a small door and entered through it into light. He told me that I was the pillar sent by God that helped save him but he didn’t understand the rest of the dream. I showed him the Scriptures: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14).
I’m so stoked God wrestled with me and persisted in getting me to go share with him. Now his drug using days are over, he has freedom and peace and best of all his eternity is secure in Christ.
A while later I was back in New Zealand and started going to the same church I used to go to for youth group. During the church service it became apparent that some things had gone down in the prior weeks, and for whatever reason the pastor gently said, “I don’t know what else to do,” and he walked off the stage and sat down in the front row.
An older man got up from the back and started walking to the front and said, “I agree with what the pastor is saying...”
The pastor stood straight up turned around and said “no” to the man.
The man started crying and knelt down. The next thing you know God has downloaded to me a vision and I felt like He pulled me out of my seat and pushed me forward. In my head, I was screaming thinking, What am I doing? I just saw the pastor say “no” to the older bloke and here I am walking forward as well? I got to the front and told the pastor my vision. He pointed to the stage and said, “Go.” A man of few words! I stepped up on stage and started sharing the vision.
I was on a narrow pathway and at the end of the path was the Kingdom of Heaven
The path looked like straw. And then it changed. The path was now light and each side of the path was darkness and God was holding my hand. I walked off the path into the darkness and then back on to the path of light and God was holding my hand the whole time. Then the vision changed again. Where the darkness was, it was now big spikes sticking up out of the ground, and when I walked off the path, I was walking on the spikes and hurting myself. However, the thing that hit me was not only was I walking on the spikes and hurting myself but also God was still holding my hand and He was walking on the spikes with me. I was hurting Him too. I shared this vision with the entire church and together we made a declaration: “We’re going to follow You God with all our heart. No more will we listen to the devil as he tempts us off the path. Thank You for holding onto us no matter where we wandered. We don’t want to hurt You God, You’re the One we love. We choose to walk Your path.”
You see our life is about choices. I was given a few different opportunities to choose God but some people only get one. Recently my friend told me about a guy he had shared the Gospel with, who told him “I’ll make a decision for God later”, and he then died the following week in a diving accident. My friend was very upset. I encourage you, if you have never made a decision, to follow God. He is waiting for you. He created you for a purpose, which is to be in relationship with Him. And He loves you. He sent Jesus Christ to die in our place and then raised Him from the dead to prove that with Him we can also have eternal life.
There is forgiveness of sins and restoration of relationship with God through Jesus who is alive today. And if you will invite Him into your heart to forgive you of all your sins and for Him to be the Lord (Leader) of your life, He will come in and never leave you. It is up to you. But I pray that you would choose Life and His name is Jesus.*
“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).
*If you have made a decision to follow God then you need to tell someone. Get a Bible, start reading, and get involved in a local church. Please contact us at www.benandcherie.com if you need some help or direction in getting established in a church in your community.
People aren’t perfect and people let you down. Don’t get disheartened with God when people let you down. God never will. He may not do things the way you expect, but He loves you and is Awesome. And if you see people that say one thing and do another, just make a choice that you won’t be like that. You can be the shining light to your world because of God in you. The adventure begins. Bring it on!
CHAPTER TWO: A New Faith Level
In April 1999 I married my beautiful wife Cherie, and we felt God telling us to move to Australia. We told our pastors who, with the whole church family, prayed for us and sent us out to Australia. We had only been married a month and a half.
We arrived in Coolangatta, Australia with a suitcase each, a surfboard, a guitar, and, if memory serves me well, I think about $250. We stayed in a backpacker accommodation and surprise surprise, we quickly ran out of money! We searched for work all day every day and finally Cherie was offered a job training racing horses on the Gold Coast, with on-site accommodation. She’d had horses while growing up, and it was a job she would have loved. However, when we prayed, we felt God tell us we needed to go to Brisbane. We were like “God we have no money and we have been offered work on the Gold Coast, but you want us to go to Brisbane? Ok, we will go.” So we sold our surfboard and guitar, moved up to Brisbane, and stayed at another backpackers accommodation.
In the past, without fail I would always get work in Brisbane immediately because of my background in computers, but this time I was getting nothing! Cherie was given a week’s work at a camping expo, selling a ‘30 Second Tent’ which was great, but the little money we made from selling the surfboard and guitar was running out fast. We sold everything we had except for our wedding rings and our clothes. We didn’t have enough for the next night’s accommodation so we gave the backpackers our passports as a guarantee that we would pay them back. We hadn’t eaten right for two weeks. And Cherie’s work at the expo was about to finish. We started to look on the streets for places to sleep, places where there would be shelter from the rain and a bit of light for security. It is different if you have to sleep on the streets by yourself, but when you have a beautiful wife to take care of and you are looking at being on the streets, it is another story.
We spent the next night pretending to watch TV in the communal lounge room of the backpackers so that we would not have to pay for a room. The next morning we got up and Cherie went to work. I had our last bit of bread and butter and started walking the streets of Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. As I was walking the Lord spoke to my heart. “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” I thought about it and then it clicked. The worst thing that can happen is that I die. The worst thing that can happen is that I die and go and be with the One I love! That’s the worst thing. That’s the biggest punch the world can throw at me and that is awesome. I’m in love with God and if I die I go and be with Him! I started singing and dancing on the streets of Fortitude Valley. People around probably thought I was tripping on drugs, but I was stoked! Then I felt God lead me to read the free newspaper at the backpackers, specifically the accommodation section even though we had no money to pay for a place. As I read through, this little ad just about leapt off the page as though it was in bold lettering. The accommodation advertised was a modern home, fully furnished, with beautiful French doors, situated on a 2 ½ acre property 30 minutes outside of the city. It sounded incredible! I read other ads further down the page, but none stood out like that one had. I went back to the ad and just knew I had to call these guys.
Cherie got home from her last day working at the expo. She had received a bonus for selling so many tents (that’s the favour of God!), so we were able to pay the backpacker and get our passports back. After not eating much for the last two weeks we went to the nearest and cheapest food outlet, which happened to be McDonalds.
