If God is for us…

I grew up in the 1980‘s – 1990’s, in Boksburg, a suburb just outside of Johannesburg, in South Africa. I was fortunate to be raised by God-fearing parents. Even though my younger brother and I were very naughty through our teens and early twenties, God was always in awareness, never the center of our being, but with a mother and father that spend a lot of times on their knees, we turned out quite all right. We have quite a lot of friends that lost the battle against addiction, either by overdose, the after effects of a rough life, or sleeping on streets today due to drug abuse. Glory to God for keeping us away from the extreme consequences of abuse… We tried every drug on the market and black market, partying 12 years of our lives away, by grace we were not gripped and held down by the enemy.

One day in April 1996, 3 friends and I planned an outing, we got on our skateboards and went to the same tower in the picture above, back packs filled with beer and other illegal substances. The tower is over 120 feet tall, it had structures to climb to the first level, there after there were stair cases between each floor, which was no challenge for 16-year-olds to climb. We soon arrived to the top, and did what we set out to do. As most intoxicated people do, we came with a silly idea. There was a hole from the top through to the bottom, with thick wire cables hanging down the hole. Bright idea…
“Let’s pull the cable up.”
“YEEEAHH!!!, let’s do it.”
“But why?”
“But why not?”
“YEEEEEEAAAAAHHH!!!! Why not?”
So, we did. It was a lot heavier than anticipated, it took all 4 of us to try and pull it up, we had tug-of-war with it for 15 minutes, and only pulled 15 meters up. I told the guys to hold their grip as I went to look how much more we had to pull, I noticed that we haven’t even done half the cable and told the guys to let it go, not noticing I was standing in a loop the cable made on the floor; the weight pulled the cable back down, it wrapped around my legs and the force pulled me with. Just short of falling down, I got stuck between the cable and the edge of the hole, looking down into death, I couldn’t move to get out. The shock gave my one friend “Samson” powers and he pulled the cable up with one arm as my other friends held me back from falling down, then dragged me to safety as soon as my legs were loose. I couldn’t stand, let alone walk. Those days we didn’t have cell phones, so my friends left me there to go and look for help. A few hours later I woke up, looking up into a team of emergency service’s faces. With a big battle they got me down and rushed me to the hospital.
X-rays were taken to find my spine and neck unharmed, but my right shin was broken and my left knee cap was cracked. The Doctor decided to put my full left leg in cast to support the knee. The cable that wrapped around my leg caused a dirty “burnt” wound on my left calf, which the doctor didn’t notice and he closed the leg up with cast without cleaning or treating the wound… WHAAAAT? REALLY? A week later my father could smell something rotten in the house, we assumed it was my leg. We went back to the hospital to check it out. When the doctor opened the cast the cotton wool was stuck on a green patch of rotten leg meat. (maybe a good idea to not eat while you read my blogs, sorry), a few days later would’ve seen me with an amputated leg below the knee, but a quick reaction with couple of skin surgeries saw me recovering, slowly but surely. This was one of many; really many, incidents I got myself into where God had to pluck me out of the grips of the enemy.

If God is for you, who can be against you… I say it with humbleness and humility; I should not have put myself in such positions. Today I realize how silly some of the things we did were. Glory to God for His hedge of protection. Thank you Father, no words or action can ever express the gratitude for the price Jesus paid, that’s why living a life in honor of Him is the best we can do.

After this incident I can remember a time I was close to God. We were in a powerful youth ministry, but I back slid to my old ways not much later. If I knew God then the way I know Him now, how I understand His ways now, I would never have walked away. I think I didn’t grasp the depth of God at that young age.

In the early 2000’s I had an encounter with God, I attended a Supernatural conference with a friend, in Stillfontein, outside of town. It was amazing, seeing miracles happening in front of me was mind blowing. We slept in a tent on the church grounds, laying outside, looking at the stars after an awesome night in the presence of God; my friend asked me; “Do you really know Jesus?” I replied with confidence; “Duh, obviously.” We started chatting, and my friend started planting “seeds”, not depth, just enough to make me think and realize “Jesus, I don’t know You.” I never personally pursued the detail and depth of this conversation, but my friend was obedient, the seeds were scattered, at the time the soil was not fruitful, but the foundation was laid. Over the next 20 odd years life happened.

Please read the series of posts I wrote about ItsNotAboutUs (In the beginning; Silent Battles; Missing Pieces; Stop Doing & Seek thy first) to get a bit more history on my story over the past year and a half.

I sat alone for long durations in the time I awaited my exit from Saudi Arabia, in 2019. A visitation from the Holy Spirit reminded me of that conversation in the early 2000’s with my friend, “Do you know Jesus?”. The soil was ready and fruitful, the seeds germinated over a duration of 20 years, and ready to sprout. The fact that I can remember what my friend and I spoke about, close to 20 years ago, was a sign to seek depth in it, it triggered a hunger for a deeper understanding.

The Holy Spirit leads us to remembering things, He searches the hearts and highlight things we either need to seek answers of truth on, or seek healing; if you remember specific events in your past, go revisit it and get understanding of what you must do with it, you remember it for a reason, your healing is there, go forgive, go release, go set free, go rebuke, go get an understanding of His protection and provision… just go, go revisit it in the intimacy of God, He wants to see you healed.

I have a season behind me that taught me protection and provision, a very trying season but an awesome time in getting to know God. Weighing up the tribulations vs His presence. ‘Um, it’s a no brainer…” In this time the Holy Spirit had me revisiting my past to seek the understanding of protection, provision, unconditional love… He showed me where to go and find healing, forgiveness and releasing emotions and feelings that the enemy used to keep me from the Father’s heart. I learned more about Jesus’ love for His bride, what value there is in His sacrifice, which allows me to work on getting my true identity back as intended from the beginning of time, as it was in the garden, which is found in Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Redeemer, our Right to God’s presence. 2020 was a year of changing thought processes, removing of veils and opening my heart to receive, moving into 2021 with new unobstructed vision (Ephesians 1:15-21). Hallelujah!!! God is good. The NEW is on the horizon. Glory to God!!!

My understanding of God changed over time and I got a better perspective of who He is. Let us look at 2 Peter 1:2-9 that explains this a bit more.
The true, correct and precise knowledge of God will abound you with God’s grace, peace and favour. By His divine power He has equipped you with absolutely everything necessary for a dynamic and godly life through the knowledge of Him who called you into His excellence, inviting you into a glorious manifestation of a divine life, by doing so, allowing you to escape from the immoral and corrupt freedom that the world and its desires try to provide.
So, devote yourselves to lavishly supplement
your faith with goodness,
and to goodness add understanding,
and to understanding add the strength of self-control,
and to self-control add patient endurance,
and to patient endurance add godliness,
and to godliness add mercy toward your brothers and sisters,
and to mercy toward others add unending love.
Since these virtues are already planted deep within, and you possess them in abundant supply, they will keep you from being inactive or fruitless in your pursuit of knowing Jesus Christ more intimately.

I have personally been at death’s door step a few times, hospitalized on a couple of occasions, not once because of illness, but because of self inflicted stupidity, but every single time God’s grace abound with His divine protection. I ran for 38 years from God’s calling, from God’s love and peace, I ran myself into all sorts of mess, and I have the scars to show it, but God was faithful and protected me. All Glory to GOD!!! Hallelujah. He guided me into His love, joy and peace by giving me a better understanding of it, He opened the eyes of my understanding. I thought I knew God, until I was at a point of emotional melt down and finally realized that no worldly desire would be able to fill the void, when He stepped in things changed for good.

Dear Friend, Do you know Jesus? Do you know Him for who He is and what exactly He did at the cross? He knows you, out of the 7 billion people on this earth, He knows your name, your thoughts, your desires, your silent battles, He knows; and He sees you… God knew you before you were born, He planted you in your mother’s womb. Jesus laid down His life, in pure brutality, for YOU. It is not just a cute bed time story, it is reality, IT’S DONE, IT’S FINISHED.
If you have not realized what has been happening globally the last two years, that there is a serious knocking and pressing taking place; then I am praying Ephesians 1:17-23 over you; I pray that God will grant you a spirit of wisdom, revelation and insight into the mysteries and secrets found in the deep and intimate knowledge of Him. I pray for the eyes of your heart and understanding to be flooded with light, so that you can see, know and understand the hope into which He has called you, He is calling you into His rich glorious inheritance. I pray for you to get an understanding of the immeasurable, unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power that is in you, which He demonstrated through Jesus Christ, in doing so He has put all authority, power and dominion under Jesus’ feet and appointed Him the supreme and universal Head of the church. This same church is His body, in full measure and completeness of Himself, just as He is. I pray that you come to the understanding that you can only be filled to completeness and fullness in and through Jesus Christ.

Come to the altar, everything changes at the altar. Your healing, your wholeness, your fulness is in Jesus. If I knew back then what I know now I would never have back slid.

‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
Revelation 3:20-22

If you need Jesus in your life, we all actually do, but if you came to the realization that you have such a longing, please get in contact with me, either leave a message in the comments, or click on the “Contact Me” form on my homepage and send me a message.
Jesus Loves you, and want you to realize what exactly He has planted in you, that all the anxiety, fear, loneliness and shame is only tools being used by the enemy to keep you away from glory. Come, step into it.