I finished my contract with work and went to Sydney to visit Skye. She was trying to understand my faith and I could feel her little faith failing. She told me she gave up praying. It broke my heart, and then she told me that she didn’t want to be my girlfriend any more. That broke my heart as well. I came home a week early. Over the next month I floundered in my faith. I had been feeling far away from God and I felt the sorrow in my soul that came along with that. I wanted to get back to Him, but I didn’t know how.

I remember I was really depressed, I was hollow and hurt. I read my bible for comfort one day. I read about how much the Lord loves me and how He promises that, when your stuck in a moment, He will come for you. I said out loud, ‘God I am going to wait here until you come for me and save me.’

I was determined to allow God to show his mercy in my life. For nearly four months I waited for God. In that time I lost my car, I lost my job, I lost my money and was in debt and I lost my contact with Skye. I continued to say to God, ‘I know you will come for me.’

Words can’t describe how I felt, the sorrow and despair in my heart was brutal. I did my best to keep faithful to God through my prayers, reading the word (although I had no motivation) and ministering to people as well as talking about how good God is. I was a mess emotionally, I was a nightmare for my mother. I hated my situation and I noticed my frustration getting the better of me through my fighting with people I love.

I tried to pay a lot of attention at church. I didn’t want to miss anything God had to say to me. What I heard quite literally kept me in tears most of the time. After a very passionate sermon on forgiveness, I ran into my very first girlfriend Cara, who needless to say I hadn’t forgiven. I tried to put into practice some of the things I had learnt that morning. We ended up having a three-hour coffee and chat. At the end I felt love for her as a friend and gave a hug goodbye and we went out separate ways. I felt like I was floating, the weight I had been carrying was crippling me. Now my forgiveness of Cara had set me free from that. Praise the Lord for letting it happen.

This was about three-month in and it looked like I was over the worst of it, I was still really sad but I was getting better. I was still fighting with my mother a lot. One day a few weeks ago, I had an enormous fight with my mother, over nothing really. She left the house and didn’t come home for two days. When she returned she confronted me saying, ‘What’s happening to you? It’s breaking my heart to see you like this.’ Being the stubborn selfish boy I am I replied, ‘What do you know, I’m fine.’ I put up walls and defenses around me. She ran to her room crying. I thought for a moment about all the things I had done to her and how she was trying to help me. I began to cry. I started to wale from the depth of my sorrow torn spirit. It wasn’t over my pain wasn’t gone. I cried like I’ve never cried before. It was Skye, it was everyone, it was me, it was my situation, and it was my longing for God to come to me and save me. My spirit was desperate, my soul was full of utter despair. Mum heard me from her room and come out to comfort me. We chatted, well rather she talked I cried. I apologized for everything I had done to her and went to bed exhausted.

Now you’d think that was the end. I’d dealt with my pain, I was on the mend. God had given me a job at Yooralla by this stage through my prayers. I was using my mum’s van as my own car and I was moving out with my two brothers in early June. My life was a lot happier. Well that wasn’t it, God had more for me.

Through the four months I’d noticed that I was helping more people come to know God. Melinda my friend had told me that he has decided to make coming to church a regularly thing. My other friend Lucy was firing questions at me about God, thirsty to know and understand after the passing of her mother due to cancer in February. I was also talking to and old friend from high school who had been a Christian the whole time and I was talking to about three or four people on the Internet about God.

This one day, a few days after my fight with mum, I was chatting to one of them. I had not told her I was a Christian and something prompted me one day to bring it up. So I did. I found out that she use to believe but she doesn’t now because God never answered her prayers. We talked about this for a while and she left to go and read the Gospel of Mark because I had asked her to saying next time we talk we will chat about it. I got off the computer and said to myself, ‘Why did I do that? Why did I tell her to read Mark?’ I have no idea what Mark is about because I have never read Mark. I thought that I better read it, because I don’t want to look like a fool. I began to read it from the start. It was all about believing in God and how all prayers will be answered in only I believe. It also gave me a lot on insight into some of my own insecurities about my faith. I wept tears of joy and praised the Lord for knowing me so well.

A few days later I woke up early and decided not to go to uni that day. So I went down to the mall. I ran onto a girl I, but I really didn’t like her very much. During the conversation she started telling me her problems and I thought ‘I can’t be stuffed with this, she is a Christian though.’ So I decided I was feeling in a good mood so I listened. I chatted with her and found that the principals that I had learnt from reading Mark came in extremely valuable. We parted company with her feeling better and I was feeling good too. I hadn’t walked ten steps when I ran into another christian friend of mine, his name was Mark (coincidence?). Mark and I had a coffee and we spent a lot of time chatting about spiritual warfare and how Mosses’ prayer changed Gods mind and how to protect yourself against evil. Anyhow the conversation drew to a close. I wondered off to go to my car, but I went the wrong way. I was thinking to myself ‘why am I going this way it’s so much longer’.

All of a sudden I realize I’m passing the Christian bookshop. A funny feeling inside me told me that I should buy a book about God. Now I only had forty dollars till I next get paid and I wasn’t sure when that was exactly. But I decided to trust my feelings so I walked in. I browsed for a while and wondered around. Finally I came across an audio reading of a book called, ‘The Prayer of Jabez’. I picked it up because one of my church leaders had given me this book for Christmas, but I decided to give it to Skye instead. I thought to myself. ‘I wouldn’t mind reading this.’ I turned it over and it was only fifteen dollars so I bought it and also a journal that goes with it.

I listened to it in the car home, I always get emotion when I hear things that answer my questions, and this audio reading seemed like it was talking directly to me. I took it home and continued listening to it there; I was amazed at what it spoke about. It was about faith in God and asking for blessing and having miracles happen through you by the power of God. I wept with joy at the things God was telling me. About two thirds of the way through, my phone rang and it was Melinda asking to go for a coffee. Well I had to work at four so I decided to have coffee with her then go straight to work. During our coffee we chatted about how good god is and some other stuff I learnt about from the tape. Melinda said to me that she was pleased with church and that she had decided to come regularly, which made me very happy. I left her and went to work.

I work in a house where disabled kids come to give their parents a break. This day there was nobody there so I just bummed around after finishing everything I was meant to do really quickly. When it came time for me too lock-up and go home it was dark outside. I had to check all the windows and doors, while doing this I got a strange feeling like I was being watched, I felt scared and hurriedly finished and raced to my car. I felt silly for being scared of nothing but I drove away quickly nevertheless.

I went to the gym after work and by the time I got home everyone was in bed asleep. I jumped on the computer and started chatting to people. I started up a conversation with a boy about my age. I was talking to him about God. At first he was reluctant and kind of abusive but my persistence paid off and we had a good chat in the end. He asked some good questions and I did my best to help him out. After he left I decided to listen to the rest of the Jabez tape. I was continually astounded at how much it felt like the tape was talking to me. I started getting a pins and needles feeling, like what I had when I felt a presence of what I thought was Jesus late the year before. All of a sudden in my mind’s eyes I felt a man, standing behind me quite close to my left. It was the same man, longish hair, tall, thin couldn’t quite make out what he was wearing but it looked like a toga or something, or a big white over-coat. I remember the intense look in his sky-blue eyes. I look of love and pride and a half smile on his mouth. He was looking at me, and he reached out and put his hand on my leg. I burst into uncontrollable tears. I wept and wept and couldn’t stop, the presence was gone but I continued to cry. They weren’t tears of sadness; they were tears of joy. As soon as I could talk I pleaded out loud, ‘Lord, I’m so, so sorry for walking away from you. I’ve missed you so much, I’m so glad your back.’ I started crying again while I continually apologized.

When I composed myself I decided to say the prayer the tape had told me to pray, ‘Oh, Bless me lord, enlarge my territory and have your hand in my life always, also Lord keep me and protect me from evil.’ I had a great euphoric feeling and I went to the bathroom to wash my face. When I stepped out, I was struck with a crippling and overwhelming sense of shear terror, which chilled me to the bone. I had no idea what was wrong but I ran to the kitchen where there was light. I started to say, ‘I am a child of the light, evil cannot touch me.’ I read that in a book once. I said it a few times and I was sure that I was just being silly. I laughed at myself when my fear disappeared. I turned to make a sandwich when the fear suddenly struck me again, my heart was racing and my skin was crawling. In the same minds eyes I say the man, (who I think is Jesus) I saw a different being. I saw dozens and dozens of these disgusting looking half human things. Hunched over and snarling, deathly skinny with long arms and fingers. They stood just outside the light of the kitchen, I spin around to look with my eyes, but they were gone. Convinced I was scaring myself I turned to continue making my food. As soon as I had my back to them they re-appeared, and I ignored them and the intense fear. I started to tremble, then one of them came closer and I could just feel that it was going to kill me. I spun around again and they disappeared. I repeated, ‘I am a child of God, Evil cannot touch me, Jesus died for me and defeated death so evil can’t live in me’. Then all of a sudden I got that pins and needles feeling, my chest filled out like I had taken a breath but I hadn’t, I couldn’t help but stand up tall and straight. I felt prompted to speak, ‘You get back!’ I demanded in a calm deep voice not quite knowing what I was saying. ‘You shouldn’t be here. In the name of Jesus I cast you out!’ my hands were pointing and my body felt like it was moving by itself, ‘You get back down to Hell where you belong.’ With that the feeling disappeared and I was left with an uneasiness and confused at what just happed. I ran to my room and shut the door. I instantly got out some paper and a pen and feverishly just started writing and seven pages later this story came out. I said a quick prayer of protection and went to sleep.

After this incident I’ve been feeling weird. People are coming up to me that I haven’t seen in months asking if anything big has happened. I’ve felt prompted to tell a lot of people this story. One of my friends disclosed a story where she welcomed Jesus as her savior after hearing an old man and little girl talk about exactly what I had told her about Jesus. After saying the prayer she said she felt a strange full feeling in her chest and felt giddy and good for the rest of the day. People are talking to me about God, people I would have never guessed would be interested, and I feel… I don't know… different than before. More motivated and enthusiastic, it’s all good. I don’t tell you this story to amaze you, I tell you this story to tell you to pray. God is real, I know this, Jesus is real, and the Devil is real. Our God wants us to repent and pray, so we can fight evil and defeat Satan with his supernatural power not our own weakness and crude defenses. Jesus loves us all no matter if we believe in him or not. If we only dare to ask God for a glimpse of him, we will see miracles happen. Like Mosses pray for the Lord to show you his glory and, like Jesus says, If you believe without any doubt, it will be done for you. If you believe what I’ve written fantastic! Let it inspire you and pray more, pray for blessing and enlarged territory. Pray for the hand of God to work in your life, and most importantly pray for deliverance and protection from evil. If you don’t believe me however then that is entirely up to you what you do from here, but I urge you to start to pray regardless, you don’t want to be caught out when the truth finally is revealed.