Saved from Evil Spirits and Drugs

William - Perth, Scotland

Hello everyone,

I would like to share with you how and why I became a Christian in the hope that it will encourage you to seek God and never give up.

Some very evil things happened to me as a child - I grew up fatherless, very untrusting and hateful, and completely disillusioned with what I saw in this world.

At the age of 12 I was already drinking hard alcohol (rum), and one year later I started to smoke cannabis. This totally messed up my schoolwork, as I was smoking it almost every day. I ended up with a criminal record at 16, and without any education, I was homeless and always in trouble.

At one point I was able to get a house and used this opportunity to start practising yoga - I dived into this in a big way, sometimes doing up to 6 hours a day. After 7 months of this, I had the most frightening experiences, where I saw and was spoken to by "spiritual beings" who promised me that they would take care of me and help my life. I stopped the yoga immediately and went straight back to using drugs to try and find my peace.

However, my life full of hatred continued and these "spiritual beings" were to continue to appear to me in one way or another, driving me to all sorts of excesses, until something special happened !

At the age of 20, I was living in a crazy, drugged-filled social security bedsit in Edinburgh, where I also had started amphetamine and heroin substitute abuse. One day I was looking out of the window and saw an old girlfriend, someone whom I had not seen for quite a few months. I waved her up to the flat, and had a talk with her about what we had been doing since I last saw her.

She told me that she had become a Christian. This was a big surprise to me as we had sat a few times very late into the night and spoke of life, the universe and everything and both of us came to the conclusion that we were on our own - that there was no Superior Being and that when we die, that was the end. She invited me to a meeting, and explained that the format would be some singing, some preaching and some "FOOD"! The magic word!

"When should I be there?" I asked.

The "meeting" was held on a beach and started with a game of football. The people present were a bunch of normal, friendly, and happy people, not the wide-eyed preaching freaks I had imagined them to be. After the football, we sang some songs and one chap explained some scriptures from the Bible. After the meeting and the food, I took a pre-rolled joint out and thought to offer it to the guitarist - who politely declined and then showed me from the Bible why I should not be smoking cannabis, in fact why I should not be smoking at all.

I met up with a couple of the guys a few days later, but then decided to forget it all after the next meeting (OK, after the food actually). However, something happened that changed my life forever. I was challenged to find out if God existed. I was shown in the Bible that I had to turn my life round and find God, and ensure my eternity - and I decided to try it out!

After the meeting, a guy named Franzy showed me scriptures in the Bible that promise that God will answer those that seek him with a sincere heart.

Franzy then suggested that everyone starts to pray and that I should start to pray. The 10 people left in the room all went on their knees and started to pray in a different language!

I could not believe my ears or my eyes, but was still able to keep my mind on the task in hand - that of finding out if God were alive, so I just kept asking God "to forgive my life and to do something, and if he did I would follow Him". After 5 minutes or so, Franzy came across to me and laying his hands on my shoulders, prayed that I was repentant towards God and that I would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Peace flooded me and at that moment I knew God was there! Franzy took his hands from my shoulders and told me to just thank the Lord. As I opened my mouth, from it came another language! Not English! Some language I did not understand. The first miracle!

There was rejoicing amongst the others present, and then I was taken to a river to be baptized. Afterwards I was driven home, and we arranged to meet a couple of days later. I met up with some of the Christians a few days later, and after chatting for a while, one of them asked me "how it was going with my drug usage, smoking etc" to which I had to answer "I haven't even thought about it!" - no desire for drugs, no lack of peace! The second miracle!

Since then, I have seen this happen on countless occasions and experienced many other answers to prayer.

It has not always been a bed of roses, and a few times, due to my selfishness and pride, I have found myself to be very far from any semblance of Christianity - but He never casts us aside and through it all, I have never been able to deny that Jesus Christ is alive and is indeed

"The same yesterday, today and forever" - HEBREWS 13:8.

Love in Christ Jesus,

William Downs