By the grace of God this is a simple story to tell, but I will include some details that may prove beneficial to OM. One’s testimony is typically the story of how one came to trust in Jesus, but because I was fortunate to have this happen early in my life I have opted to tell a bit of how the LORD has kept me with Him through the years.
Both my parents are committed Christians. All four of my grand parents were too. Three of them are now with the LORD. My mother’s mother is still faithfully serving the LORD at 90 years old! God grant me such faithfulness. Thus My sister and myself have a rich Christian heritage.
My sister and myself were brought up in the ways of the LORD. I remember committing myself to Jesus in the car with my mother. I must have been about eleven years old. She must just have explained my sinfulness, my need for a saviour, what Jesus did on the cross and that I could be saved by accepting Jesus’ claim on my life, because this is what I accepted then.
In addition to my parents direct teaching they sent us to Christian schools. Nevertheless I was bullied (verbally, not physically) all through primary school. In grade eight or nine (I forget which) we changed schools. The bullying stopped but I was still, by and large, not a part of the class.
The year we changed schools was also the year I started reading the Bible every day. It was (and is) wonderful. Since then there have been times of dryness and times of great intimacy, but the LORD has kept me faithful in this small thing.
I have been a committed Christian ever since then, thanks be to God, but it has not all been great. Especially during the four years studying toward my degree. During this time I grew quite cold. Sure I was reading my Bible and going to Church weekly, but that was all. After my degree I moved to Stellenbosch to study further. By this time I knew God but He was not dear to me and I had little regard for the preciousness of human life and the beauty of Jesus.
This coldness started while I was in high school and continues throughout my degree. This coldness was a symptom of a deeper struggle with meaninglessness. What began in high school resulted in what became a joke to me. Every year during my degree I would go home for the June holidays to “rethink the meaning of life”. During the holiday of my third year (2011) the LORD intervened abruptly. In a dream He presented me with an ultimatum. I could not remember the dream in the morning but the message was clear: “Me or your own way, choose.” He also made it abundantly clear that choosing my own way was not a good idea. How merciful is the LORD that He does not let us stray far.
Nevertheless my struggle with meaningless continued. Although my commitment to the LORD was no longer ambiguous to me. This struggle of mine reached its zenith during my first year in Stellenbosch. I was completely trapped by Nihilism for a day and half. That deep, slimy, bottomless pit of meaninglessness and futile despair which is the inevitable destination of all who define themselves by themselves. But Jesus rescued me.
It is true that the great statement “I think therefore I am” by René Descartesis is a baseless assumption. Jesus lead me to see that we cannot know on our own and must make assumptions. Jesus filled the slimy pit of Nihilism with himself, the Rock. Jesus became the foundation for all knowledge: “Jesus is and He said I am, therefore I am.” Praise Him.
In theory this was the end of my struggle, but, alas, it was not. This struggle was finally resolved when I came to grips with predestination. It happen in this way: I have, for a along time, held that our free will is a requirement for justice which is a requirement for love. However the Bible is clear on this point and Paul answers exactly this statement in Romans 9 by saying “Shall what is molded say to its molder, “Why did you make me like this?”” I did not like this. I was still trying to be something independent of God, but subject to His justice. But He finally pierced my stubbornness and demanded humility. This was hard: we are merely creatures subject to the whim of God. However Jesus makes this glorious.
Jesus shows us the magnitude and truth of Genesis 1: “So God created man in His own image”. Is humility required of us? Well it is required of us because it is the very nature of God and we are made in His image. Praise be to Him who has called us, mere phantoms and dust, to be so like Him!
Since then my struggle with meaninglessness has been much less pronounced. In addition the LORD has been growing in me a desire for acts of goodness. This expresses itself in part as a desire for mission and in part as a desire to help people in general.
In short the LORD brought me to a knowledge of Himself early in my life and He has kept me in Him through some fairly difficult times and I am confident that He will continue to keep me until He returns and brings the final judgement and restoration. Then I will live with Him as a part of the Church, forever.