Monday 1 June 2015

My Testimonies (Part 2)

I had earlier written in Part 2 some strange spiritual happening during my childhood.  However, as I was writing the article, I felt totally uneasy and after posted it online, I decided that while my objective was to illustrate to readers how real is spiritual realm, I can achieve it through my positive experience with God, instead of through negative experience associated with ungodly spirits.  Hence my rewritten Part 2 as below.

When someone gets to know God and His son Jesus, and decides to follow this God, something must have happened in spiritual realm.  It is as if God puts a stamping on my forehead, all devils will know that person now belongs to God and he/she may notice that some of the disturbances he/she experienced in the past had ceased entirely.  One example that happened to me is the feeling that I got pressed by something either when you are sleeping or half awake (I know I am not alone, many of us would have experienced this). Whilst doctors may have an explanation for this from biological point of view (and a term - Sleep Paralysis), I'm however totally convinced that what I experienced in the past were not a biological state but rather very specific disturbance caused by ungodly spirits.  And I can testify that since I chose to follow Lord Jesus, I had not experienced the sleep problem.

On a separate note about spiritual realm, it is also frequently observed that, when an unbeliever who had been worshipping idols decides to follow Jesus, usually there will be numerous obstructions that will happen to him/her during the "transition".  In spiritual realm, I can imagine the power of darkness will be extremely mad and try to stop the people who had worshipped them from getting to know the Truth and to cross over to follow the true God.  The obstructions or sabotage can manifest in different forms, from simple inconvenience e.g. sudden sickness on Sundays before attending church service, to more serious one e.g. business failure, objection by partner or spouse etc. with ultimate objective to distract & stop the person from stepping into God's kingdom.  I have personally seen and experienced this myself.  Devils may have some powers to hinder but the good news is it is absolutely no match when competing with our God.  As long as the new believers stand firm and commit themselves into the safe hand of God, God will ensure they are unharmed and would be able to overcome all these obstructions to cross over to God's side.

For me personally, I have encountered following 3 incidents (which happened one after another within few months) when I became a believer in Jesus about 12 years ago:
1) car window smashed by someone, just to steal the smartag use to pay for tolls;
2) car accident on the way to bible study gathering, due to someone making an illegal u-turn right in front of us;
3) falling from ceiling of first floor as I tried to check on a leaking water tank positioned just below the roof of my house.

You might wonder how did I know these 3 incidents are related to my initial belief in Jesus?  I can't answer except to say that after each of above incident, an inner voice would rise up within me as if it was counting for me, "this is the first obstruction" and "this is the second obstruction.

Third incident was the most interesting of all.  For few months before the third incidence happened, I had actually dreamed three times of myself falling down from the ceiling.  Each time after the dream I woke up in cold sweat and heavy heart beats because it felt so real.  I started to feel a bit strange after the second dream as it looked familiar though I was not sure I dreamed it before.  But when I had the third dream and woke up, I immediately recognise it and the fear is no more about the dream but how could I have the same nightmare 3 times in a row .  Finally after few weeks, the dreadful dream came into my real life when I least expect it.  On that day when I noticed the water tank above the ceiling of my house was leaking, I remember there was an urge within me to climb up to the ceiling to check even though I had no clue which part of ceiling is strong enough for me to step on.  As you probably can guess, I stepped wrongly on ceiling board and crashed through it, and fell to the floor of a bedroom below it.  I narrowly avoided the corner of a solid chest drawer below and started to roll smoothly the moment I hit the floor.  Looking back I believe God must have sent an angel ("Thank you!") to save me and guide me to fall away from the chest drawer and to roll across the floor to lessen the impact of the fall or else I may have suffered some kind of spinal injuries or even paralysis.   The other thing I couldn't believe after I got on to my feet was I found my spectacles (which fell together with me) folded nicely and rested on top of the chest drawer.

Once I started to settle down, an unknown fear started to fill me as I thought of the repeated dreams, and how it had now happened exactly in real life.  But soon God started to talk to me (I know because I  "felt" His unmistaken gentle voice within me), telling me that that was the third obstruction and all obstructions were over, and assured me that I would be safe in His hands. Indeed my life turned very peaceful and I had not encountered another negative spiritual experience since then.  All glories to God. Hallelujah.