Finding Jesus

‘Earth is crammed with heaven and every bush aflame with God – but only those who see take off their shoes.’ (Elizabeth Battett Browning)

School of Life, a cliffhanger – how did I find Jesus? God was preparing the ground long before I recognised him. At aged 11, a boy I admired at school gave me a copy of a gospel. It was a small booklet and, as I read it, it somehow felt meaningful. At 12, I bought my first single, a song called Heaven on their Minds from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. As I listened to it, I remember gazing up into the clouds through my parents’ living room window and feeling a strong sense of what C.S. Lewis calls the numinous, a mysterious something, Someone, beyond-ness.

At around that same time, I bought a small prayer poster on holiday in Devon. Again, something in it resonated with me and I stuck it on the wall beside my bed. I can’t remember giving God much thought after that, although I do remember, at 17, arguing vociferously in defence of the Christian faith as a new apprentice in an industrial workplace. Yet, my own vision of a true life of faith was still obscured. It was as if I had felt and caught a glimpse of something, Someone, that mattered to me, yet my everyday life and preoccupations continued to go on as normal.

Little did I know what lay ahead of me. At 21, whilst learning karate, a fellow apprentice at work taunted me irritatingly and challenged me to a fight in the locker room. He loved boxing and wanted to demonstrate its superiority. By strange and, in hindsight, providential coincidence, I had been practising a particular Bruce Lee technique with friends the night before. As this strange ‘fight’ started, surrounded by our cheering workmates, I used that one technique and it was all over in 3 seconds. My opponent looked shocked, then grinned, then walked over and shook hands.

We became good friends and, some weeks later, I noticed him reading a Bible in the mess room. That was a big surprise so I asked him what he was doing. Something had completely changed in his persona – a peace, presence and maturity that felt intensely compelling. He urged me to read the Bible too. I was reluctant at first and yet, after a while, I found a Bible, poured over the gospels and the book of James, then I read David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade. Then it happened. Suddenly, an inexplicable, blazing light dazzled and burned within and around me.
​
I had found Jesus…and that changed everything.