God Is My Salvation
Hi my name is Dillon and I will be turning 20 this year. I was given the opportunity of serving in church awaiting my enlistment date.
I came to Bethany when I was 10 years old. When I was a little older, I attended regular activities in church like YPG, Bible study, prayer meeting and youth choir. I came to church regularly and was serving in the AV ministry and cleaning-up team. When I was in secondary school, I joined rugby and my focus started to shift towards getting fit. And I took pride in being part of Saint Andrews Secondary School rugby team. I trained hard each day hoping that I would be selected to play for the main team but to my disappointment, I was only selected to play in the second team. After which, I lost my commitment to rugby and started to hang out with other friends who were into gaming.
After casually playing with them I started to have an addiction for computer games , I played for many hours even to the point where I started skipping school just to go to Internet cafes and I would play games for 12 over hours straight, even up to 24 hours. My life went downhill from that point on as I saw no point in studying or coming to church as I wanted to just have fun and live life as it goes by.
My life became worse after my N levels (which I did not do well in). I started to go to night clubs, drinking alcohol and mixing with bad company. They started to teach me things which were not right and unlawful. I started to join in illegal gang activities which brought me the adrenaline rush I was seeking after. My heart started to harden and I felt that there was no such thing as God. I was having lots of fun but it was all short term. The law caught up with me and I landed into deep trouble. I felt hopeless and helpless like there was no meaning to live.
But I thank God that in my darkest moment, He send the pastors to help me.
The pastors from Bethany cared for me and sought to aid me in my time of need.
I started returning each week to Bethany to learn from the word of God. At first, after coming back, my heart was still not convinced that there is a living God. But when I read a poem written by Pastor from Isaiah 12:2, my heart was deeply moved.
“ Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; For YAH, the Lord, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation.’”
I understood that God is our salvation and in any situation that we go through, He is our strength and song. We can trust in Him and not be afraid. It brings me much joy that it was God who has blessed me and helped me through all that has happened. Being blessed by Him, I cannot but speak of this faith I have in God as I trace the amazing work of the Lords hand leading me back to Him to be part of His chosen people. What joy it brings to my heart that even a man full of sins like me can return to God with a great sense of hope and comfort in Him! He gave us His son to die on the cross for our sins that we can be forgiven!
I now have a new sense of hope and joy in Christ Jesus now and in the future.
After all that has happened I seek to just focus on being a faithful Servant of His and an obedient child of God. When I understand that through the blood of Jesus I have redemption and I have been set free from sin, I determine to be a faithful child of God. I seek to be baptised so that I can be identified with Christ and be part of the Church.