I was leading a pretty normal life for a student without any major dramas.  I did however get sucked into playing video games in an obsessive way up to 6-9 hours a day.  It got to the point that one summer 4 of us spent the entire summer holidays playing a new game and then at the end of the holidays just dropped it.   I realise what a waste of time that was and that I had my priorities wrong not living in the real world but a fantasy one.  My school work didn’t suffer though and I was always able to work hard and be confident in myself.

 

I never said God didn’t exist as I wasn’t sure.  I really didn’t think about it much but when someone did ask me if God existed there was something in me that would never deny that He did.  Despite rarely being confronted with this question  I was always interested in the “religious” lessons and films we had at school.

 

The first feeling I had of being drawn towards God was when Mick invited me on to the National Citizen Service (NCS) with Faith & Football.  Mick and Naomi shared about their faith and knowing God personally which got me thinking more deeply about things.  I signed up to be a reading mentor on the Faith & Football Extra Time Literacy scheme helping six year olds read through looking at Bible stories.  It began to fascinate me more and more as I joined the prayer times with the other Christian mentors before the sessions and saw how much impact reading the Bible had on the children.  I began to ask lots of questions at the time and reasoned that if there were 2.7 billion people who believed the message of Christianity then I needed to take it seriously.  I then spent some time at Mick’s house asking more questions and eventually prayed a prayer to invite Jesus into my life.

 

Immediately I had prayed that prayer I was aware of an ongoing God consciousness and was excited at the thought of knowing the Creator of the universe.  I joined the Alpha Course to find out more about God.  On one of the evenings we prayed to be filled with the Holy Spirit and I saw a vision of Jesus and became so much more aware of God’s personal interest in me.  I’ve carried on with the Bible studies which have been really helping me understand more about my new Christian faith.

 

Now I’m so much more aware of the actions I take and the choices I make and how they fit in with what God wants.  I’ve begun to realise there is a battle in making the right decisions but God strengthens me to win these battles.  I pray every day now and ask God for guidance and God answers me.  When this happens I’m really encouraged in my faith.   At the moment I’m praying about what God has planned for my life now that I’ve left college.  I’m telling as many of my mates as possible about what I believe now and sharing Jesus with them.  I’m finding like me everyone has that in built interest.