Grant's Testimony
Hi, my name is Grant and I would like to share with you how God changed my life and took away my fear of death. For the first 24 years of my life I lived without God and I had no lasting purpose or hope. I grew up in Adelaide, South Australia. I was a failure at school and the only subject I excelled in was Art. While I was still in school I started drinking and smoking dope. I had become a real rebel.After leaving school I tried some LSD and magic mushrooms. I went from one girlfriend to the next. I was always in one pub or another. But none of that was really fulfilling. I owned about seven motorbikes, including Ducatis, Yamahas, Suzukis and a Honda. I have also had a fair few cars. I don’t know how I survived, I often rode my motorbike while I was drunk and stoned. I had a few close calls when I could have easily died. One near miss happened when I was 17. My first bike was a Yamaha 250cc. I was riding my bike at night and my friend was on the back of my bike. I was drunk and stoned ane we were coming up to a main intersection. It was a T junction but for some reason I thought the road went straight through. I didn’t see any stop sign and I just kept going at a normal speed. A car narrowly missed us and we ended up in a vacant lot full of weeds. I could not stop the bike so I put it down on its side and we both fell off. We were lying there in a daze but otherwise we were ok. When I came around, I got up, picked up the bike, straighten the handlebars (as best as I could) and we rode around to a friend’s place. The next day my friends checked out the skid marks in the field. The marks stoped about 5 to 10 feet away from a steep drop. God was sure looking after me!I liked travelling and I went on some trips overseas. In 1984 I had my fourth semi-serious girlfriend. At the time, she was 20 and I was 21. We went on a trip to Queensland (in north-eastern Australia) for about five months and it was during that time that we started fighting and physical violence became the normal weekly routine between the two of us. The relationship became a bittersweet experience. When we came back to Adelaide, I got a job with an aviation company. I was loading and cleaning various types of aircraft. This was my dream job and I worked there for about four years, but slowly my past was catching up with me and I started feeling guilty about my past womanising. I was becoming worried and depressed because of my fear of death. Death seemed so final and I didn’t know what would happen to me when I died. I started to become worried about death and contracting Aids. With life getting more depressing I started working hard in the garden at the house that my girlfriend and I had bought in 1987. For a while I managed to push the deep routed fear of death into the back of my mind. That was until one horrifying night …My job involved flying from Adelaide to country towns in South Australia. We flew in a twin-engine 22-seater aircraft, delivering newspapers and bringing back coffins (with dead bodies in them) and boxes of seafood to Adelaide. However one night, while I was flying the aircraft over the Spencer Gulf, I saw an instrument warning light flash on and off. The captain did not see it go on the first time, but it got his attention the second time it flashed on. The oil warning light was indicating that the right engine was low on oil (as we found out later) but shortly after that the left oil light also flashed on. The captain handed me a torch so that I could look out of the window at the engine on my side of the aircraft. He asked me if I could see any oil streaming out if it. All I could see is what looked like old oil stains on the cowl of the engine. After checking the engine on his side we continued our flight. It was a moonless night and the seawater below us was black. My face must have turned pale. The palms of my hands were sweating. Thoughts flashed through my mind of ditching into ocean below and being devoured by a large shark (that’s if I survived the crash). To sum it up I was petrified and I was sure that I was going to die. However, we did manage to land safely and after inspecting the aircraft engines we discovered that they were both very low on oil. That night I went home to my girlfriend and told her what had happened and I told her that I was so scared because I didn’t know where I would have gone if I had died. This experience haunted me and I realised how short and temporary our lives are. I couldn’t shake my fear and the depression that came as a result. It all finally came to a head one night as I told a friend about my fears, especially the fear of death. I told him that I had too many unanswered questions and frustrations. The Bible says that Jesus is going to return and judge people who have not received Him. I knew I would not be ready because of the way I was living. I needed to find a church where they could show me how my life could change. I was confused about which church to go to. (There is an article on this website that tells you how to find a good church.)I prayed that God would lead me to a true Church.On the morning that I prayed that prayer, I saw Barry at work. I had not seen him for a while. I was impressed by the change in Barry's life. Barry used to swear and make some remarks about the flight attendants that were not very polite. But Barry no longer did those kinds of things.I asked Barry ‘What are you doing with yourself now?’He said he was going to Bible College. I asked which church he was going to and he told me. I told him about what I had prayed that morning and he said ‘We need to talk.’We met again about an hour later and I asked him questions about the Bible. He led me in prayer and I asked Jesus to come into my life. He told me about a church that I could get involved in that was not far from where I live.It has been over eighteen years since I asked Jesus to come into my life and although there have been many changes in my life the Bible says that Jesus can set people free from the fear of death. Jesus did this for me and I can confidently say today that no matter how or when I die, I know that Jesus Christ will take me into heaven to be with him forever.You see Jesus came into the world to die for us. It is only through his death that we can find forgiveness for our sins. He was put to death but 3 days later He arose from the dead. God promises that all who believe in Jesus and ask him to come into their life will be saved and receive eternal life. Yes, Jesus came to earth 2000 years ago but He is coming back a second time to judge everyone who has ever lived.If Jesus came back today would you be ready? If you want to be ready then see ‘How do you become a Christian?’If you are not sure that you need to go to church then please read ‘Why go to church?’If you would like to find a good church then see ‘How do you find the right church?’ Grant.