It’s difficult for me to try and write a short testimony of what the Lord has done in my life since I gave my life to Him on the 4th December 2016, due to the immeasurable number of mountains He has levelled and the massive giants He has slain for me since.

I arrived at my current hometown in a spiritual mess, after leaving a very dark life behind in Johannesburg. A life full of drugs, violence and one where I’d been a main player in a criminal syndicate that distributed drugs to many Johannesburg night clubs. I had been arrested multiple times for reasons ranging from assault to drugs…even attempted murder. However, I do not want to go into too much detail about my past life, as that is not important anymore.

The warning of my life being in the balance hit home and I began to listen!

Many people had been trying to speak into my life over the years, trying desperately to get me out of the life I had chosen, but it went in one ear and out the other. I was in too deep, and besides, I admittedly loved the feeling of power and fear I produced in people. But then one day, God miraculously sent someone to me with a clear word of warning, one that concerned my very life. The warning of my life being in the balance hit home and I began to listen! I packed my bags, left my apartment with everything in it, and left Johannesburg without telling anyone.

November 2015, I arrived at my mom’s home with nothing other than a suitcase, a drug addiction and many demons to fight in the months to come. It was then that the suffering felt like it really started. I was coming off drugs and starting life again at 31 years of age. It was a rough few months, living with no hope and no motivation to do anything other than sleep (when the tranquillizers kicked in to silence the tormenting voices in my mind).

One day, a few months in, I got the strong urge…to load a Bible App on my phone.

One day, a few months in, I got the strong urge (I say urge, but I know God was behind it) to load a Bible App on my phone. I still remember loading it and wondering what I was doing, but I started reading it anyway, reading from Matthew through to Revelation. When I had completed it, I read it all over again. The Word of God hooked me so deeply, from the first word to the last – I couldn’t stop reading it.

During this time, I also started going to church, I gave my life to Jesus, and got baptized on the 4th of December 2016. I started exercising again, I tossed the sleeping tablets, and started to enjoy the best sleep I’d ever had. Most of all, I had become very excited about starting a new life, I was “amped” (excited) to get started. I tried starting my own consulting/ brokering company but it fell flat. Incredibly, that did not get me down, as I was running on the Holy Spirit’s enabling and He kept me through that disappointment. Around that time, I began hearing the words, ‘New church, new church’ in my mind. I remember being so confused and asking the Lord, ‘Am I supposed to be a pastor now and start a new church? How is that even possible, what’s up with that Lord?’

From then on, we started hanging out and I started helping him wherever I could in planting the new church.

Thankfully, the Lord soon showed me the answer. At my local gym, I kept seeing a couple ‘hanging around’, but I could never really figure them out. I didn’t think that they were locals, as I had been born there and knew most people. One day, the guy from the couple walked up to me (which I was very apprehensive about and honestly was annoyed at him possibly interrupting my training), he opened his mouth and introduced himself with the following words, ‘Hi, I have moved here from Cape Town with my wife, and we are here to plant a new church’. When he said that same phrase I’d been hearing, ‘new church’, I knew this was something of God. Those words brought down every wall and barrier I had erected, and I opened up to him about my life. I told him I loved Jesus and told him why I had left Johannesburg. From then on, we started hanging out and I started helping him wherever I could in planting the new church.

Fast forward to my life now, I have seen supernatural moves of God that I believe would make the biggest unbeliever doubt their unbelief. I’m living my life trying to serve others and display the character of Jesus on this earth as best I can, in His strength. I don’t care what my situation looks like anymore, how big the battles seem or how impossible they feel. I serve a limitless God with limitless power. I have seen His power, I have seen His faithfulness, and He is my God who saved me from darkness.