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An Answer to Prayer

During my years before my salvation, I was involved with every sin prohibited by the law of God. I was a church person and grew up in a Christian home. The Word was read but I did not care much about it. I married very early in my life. I'm divorced from my first wife, one child was born from that marriage. My wife divorced me because I committed adultery. My second marriage (adulterous relationship), from which three children were born, also went on the rocks because of sins of both parties. I drank a lot, had loose moral standards and pursued financial success. I married (adulterous relationship) my third wife, my carnal desires once again prevailed. Although I quit with a lot of wrong things after this divorce, I was still more concerned about myself than about anyone else.

During the last times of my second marriage, my eldest son, Llewellyn, came to faith in Jesus Christ. It pushed a wedge between us because he addressed my sins and one evening shook me by my shoulders and told me that I did not serve the Lord but that I serve the Devil, I was so angry that I chased him out of my house and got disowned him as heir in my testament.

Plus minus six years after my and Llewellyn's dispute, while I was in Johannesburg, my third wife called me and informed me that she was moving out of my house and that she no longer wanted to be married to me. I could not believe she'd leave such a good man like me. I tried to persuade her to wait for me so we could discuss the matter. I immediately canceled my business appointments and arranged for a earlier flight back to Windhoek.

While sitting at the Johannesburg airport and smoking, I had tears in my eyes and a broken heart about what was happening in my life, the words that Llewellyn spoke to me came back to my mind. I challenged JESUS ​​to make Him known to me and help me if He truly is the truth of which Llewellyn spoke. Immediately it was as if He was saying to me, "If you can not trust ME to deliver you from the cigarette that's in your hand, how would you trust Me to sort out the rest of your life?" My response to this was a challenge to JESUS. If I get off at the airport in Windhoek and still feel like smoking, I will know that you do not really exist, but if I do not feel like smoking, I will know that you really saved me and that you live truly ". When we arrived in Windhoek we went through Customs. One of my friends asked me to smoke with him, it sent a shock through me, because I had no desire in me to smoke. Then I said to my friend, "I have stopped smoking, I mean, JESUS has set me free from smoking" he laughed at me saying "you lie, you have a packet of cigarettes in your shirt pocket" I replied "you do not understand do not understand JESUS delivered me from smoking and I am not going to drink again." The peace and joy I experienced at that moment can not be described to anyone, I can only say that the Word of God is true, "And the peace from God, which goes beyond all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I left for home from the airport. I still did not really know what happened, nobody prepared me for what happens to you when you have a meeting with JESUS. When I got home, I had a desire to go to my room, go to my knees and thank JESUS for setting me free. I suddenly had an urge to read the Bible. I did not know what was going on. Later that evening I decided to watch some TV to relax and recover. When I put the TV on, the actors in the film used a foul language and were using God’s name in vain. I had an incredible guilty conscience, so badly that I immediately switched off the TV. I was amazed at it and could not understand why, because I could remembered how I watched a movie last night and that it did not bother me at all, even though they were cursing and swearing.

I spent the weekend in tears, prayer and in Bible reading. I could not understand what drives me so. I did not have any withdrawal symptoms, I did not feel like smoking or drinking at all, and never did either again.

I went on a business trip on the Monday with one of my colleagues, (I'm a salesman that went from from town to town selling products to shops), I kept the road rules, my colleague looked at me and asked if I was afraid of the traffic officers, (I would normally traveled with him at very high speeds). I said to him, "I'm not afraid of the traffic officers, I'm afraid of GOD", he looked at me as if I were crazy.

I began to see sin around me and began to judge everyone and everything. I started to consume the Word of God, the more I read it, the more my eyes opened to what is going on in the world around me and in people's lives, they were all sinners, and lived in sin. It felt like everyone was wrong and I'm only one that is right. When I told my saved son that Jesus saved me also, he thought I was just fooling him. Only during a visit to him when he was driving in with me in the car and watched how I obey the speed limit and road rules (everyone knew that I was always speeding), he knew that GOD did something in my life. But I still had a problem, although I was free and did not knowingly sin any more, I did not have a sense of the sin that is still in my own life, and still blamed everyone and everything for the mess in which I found myself.

One weekend, two months later, after I was visiting my son at Usakos, I was on my way back to Windhoek, I cried to God about all that was happening in my life. Suddenly, it felt to me as if God pushed His finger in my face and said, "Who do you think you are, it is because of your own sin and your weaknesses as head of your house that you are in such a mess, you did not serve Me and did not do what I instructed you in my Word”, I burst into tears, suddenly I saw my sin and filth in the presence of HIS Holiness. I started confessing my sins before God. For a short while I did not know what was happening around me. When I came back to reality, I was on my cellphone with my third ex-wife and begging for forgiveness from her for what I did wrong. I also went to my second wife and ask for forgiveness the week following. I even gathered my children and asked them for forgiveness for the fact that I did not raise them according to the will of GOD and confess to them that I myself did not live in the will of GOD, and that almost everything that I have taught them were wrong. A few months later, GOD gave me also the opportunity to ask my first wife for forgiveness for my actions against her.

I believe that GOD delivered me at the airport from my bondage to sin, but that He only filled me with His Spirit the day I confessed my sins and came to the cross denying myself. Later I were also baptized as a believer.

After that, I had a burden for souls and could not stop testifying of Jesus to others as GOD gave me opportunities to tell people about what Jesus did for me, and of His love and His salvation work through His Son, Jesus Christ, who died for the worlds sin on the cross and that whosoever calls upon His name and confesses their sins, He will not only forgive their sins but also save them from their sins.

I praise and honor GOD through Jesus Christ for His mercy and long-suffering to save my soul, and that He answered my son and other believers prayers who prayed for me.

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