This is my story:
I was never sure about God, who he was, what he had done for us. I would probably fall into the category of atheist. I didn’t believe in any religion.
Beginnings
I had grown up in Okinawa, Japan and attended Christian and Catholic schools. I even lived in India for 3 years and attended school there. Hinduism was the main religion.
Religious activity
My parents were Hindus and for a while I actually prayed to the many idols while I was in India. I even bought my own idols to keep in my room there. Back in Okinawa we would go to the Hindu temple on important days of the various different gods. But I felt it was never genuine for me, there was no connection.
Even though I had also Christianity/Christians “around” me at school (I even sometimes attended church) I never became a Christian. I rejected it, fought it off. I was pursued for years by my sister, brother, friends & other family who were always trying to convince me to believe in Jesus and that he loves us and died for us to wash away all our sins.
I would always have many questions for them. Some pretty good ones that they just could not answer😁. I was just creating excuses & reasons to not believe.
Since a few years before I became a Christian I was on the fence for a while. But I think I was very comfortable there. I really needed a push! But I was a stubborn guy. (I was 51 years old when I became a Christian 😱)
How did all this happen… how did I finally believe in the truth?
One day I asked that if God performed a miracle for me, I would then believe that Jesus died on the cross for us, I would be “all in”. I would accept Jesus as my Savior. The miracle I was asking for was for him to heal Nisha, my wife, of a blockage in her artery, which was over 90%! This was discovered by her doctor and then confirmed by 3 other doctors too, following the developing symptoms of shortness of breath, chest pain, tiredness…. They said that if angioplasty did not work, they would have to do open heart surgery, a by-pass.
As I was presenting this “proposal” for God to do a miracle in exchange for me accepting Christ, to our very good friend and Pastor, Shawn, I heard Nisha say she was ok with whatever outcome God had planned for her (this was around 2 days before her procedure was scheduled). She trusted God fully and was putting everything in his hands.
Then something happened:
2 days later on the night before the procedure, I remembered what Nisha said, that she was ok with whatever God had planned…. and I said to myself, what a show of strong faith, unbelievable! That was definitely real faith right there.
Then I made a decision—I accepted Jesus. Before knowing if the miracle would happen or not.
The next day, we got that miracle too! The miracle was performed by God. Many people also prayed and their prayers were very strong! 4 doctors said there was blockage of the artery, they had us totally convinced! But when they went in to check & treat it they found nothing, zero!! They could not explain🙄
By the way:
March 13, 2017 was the day Nisha, my wife, accepted Christ into her life.
March 13, 2018, I did the same. This was not planned. We did not realize this until a few days later, on the 16th. Our son remembered Nisha’s date and wanted to confirm with me and indeed they were the same dates, exactly one year later. What a coincidence that was indeed.
My faith in Jesus
Since that day it doesn’t matter if I know the answers to those questions I always had. There will always be new questions too. I’m sure that in time I will come to know the answers, because only God can answer those questions, after all we are only human. There is so much that is beyond our comprehension, even the most intelligent person in the world would never be able to fully comprehend the amazing creations by God from time and space to the planets, earth and life itself. What matters is that I have asked Jesus to take control of my life!
From then on I made a decision to follow the path Jesus laid down for us and to do my very best to never stray from it. I still need a lot of help from my Pastors, family & Church family to stay obedient to God.
Every day my prayer is for God to fill me with love, wisdom, peace & joy.
I have no doubts in my mind and 100% completely believe in Jesus. God created man, woman, the earth, the whole universe, everything and beyond. Not only that, but everything we have today is created from resources God provided us with on this earth. No one else did it… and I refuse to believe the planets, sun, moon, stars just appeared from nothing!
Jesus died on the cross so that our sins would be washed away! So that we would be saved and have eternal life. No one else did that for us. He died for people he did not even know and for those not even born yet. He was then resurrected, brought back to life! On the third day!
That’s my testimony and I’m sticking to it!
Truth Prevails 