also face some challenges that people who weren’t born into it don’t really have to face, goes both ways I guess.

You might be an atheist, might not be. I had days where I considered myself an agnostic, and I think a lot of people fall into the same category. I think my heart and mind wanted God NOT to exist, but there was always this thing that I couldn’t shake, an impression of something more. Those impressions… well… I tried to run from facing them at all costs.

God uses different avenues to reach out to us individually— people, programs, books, pamphlets etc.. But with me, none of that was possible. I liked to shut myself out from the world, and I was good at it. God had no crack in the door, no open window. Christian TV couldn’t reach me because my TV was used for video games. I wouldn’t hear a knock at the door because my headphones were on full blast. I smoked and drank, but was terrified of getting high alone because spiritual thoughts would creep in and I didn’t want anything to do with them. I’d turn on the games so that when I got high, my distraction was readily available. I hated loading screens because that meant a moment of silence, and those were death to me. I did everything I could to close every opening to God or spiritual thoughts.

Well, one day I was sitting there gaming along just like any other day– probably had been for a couple hours by that point. I’m not sure if there was a loading screen or a lull in the game play or what, but all of a sudden I heard a loud voice:

“YOU NEED TO GO AND PRAY.”

I looked around the room, even though I knew I was alone in the house.

“Ooookay… I guess I’ll just go and pray now…” I said.

I started walking around the room trying to remember what my mom taught me about prayer. I hadn’t been to church since I was a kid, and even then we bounced around to different churches because my dad was trying to find a church that taught things the way he believed them. After trying who knows how many, we stopped looking. And so it turns out that remembering anything 20 years later was as unlikely as it sounds. I tried to remember the Lord’s prayer, but could only recall a line or two of it. So I tried to remember what else she taught me, and I remembered, by the grace of God, to ask forgiveness for my sins. So I got down on my knees, feeling stupid, confused and ridiculous, and started praying.

“Dear Lord, please forgive me for my sins, please forgive me for…”

As soon as I said those words, all my sins came pouring out of my mouth. Things I did that I had forgotten, things I didn’t know were sins, things I didn’t know had hurt people…and the whole time this was happening, I felt this horrible sadness and sorrow. If we can be tortured with heartbreak, that’s how it felt. I was in tears, begging God to forgive me, confessing, begging, confessing, begging. I don’t know how long I was down there, but all of a sudden, it was as if a light switch flipped and I had gone from feeling that awful sadness, to being filled with the most powerful feeling of love that just can’t be described. I wish I could. The closest I can come to explaining it is imagining yourself standing directly in front of the mega speakers at a rock concert— the music almost feels like it’s physically hitting you, like it could actually knock you off your feet. Take that feeling and multiply it by a thousand, that’s the power of the love that I felt in that moment. I knew I was forgiven and I was thanking and thanking Jesus for forgiving me, when all of a sudden I heard the voice again.

“GO AND READ THE BIBLE. “

I went and dug up an old Bible that had been in a drawer in the living room for ages, and started reading Genesis. Every word I read made that feeling of God’s love get stronger and stronger. I probably made it halfway through Genesis when I could no longer read because the love was so strong that I was rattling and shaking in my seat. I slammed it shut and, covered in tears and boogers, yelled out, “What just happened to me?!?!”

Something had changed. God was real, I knew it. I still wasn’t sure what to do with it, but He worked all that out.

In the coming days I had questions arise in my mind— old wars I had waged against Him. I’d think, “well, what about this?” My job at the time had a lot of driving and customer interaction, and as I asked questions in my thoughts, God sent me to people who provided the answers in casual conversation, many times without me even asking anything. It was crazy. I’d fact check everything I was hearing against the Bible, and it would consistently check out. Finally, after enough of these “divine appointments” as people like to call them, I realized I was still at war with the idea of church; I still hated church after all this. I remember I was driving, and kinda mulling over that realization, and I started praying, “God, do you want me to go back to church? You know how I feel about the church, but I wanna do whatever you want me to do…”

I heard the voice again.

“LEARN ABOUT THE SABBATH.”

I was confused. I felt like that wasn’t really an answer. God had just given homework to someone who absolutely hated homework. Buuuut I decided to look into it, to the shock of the universe. I didn’t even know what a sabbath was. I was unfamiliar with the concept. I found out that it was even a commandment. I dug and dug. Bible verses, history, culture. I wondered why everyone went to church on Sunday when the Sabbath was from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. Then I said, (not really praying, just saying aloud) “who even goes to church on Saturday??” God immediately brought into my mind, “The Seventh Day Adventist Church.”

I remembered that my family had tried one of those churches when I was a kid, and then remembered I had seen one just over a mile from where I lived. I started going. The people seemed nice even though I didn’t talk to anyone, but I was seeking God, not people, and that suited my introversion perfectly. The second Sabbath I attended, God sent me a teacher. I spent a year seeking the truth, studying, learning…I tested the things they taught with the Bible and prayer, and found them to be true. I decided to be baptized, and God has broken chain after chain in my life ever since.

The Bible says that we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Phillippians 2:12). That means questioning everything we have been taught and believe to be true, comparing scripture with scripture and taking it to God in prayer, surrendering everything to Him and sincerely seeking the truth from His own lips. He is the God of truth— and if we open our hearts to Him in prayer and set aside all the things we’re clinging to (including the things we think are true, ideologies we may have or even the traditions that we have learned that might contradict His Word), then He’ll lead us into the actual truth. He did for me, and He’ll do it for anyone.

God called me just over seven years ago, and it’s now December of 2020 so you have a reference point. It’s been a crazy year for everyone, and we’ve all experienced a lot. I’ve seen and experienced so many miracles, answers to prayer and changes in my life. A Christian’s testimony is always growing– because as we walk closer and closer with God, always in search of that deeper relationship, He blesses us with increasingly awesome experiences with Him. People read the Old Testament, or hear the stories of the wild miracles He performed back in that time and wonder where the miracles are now. I can say confidently that I’ve seen miracles on that scale in my walk with Him. Genuinely amazing things. One of the most amazing things God does though is that He transforms lives. My life has changed for the better since walking with Him. Some of these changes come through hard fought challenges— there is much that we need to overcome— but silver is only refined when you turn up the heat. If we do wrong, God corrects us (Heb 12:3-7), forgives us (1 John 1:9), urges us to keep pushing forward (Heb 12:1,2)…and He WILL accomplish victory after victory in our lives (Phi 1:6, 1 John 5:1-5).

I had a lot of questions and issues with the Bible before God called me. I didn’t trust it, I worried that people could have changed it, that its pages could have been manipulated somehow. But right after calling me to confess what I had done, the first thing He did was tell me to read the Bible. This told me that the Bible was true, and that if I wanted the truth, this was the source. As the Bible says;
“When He, the Spirit of truth, is come He will lead you into all truth.” John 16:13

He came to me, and led me straight to the Bible, the word of God, for the truth.

“For the word of the LORD is right, And all His work is done in truth.” Psalm 33:4

“The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.” Psalm 119:160

But would God lie to me? The Bible answered that too:

“It is impossible for God to lie,” Hebrews 6:18.

And finally, while praying to the Father for His followers, Jesus said,
“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” John 17:17

To be sanctified is to be changed, purified, prepared for salvation. So it’s more than truth, it’s transformation.

If the Bible wasn’t His word, He wouldn’t have sent me to it; He’d have sent me elsewhere. But since He didn’t, that means it’s true. All the promises, eternal life, the earth made new with nobody hurting each other ever again, and most of all Jesus, our own King and Savior who gave up all that we hope to gain, so that we could have it in abundance.

If it was all a lie, He wouldn’t need to fool me, He could have just left me there playing video games. Instead I received an invitation. An invitation that’s open to everyone. As God says Himself, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13.

“Call to Me and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things which you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3

“And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” 1 John 5:11

(By Christian Ayala)