Today, February 13, 2024, it is exactly 30 years to the day that I aligned my life with Jesus Christ and – taking this as an opportunity – I want to outline the path I have taken until and since then. For reasons of space, however, I can only include a tiny fraction of the many experiences I have had with God ever since.
I was born in Berlin-Neukölln and got to know God as a child. We descended from Bohemian religious refugees and my grandmother gave me the example to simply rely on God’s goodness and to pray. It worked – I always experienced His intervention when I turned to Him in a difficult situation. He would however not clean up my room when I asked him. Being 5, I looked into the blue sky in front of Kirchgasse 1 and asked God to be my father because my physical father has not been there and I had heard in the Moravian church’s liturgy that „God is our father because Jesus is our brother“. As a result, nightmares, fears and unpleasant encounters with other children largely ceased and I grew up fairly sheltered.
When I was 11, I was fascinated by history of creation based on the Bible that my mother had read to me on vacation and, after praying, had no trouble getting out of a seaweed-covered water hole from which I had previously tried unsuccessfully to escape.
At 18, however, I decided to try a different lifestyle because some things had become quite boring. We were no longer in the Moravian Church and I probably missed the love and freedom in society that I had previously experienced in the Church environment.
I found it more relaxing to hang out with punks, new-wavers, rastas and freaks than with many of my schoolmates, with whom – it seemed to me – you had to always act cool in a certain way. Besides, I had long been impressed by the former’s appearance. At some point, anarchism seemed to me to be a step towards the liberation of humanity. I was just surprised that many people stopped relatively early on the way.
I somehow heard in my mind that I was about to leave a well-prepared path, but I consciously accepted that.
Then I wanted to try living without faith in God. I had nothing against Him at all, but I wanted to understand how my many friends feel, who don’t believe in Him. But after about half a week, I was so disgusted by the mere existence of everything with its intrusive pointlessness that I realized that I could no way stand or even enjoy life without God! Since then, I’ve always had a Bible on my bedside table and it was such a relief to read from it! It felt redemptive and healing in a unique way! The content of the book of Proverbs particularly attracted me during this time!
However, I didn’t know how serious I should take what I read. Should I consistently change my life accordingly? The spirit of the Bible seemed to encourage me to do so. But I would have had to know that it was actually the truth!
I had the impression a few times that the truth would come to me as a person and ask me if I was ready for him. I inwardly cried that I desperately needed Him but at the same time was afraid I might not be ready to truthfully admit everything about myself. But I begged him to come back at the right time! At some point, I was able to say: Yes, I am ready for truth!
God had helped me again and again in the meantime, and when I had to drop out of university because drugs had impaired my ability to learn, I knew that He would help me here as well, but I wanted to know why. What would He get out of it? What is the truth about Him? I didn’t know anyone who followed the Bible and experienced the miracles reported there!
Then I met Christians in Berlin’s Center, Alexanderplatz 1, who reported that they lived consistently according to the Bible – the credibility of which could be proven in many ways – and that they regularly experienced miracles! They seemed surprisingly modern and well-grounded – hardly fulfilling any one of my clichés. I thought, if what they have is really from God, then I definitely want that!
On 12.02.1994 in the evening – according to the biblical calendar, both a new month and a new week had just begun – I felt ready to realign my life with Christ and the following Sunday, 13.02., after prayer with the laying on of hands, I received the gift of the Holy Spirit, prayed in other tongues, which began to release inner tensions, and was baptized under water – in a bathtub in a kind of house-church, Tempelhofer Ufer 6 in Berlin-Kreuzberg. In the spirit, I then saw the sun shining clear and bright after dense clouds had disappeared. I was born again of water and the Spirit, had arrived in the kingdom of God and had a new life ahead of me!
God was now also working in areas where I had previously missed it! I often experienced His guidance, was able to get the right professional training in computer science through His repeated intervention, got rid of my chronic tiredness, so that even the 17-hour-shifts and a 30 km march at the beginning of my army-time no longer caused a problem to me, experienced miraculous protections (e.g. when during tank-cleaning a 17 kg piece of steel fell into my stomach from a height of 80 cm and I felt nothing apart from a very soft, warm touch), was healed of concentration problems, among other things, was able to go to Bible school and get a pilot’s license, often experience His intervention and can trust Him to complete every work He started!
I can’t say at all that everything is perfect in my life, but I can entrust everything to the One who is, and experience how He makes the best of it!
Hallelujah to the best God, friend, father, provider, creator, the source of supernatural guidance, wisdom and inspiration and the beginner and finisher of everything! He knows, sees, loves, protects and cares for me – for you too if you give Him a chance – and never gives up on anyone! Fullness of life without harmful side effects exists only with Him! His ways are perfect! All Glory to Him!