TESTIMONY // Evan’s Story
TESTIMONY // EVAN’S STORY
Emmanuel Church, Chester-le-Street – 1st March 19
“…I sat at the back of the church meeting with university students worshipping God…and I stood there thinking ‘What is this?’ and then BOOM! I’m hit in the face…I can not overemphasise the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of God’s love that moved me to my core and it’s the very reason I’m standing here today, cause God opened my eyes and said ‘Hello’. He was right there, standing in front of me.
It doesn’t matter who you are, doesn’t matter if you have put up barriers saying ‘God, don’t look at me. I don’t want to know you. It’s too much, I don’t want to give myself to you. I don’t want to believe that you love me, I don’t want to believe in the value of your love.’ God said ‘Shut your face. I’m going to slap it in. I’m going to break the wall. I’m going to come in because I love you so much. I love you. I love you!’
It moved me so much. At the back of that room, I was moved to tears cause I’m someone who was homeless. I’m someone who is foreign. I’m someone who is so far from being “righteous” or a “Christian”. I’m so so broken inside.
I have no money. I have a mum who is so ill at home. I don’t even really know my dad. And God said ‘I love you’ and I said ‘Why? Jesus where were you? Why did all this happen? Why is life so tough? Why is the world so sucky?’ cause this world is really sucky! And you know what God said? ‘I love you’ and He just didn’t stop saying it. It infuriated me and frustrated me cause there was this tangible love right in front of me with all these people still worshipping God and listening to the sermon. I can’t even remember what the sermon was about cause I was sat there in a discourse with a God who loved me so much that he thought he would just pound me with the Holy Spirit and just come in front of me in such a tangible way that I could feel His love; that I could feel this thick blanket wrapped around me. Every question I had, God just answered with ‘I love you’ and looking now, I don’t understand why everything happened the way it did. I don’t understand why bad things happen. We don’t really have an answer, it’s quite complex and I’m just not there yet.
But I know that the one thing in my life that would have been so good is if I had lived knowing that God loved me, accepting that God loved me and not putting those barriers up cause those tough times really wouldn’t have been so tough, even though they are still tough.
Life still sucks. I’m not rich, I haven’t won the lottery. I still sin. I still struggle with the legacy of addiction, the legacy of someone who breaks people, who uses people, who is a bully, someone who is proud of himself. I still struggle with that legacy.
We are broken people. Just as broken as I was 5 years ago in a homeless shelter, but I know that God loves me and I’m richer now than I was ever before! I have the best life cause I know that Jesus Christ died on a cross. Whatever darkness in my life means nothing anymore, whatever sin happens and hour after those whatever tragedy comes into my life tomorrow, or the next day, next month, 3 years from now means nothing because Jesus loves me and He died for me, and as long as I love Him and keep going back to Him everyday that’s all that matters”
