BE BLESSED IN 2013

Some people's testimonies make me cry. Others are riveting. An
occasional few make me laugh until I cry. The most hilarious story of
salvation I have ever heard personally was told to me by a fellow
South African while we were both students at Christ For The Nations
Institute in Dallas, Texas. Gavin was very tall and gangly, with a
wealth of stories from when he was in the army. In South Africa in the
seventies, all white South African male school leavers were required
to serve in the South African armed forces for two years. This was
during the dark days of apartheid when our government was attempting,
unsuccessfully, to prevent non-white people from voting, living
wherever they wanted to live, and from marrying white people. This is
not meant to be a depressing blog, so I will spare you the rest of the
appalling history of that unjust and inhumane era which still evokes
shame in white South Africans. When I was confined in a psychiatric
institution before my salvation I met many of these young men who had
been driven to the verge of psychotic behaviour by the horrors they
endured "on the border", which is where they were sent after basic
training. We were undergoing psychiatric treatment at the same
facility, so I heard many stories of the anxiety and stress they lived
with daily.

Back to CFNI in Dallas. Gavin had accompanied me to a service at which
I had been asked to give my testimony. For those of you who have never
heard it, I need to mention that it is dramatic in the extreme,
involves deliverance from occultic bondage and demon possession, and
includes the fact that I saw the devil (in whom I had never believed),
as an angel of light. I saw Gavin taking copious notes as I spoke, and
wondered what on earth he was doing taking notes on my testimony. As
it happens, he wasn't. He had decided to make himself useful by
critiquing my "talk"! After we got back to campus he shared his
thoughts with me. He expounded on how I could have improved my
delivery, which I listened to with good humour, and little intention
of taking his advice. I was a professional school teacher, and Gavin
was a budding journalist. There is a huge difference between speaking
publicly and writing. One statement he made, though, had me rolling on
the floor. I had described what the devil looked like, as well as the
spirit guides, whom I had dealt with as a spiritualist medium. In my
testimony I described how the spirit guides were really demons, but
had appeared to me as humans, until their masks dissolved and I could
clearly see the demonic countenances underneath.

"One final comment," said Gavin, consulting his notes. "In future,
when you refer to the devil and demons, it would be more appropriate
to speak of CLAWS instead of hands, and HOOVES instead of feet."

He looked put out when I burst out laughing, and asked him who had
actually SEEN what I had described, he or I? This, however, led to a
discussion of how he had come to know Jesus. I really wish I could do
a better job of describing Gavin. He could be earnest to the point of
being pompous, and yet the way he spoke was irresistibly funny to me.
He didn't always understand what I was laughing at, but he was very
good natured, and often laughed with me.

This is his story. I am not sure if he began to smoke weed before he
went to the army, but after a few months on the border he began to
smoke regularly. I can't remember the details of how he acquired it,
but SOMEBODY on the border had a roaring trade in marijuana, or
"dagga, or zol", as it is referred to in South Africa. Gavin was a
regular customer, and when he had to go out on foot patrols on the
south western border of South Africa, where a guerrilla war was being
fought and land-mines and ambushes were fearful realities, he and some
of his cronies smoked to relax. On one such patrol they had the
obligatory rest stop, and Gavin discovered that he had run out of
paper to roll the joint. Correction! He had made this discovery before
they left barracks, but, ever resourceful, he had found paper of
exactly the right thin consistency he needed to roll an acceptable
joint. It just happened, however, to be the pages of the Gideon Bible
thoughtfully provided to all the troops.

Gavin told me he felt bad about it, because although he wasn't
"religious" it didn't feel right to smoke the bible, but he had gained
approval from the chaplain for taking his bible on patrol. When the
patrol stopped for a rest, he took himself off on a "toilet break",
claiming "Gippo guts", or diarrhoea. He found a secluded spot under a
bush, and to be respectful to God, he tore out the last page of the
bible and smoked Revelation 22 and 21. Next time round he smoked
chapters 20,19, and 18. He then decided, to be even more respectful,
to READ Rev. 16 and 17 before he smoked them. His eyes widened as he
described the fear of God that knocked him to his knees as he read
Revelation 16. He shook with terror, stone cold sober, and repented of
every sin he knew he had committed. By the time he got back to camp he
was a changed man. This is still one of my favourite accounts of
someone's salvation. It was the burning bush with a difference.

I thought of Gavin last night as I was considering new beginnings.
Today is the last day of 2012. The world didn't end. World War 3
didn't start. The 2012 Olympics were not disrupted by a terrorist
attack. If you are South African, Julius Malema is no longer president
of the ANC youth league. Osama Bin Laden is dead. Queen Elizabeth is
still reigning, and each Christmas shares her faith in Jesus more
openly. If you are reading this, you are still alive. If you wake up
tomorrow morning you are embarking on a brand new year. I don't know
WHAT 2013 holds for any of us, but this I do know - God is on the
throne, faithful to His word, waiting for us to read before we smoke
so that He can speak to us and change our lives for the better. The
same God Who delivered me from demon possession, addictions, and
psychiatric disorders, Who met Gavin with a bible page in one hand and
weed in the other, is there for you and for me. Let us not wallow in
the failures, disappointments, or even the successes of 2012, but let
us embrace the unknown new thing in 2013, with expectation of a close
encounter of the God kind.

May 2013 bring you into the very centre of God's will for your life.
God bless you,
Fiona