April 24th, 1988. A young man steps forward in an altar call, making the decision to follow Jesus. But this was not his first encounter with the supernatural.
Three years earlier, the world as I knew it had been ripped apart when the unthinkable happened. Mom sat us down and announced that Dad was going to live somewhere else.
As my parents struggled to put their lives back together, the safety net of Mom and Dad was dropped under a tightrope of custody and visitation rights. I found myself lost, craving affection. Hungering for guidance.
I didn’t know much about spiritual things, but I knew there had to be something out there bigger than myself. There had to be someone who could help me control the chaos that was once my happy life.
That’s when the whispers started.
I found myself drawn to books about spiritual things. Books about communing with the dead and the art of manipulating spirits to get what you want. Books that could teach me the way to fulfillment by harnessing supernatural power.
As I became more and more captivated by this concept, messengers began to speak to me in my dreams. They would plant visions of things to come, conversations I would have, people who would soon die. I began to believe I could tap into this power and use it bring my world back under control. These friendly voices were with me to protect me, to guide me, to love me.
The voices lied.
Before I go any further let me just say that there is a real supernatural world with real angels and real demons. These demons will gladly come be a part of your life in you invite them in.
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” - Ephesians 6:12
My world grew darker and darker as my own personal demons continued to haunt me. Friends and family were shut out as I sat in my room night after night meditating and chanting.
Black became my favorite color and Halloween became my favorite day. I began to distrust everyone around me. Bitterness and resentment grew for all but my entourage of spiritual advisers. They were my true friends. They were my true identity.
Once these spirits got a firm hold, things changed. The little bit of control I thought I wielded was ripped away and replaced with a set of chains. The very thought of rebellion would be punished with whispers of despair, dreams of torment and finally, threats of violence.
I would wake in the night to the thuds of objects moving in my room. One night I found myself in the kitchen, helpless as the cupboard doors slammed relentlessly. Bam, Bam, BAM! And then silence. There I stood in the darkness alone, terrified, and out of control.
Day after day, these demons would tell me that I was worthless, nothing without them. I was stupid. I was a loser. I was a freak, a geek, a nerd. I could never be good enough.
Satanic music blasting from my speakers was the only way I could drown out the voices, but the music filled my head with this same message.
I would dream of suicide, breaking free from this world of torment. Maybe I could join these spirits on higher plane of existence. Maybe I would just disappear into nothingness. Anything had to be better than living a pointless, lonely life full of noise and confusion.
In the Fall of 1987 I can home one day and went looking for the gun we had stored in the garage. It was low-powered, but I was sure it could do the job. Not knowing whether I could go through with it, I felt compelled just to hold it in my hand. To press it against my head.
The cabinet door opened and there it sat. Black. Cold. Emotionless. Just like me. As I reached out to touch it, the cold steel sent a shiver up my spine. My heart raced with fear, excitement, anticipation.
I picked up the gun and the pieces fell apart in my hand. In slow motion they tumbled. Clang, clang, clang on the cement floor.
I fell to my knees. I wasn’t thankful, I was mad! Hot, angry tears streamed down my face. “God, I can’t even do this right! Why do you hate me so much? If all you want to do is kick me around, why can’t you just let me die?”
The next couple of months were a blur. I know I was alive, but don’t remember being around. The next memory I can recall is a cold night over Christmas break when my friend Matt came over and wanted to talk.
Matt and I had been friends since elementary school, but I hadn’t seen much of him lately. As we walked along the snowy streets, he told me he’d been going to a youth group on Wednesday nights.
Now I had no idea what a youth group was. I mean I was smart enough to figure it was a gathering of people about my age, but that was as far as it went. To be honest, right now I can’t even remember what he told me about it. But there was something in the way he talked that made me want whatever was there.
A couple weeks later I found myself staring out the foggy window of a church van, not knowing what to expect or if the voices would even let me in the building.
Somehow, I got in. This church was not like the Presbyterians and Baptists on TV. Kids were shooting pool, playing foosball and rockin’ out to loud music. But there was something about this music that was different from mine…and the joy in these kids was infectious. I didn’t understand it, but I knew I wanted more.
That night I also met a man who would profoundly impact my life. Dave Tieman spent the next several months patiently looking past my faults and teaching me the basics of Christianity. He didn’t just teach a class and go home. He poured himself into my life.
Let me interject again, here. Men of God, do not squander opportunities to influence young people. You may think you have nothing in common. You may not know the difference between MySpace and self-storage units. But when you make yourself available to mentor a young man…when you listen to him and care about him and let God work through you, lives will be changed.
Dave taught me that discipleship was more than following a bunch of rules and hoping it was good enough to get into Heaven. He taught me that God had a purpose for my life and if I gave Him control, I could experience true freedom and the life He had for me.
Over the coming months the voices started to lose their influence…but they weren’t going without a fight.
You see, they desperately wanted to maintain a foothold, but I desperately needed to be free.
The things I had been doing in secret revealed themselves in ugly ways. My parents (who had no idea all this stuff had been going on) thought I was losing my mind. On top of that, they blamed the church for my strange behavior.
You see demons are wily, relentless creatures. They hit you with lies, half-truths and more lies, sticking with one only as long as they think it works. Then they move on to another and another after that. They will tell you you’re not worthy, you’re too bad, you’re too far gone…whatever they think you need to hear, they will tell you.
As relentless as they are, though, God is even more tenacious.
He looked down at this skinny kid who thought there was no reason to live and said, “I have a purpose for you.”
April 24th, 1988. The call goes out and this time I’m ready to answer. I understood, not just in my head, but in my heart. I believed…and it was time to do something about it.
I don’t remember the prayer I prayed or the music that was playing. I do remember my head clearing and chains dropping off. I also remember an urgent need welling up within me. I had to tell someone what just happened in my life.
Sal Loene, the man who drove our church van, (my ride to church all this time) gave me an opportunity before I could even seek one.
“Hey Andrew,” (Only teenagers called me Drew back then), “have you ever been saved?”
My tongue hesitated a second before my brain kicked in. Then it hit me. “Yeah, I just did!”
He was so excited that he called out to his wife, “Hey Bev, guess who just got saved!”
Matthew 4:16 says that “the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”
As we stepped outside that evening, the haze of late afternoon was breaking apart while the sun set. I stared in amazement at the brilliant colors in front of me. You see, it was the same sky I’d looked at thousands of times before. But I had only seen it through a veil of darkness. Tonight I was looking through new eyes. I had seen the Great Light.
After years of living in the land of the shadow of death, light had dawned in my life.
Darkness had finally lost control.
Twenty years ago today I made a decision that radically shifted my entire existence.
since God so loved us,
Betty told us all the story of when her house burned down and they lost everything. She said the thing they missed most was all the photographs they had taken. That Christmas, her family gathered together all the photographs she had given them over the years and presented them to her in an album.