Roaming Chaplain

As a Christian, who has been on this path for decades, I can identify two demonstrable miracles that I received when I least expected them yet wanted them most.

I’ll share one of the two miracles on this blog. It was on New Year’s Day 2010 at Trigg beach in Western Australia.

I went to the beach that morning with a heavy heart and felt I was at the end of a long struggle with depression, meaning, I couldn’t live with this debilitating emotional pain for one more day.

I hid the depression from everyone including my immediate family. My family only saw the effects of my depression. Rather than talk about it or complain, I became a workaholic, a perfectionist, a people pleaser as my sickness grew. This pattern of coping went on for many years.

I would often go to bed curled up like an infant, holding my stomach, feeling the emotional pain and hating nighttime. I knew I would have to hear my thoughts all night and be tormented till dawn. Becoming an insomniac only added to the terrible state I was in, finding no relief through a lack of sleep.

I gained a lot of weight, I lost a lot of weight. I made money and spent money. I built a new home and hated the home that I built. Nothing could take away the emotional sickness I was experiencing and it gripped me like a leach, sucking the life from my soul.

While sitting on the beach on that beautiful morning, I had no idea what was about to happen, as I stated, it felt like I was at my lowest point possible. I was contemplating all sorts of dark thoughts.

I prayed like a man that was so lost and had nowhere to turn. I couldn’t even speak. My prayers were just thoughts aimed at God, ‘What Now?’ ‘I don’t know what to do’ ‘I’m exhausted’ ‘Take Me’ ‘Can you hear me’ ‘Are you even real?’

At this point, I was so desperate to hear from God, I tried to do a deal. In the distance I saw a pregnant lady in a black swimsuit and thought, ‘If that lady walks past and smiles at me I’ll take it as a sign everything will be ok’. When we’re that desperate, I have found, we try and see signs of hope in the most obscure things. I know I have. As predicted, the lady walked in the other direction and no sign was given.

At that moment when all hope seemed gone. Out of left-field these thoughts rushed into my mind. ‘I knew you from your mother’s womb’. ‘I am going to bring you before influential people, and you will be there for them, they won’t be there for you’. Then I saw in my mind’s eye a Bible passage, EZEKIEL 17, like it was written in the sky.

I was so taken back by the experience, I just couldn’t shake it off. On the way home from the beach, I called my brother and asked him to look up EZEKIEL 17, to try and find meaning to what just happened in a brief moment on the beach. My brother looked it up and we made no sense of it, and we left it at that.

When I went home I read EZEKIEL 17 again and again to understand what God was saying and why I felt so different. It was evident that God had touched my soul that was so dry and expiring. Life was injected in me in an instant. It was also evident that God visited me, He also gave me a future promise of a ministry that would be birthed as a result.

I wasn’t looking for a future ministry, I was just wanting to survive another day without feeling tormented.

God seems to have a sense of humour, calling me to a ministry to the most neglected people, X-Criminals and High-Net Individuals. Both Very Influential and High Risk personality types. It seems, I’m most comfortable around these individuals and more so as God’s will has become evident all these years later.

What’s so humorous is, I haven’t got a criminal background. I joke that I still don’t even know the difference between Marijuana & Oregano. Even my High-Net connections get amused by my business connections and acumen, assisting in deals through the power of trust.

When God calls you to do a unique task He also equips you to fulfil that calling.

EZEKIEL 17 talked about a Cedar Tree that was dying, becoming dead wood. God was going to uproot it. But before He does, God would take a small clipping from the top of the tree still alive and replant it. This new clipping would grow into a large Cedar Tree once again, fulfilling its purpose.

God described my life to that point as well as describe my future. I was dying slowly, and needed a miracle.

At sixty years of age, I find myself more enthused by my personal relationship with Jesus that started in my mid teens.

The above miracle happened when I was forty five years old. Up until that point I have had many trials and challenges and got through them without a demonstrative miracle. I believed and my faith kept me.

Romans 1:17: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” 

God is faithful in every way and He allows us to go through challenges to help us grow and He promises to never leave us or forsake us.

I have a real soft spot for those going through a season of depression, only because I know what it’s like. I also believe in miracles, that God can completely transform us inside out as He did with me.

How many miracles does it take till you believe?

The answer is never in the miracle, the answer is in who we have faith in.

In my forty five years of faith, Jesus reminded me that He was there not just when I accepted Him as a teenager, He was with me from my mother’s womb. I didn’t appreciate Him until I bowed my knee and asked Him into my heart in my teens.

Fact is, I love Jesus more today than ever and am aware of the thousands of small miracles that kept me to today.

Jesus loves you too. He is always knocking on the door of your heart. Will you let Him in and transform every area of your life.

Revelation 3:20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

The greatest miracle you could ever receive is the precious gift of salvation that is offered if you just believe. Jesus becomes so personal.

If you are new to the Christian faith and you want to become a Christian, please pray this prayer.

Dear Jesus, I believe I am a sinner. I am lost and I want to ask you into my heart. I believe you died on the cross for my sin and the sins of humanity. I ask for your forgiveness and that you will give me a new spiritual life through the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe you rose from the dead and I thank you for this precious gift of hope today. In Jesus Name Amen.

If you prayed this prayer, welcome to the family of God.

Let’s stay connected and grow together in the faith. Get yourself a Bible and just start reading a chapter a day, starting with the New Testament. Learn about the life of Jesus, He is just amazing.

I’m doing a series for New Believers called the nine blessings of the Christian Life, starting here. Blessed are the poor in spirit.

God bless you

Roaming Chaplain