The BioSphere Lloyd After a sinful and selfish life of almost thirty years, came to know the Lord Jesus in a rather strange way in that I did not know any Christians when it happened. There were not many wearing their hearts on their sleeve in those times in rough and tuff South Africa and if there were, I had no contact with any of them, but there was a lot happening in the world, back then in the middle seventies. Things like earthquakes and floods and other really thought provoking stuff. So I decided that I needed to know about the end of the world, and not knowing any better, borrowed books on the subject, while picking everyone's brains who I thought might know something, at the same time. After a few months of Nostradamus, Jean Dixon and a few others whose names I cannot remember, I went to a party at a neighbor's home in the up market suburb of Flourana in Pretoria, where I stayed at the time, with my wife and two small daughters. Sharing my fascination with the end of the world and the signs that brought me to these thoughts with one of the neighbors was asked if I had read the Bible. Well, needless to say I hadn't. At the birth of my first child, roughly three years before this, I had asked my wife to buy me a Bible, because I wanted to say thank you to someone for this little miracle and thought the Bible might help. Well I opened it and tried to make some sense out of the wording but couldn't and put it away to gather dust in a closet. After the party mentioned earlier, I pulled this King James out and decided to read where this neighbor, who wasn't a Christian but had been exposed to God's word at some stage of his life, had told me I would find predictions for the end of the world in the Bible, in the book of Revelations! It was winter at the time and I was working as a turner machinist at a local engineering company. I left home before sun came up and returned long after it went down as we were working a lot of overtime. Being tired from the long shifts I managed only to read a few paragraphs of Revelations each night and in the morning before going in to work. But God's Holy Spirit began to work on me and I began to make sense of this old English that my copy was written in. That on its own was amazing because I had rebelled in the academic world and not done too well in English. Anyway the Holy Spirit allowed me to understand the book of Revelations just enough to frighten me. So much so that I fell on my knees and prayed for the first time in my life The first prayer I remember was to ask God to hold back, just long enough for me to read the New Testament, before He sent His Son Jesus back to earth, who had started to became my everything, forgiven my sins and given me a hope that all would be well should I cling to Him. This belief of forgiveness of my sins took a lot of convincing though. I knew I did not deserve forgiveness and had been relentlessly pursuing pleasures all of my life with no thought for the consequences. Believing until then that when I closed my eyes for the last time, that would be it, there would be nothing, so really didn't care. As a result of this attitude, my first girlfriend found herself pregnant when both of us were only sixteen. Her mother organized an abortion and she was told that she would have had twin boys had things been left to take their course. This happened with other girl friends as well, not only in South Africa but also in Ireland, that I found out about, and maybe more in other parts of the world that I didn't find out about, as I had spent time in the merchant marine sowing wild oats and living a life akin to the prodigal son of the bible. Once convinced that there was life after death and that I should have been in hell but was forgiven, was really, really grateful. The joy that accompanied this new found faith in the Lord Jesus Christ was unreal and far, far better than anything I had ever tried before and I walked around on something like what cloud nine must be like, but this time innocently, and in His love. My language was terrible at the time He found me and every sentence had at least one horrible cuss or swear word in it. The first physical evidence of a change in me was that the cuss words came out reluctantly, I had to spit them out deliberately and soon was given victory over the use of them. I feel rather privileged that He left me on my own to start reading His precious word, so that I was not influenced by anyone else or any particular doctrine or religion. Although I did end up going along to the Central Methodist Church in the city of Pretoria, once I had an idea of what Christianity was all about. After this I went wherever a service was being held of any denomination, just to make sure I wasn't missing anything. One particular service I remember at that Methodist church was a teaching taken from Luke 15 where Jesus answers the murmuring of the religious Pharisees because He was eating with sinners. He gives the parable of the man having a hundred sheep and finding one missing. This dude leaves the ninety sheep and goes searching for the missing one until he finds it, and Jesus relates this to the joy that is going to be in heaven over one sinner that repents, "more that over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance." Just after this he tells of the woman loosing one of her ten coins and of her lighting a candle and searching until she finds it. When she finds it she calls all her friends and neighbours together and celebrates. "Likewise" the word says, "I say unto you, that there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repetest." Man these scriptures were precious to me, a terrible sinner, and gave such hope. Even the angels were rejoicing! The rest of chapter 15 of Luke gives the story of the Prodigal Son, which if you follow what was happening to me, you will imagine was really exciting news. Things went fantastic and I hardly remember touching the ground during these years. I moved back to the coast and started working as a marine engineer again on the tugs in Durban's harbor. That is until years later when hurts happened and wouldn't stop and bitterness crept in. Slow and subtly initially, but after a while found that I wasn't sure I wanted to be the only one treading the straight and narrow path set out for His children, and I backslid. Now if anyone had suggested that I was going to backslide, I would have laughed them to scorn. No ways, He loved me, He was my everything, because of Him I was going to go to heaven, because He had taken my place and the punishment I was going to have to face He had already taken. No, I would never leave Him! But even this was pride in me and it did happened, bitterness crept in, took a hold and before I knew it I was looking for ways to avoid church and my Christian friends. I still knew that He was the only way and the answer but through the bitterness, turned my side on Him. Notice, I used the term 'my side' and not 'my back' because I didn't want to lose His love, I just wanted to do my own thing, and if it were possible, to hide from Him. Of course as Christians we know this is not possible and that every little thing in our lives is under His loving scrutiny. Things went reasonably for a few more years and I prospered tremendously at work where I had became a chief marine engineer through going back to sea in the merchant marine and writing the necessary examinations at the government's department of transport. Eventually I was promoted to Marine Operations Manager for a section of Durban's harbor called the Island View terminal. Durban is Africa's busiest Port! On the outside my life looked good, but the close walk that I had once had with the Lord Jesus was missing. I was indulging in worldly things far more than I should have been as a Christian man. By this time all but my youngest child, a boy, remained at home and at the local university, the girls had married and gone off to start their own families. I was drinking alcohol again, at times too much, but not enough to be a real problem and I was holding this marvelous job that I had been promoted to. Then I think the Lord had had enough of my sin and selfishness and one day I went to a car show, 12 odd miles from my beautiful home overlooking the Indian Ocean. The vehicle I took to the show was a very unique street-rod that I had been looking after for a friend of mine who had immigrated to England some eighteen months earlier. I had build four garages at this beautiful home on the hill and with the girls gone, had space for this friends car, so was looking after it for him while using it, with his blessings, for shows and street-rod gatherings. At the show a friend produced a bottle of red wine at around ten in the morning, I reciprocated by buying another once we had consumed his and the two of us carried on at this rate until we were far too inebriated to get behind the controls of a lawn mower let alone very powerful V8 powered modified street-rods. We left the show and called on a few pubs before he went home but I carried on going to other pubs and clubs and at midnight, while driving towards the beach with a young lady as a passenger, had a wreck in this beautiful car. The first I remember of the wreck is coming too on the side of the road. Paramedics had managed to get me out and were busy cutting my young friend out of what was left of the car. This will sound strange to most folks but a very real sense of gratitude filled me and I remember thanking God for the accident. I looked up at the emergency lights from the police, the ambulances the fire and the wrecker trucks, flashing against the leaves of the huge tree I was laying under, and thanked Him for the breath I was able to take, the sight I had, and that I was still alive. Early in my Christian walk I had been exposed to a series of books by one Merlin Caruthers and in his books Merlin highlighted the 'giving thanks' scriptures. Giving examples of how these scriptures worked to the glory of God in believer's lives when practiced. One in particular had taken a hold on my life and that was 1Thessalonians 5:18, which states: "In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." Thanksgiving for everything, even the bad, had become a way of life for me, for the most part anyway, and never more important than it was this night. I was soaked in blood, my left leg would not do what I wanted it to and they had closed up most of my head in bandages, including my left eye and they lifted me into and strapped me onto a gurney. My requests to know how my young friend was were answered in round about ways and a little sketchy but I was assured that she was going to be alright. My questions about the state of the car were not as encouraging and I was told not to worry about it, finding out later that nothing was left of the Beautiful 1934 Ford Three Window Coupe belonging to my friend now living in England. The little that was left of the car after the wreck was finished off by the paramedics who removed the roof and the door that had pinned my passenger. Being wheeled from the ambulance into the emergency room I again tried to establish the condition of my young friend and started to really worry when no one could give me any details. I had thought that she was in another ambulance and on her way to the hospital right behind the one I was in but she wasn't. This was terrifying because all kind of thoughts started forming in my mind. What if she had been killed, how would I ever live with myself? I was left with this terrible burden for the rest of the night and only much later in the day did I find out that she had been taken to another hospital, She had broken her leg very badly, had a few other superficial wounds but was otherwise alright. His hand on the whole scene was evident, in that she recovered, although when I last saw her she still had steel pins in her leg. She had married and I hope lives to serve Him one day. I had two lots of plastic surgery, three eye operations to save my left eye and two operations on my knee and lower leg. The first was to put steel in to hold the mess together while the bones mended, which the surgeon said looked like marshmallow, and the second operation was to remove the steel. It happened that when seeing the surgeon a month after the accident, he said after taking X-rays that I was really healing quickly. I answered that if this was the case, what about removing the steel. His reply was "Do you really want it out?" I said yes please and after only six weeks the steel was taken out. This was after the original assessment of having to have it in for at least six months. Another undeserved blessing was that an off duty paramedic had heard the bang when the accident happened, from miles away, and had come looking to see if he could do anything to help. He had found us first, after the wrecker trucks, I might add, who seem to have the police radio band, and this paramedic had started working on us. He had me laid out on the side of the road and had me on a drip before the police arrived, which I believe might have been the reason that blood samples were not taken from me to prove that alcohol was involved. This paramedic climbed into the wreck and covered the young lady and himself with a blanket while the other paramedics cut and pulled the car apart to remove her. A friend of ours had left the pub just after we had and as he drove past stopped and helped. This friend and the fire people had led the fuel, running out of the car, to the side of the road by making a levy using sand. When he told me this he also pointed out that they could not find the battery to disconnect it as it was a modified vehicle and that the starter was smashed against the frame of the vehicle in a dead electrical short, so it was a miracle that it had not caught alight. He told me that the firemen were warning everyone not to smoke because of all the fuel spilling from the wreck. Things could have been so different but for the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, especially for the young lady trapped in the vehicle. Another reason that the police left me was that this all happened on a steep hill, just before the brow. I had been coming up and lost control, smashing through a concrete wall and into the huge tree, the one that I found myself looking up at while the paramedics stabilized me. The police had set themselves up at the top of the hill on this narrow road so as to make sure no other fool came hurtling over and down on the assembly gathered at the crash site. This all happened in 2000 and to His glory and by His grace and the strength given by Him, I have never drank another alcoholic drink and in this grace by faith can say with my Lord Jesus what Matthew 26 verse 29 says, and that is: "But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom." Halleluiah, amen! One positive thing that came from the backsliding was that I now realized just how easily the enemy could hoodwink a person into falling and how important total forgiveness was and also how much damage bitterness could do Not to look down on others that fall and not to condemn folks for their failures but to somehow love them through their difficult times, like Jesus does us. I now have far more compassion for others that backslide and realized of a truth that it was all by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that I stand and His own words in Mathew 9: 13 and 12: 7 came alive for me. In chapter 9 we find the calling of Matthew or Levy where Pharisees challenge Him because He ate with sinners. He tells them that He didn't come to save the righteous but sinners and then gives them verse 13 which is: "But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. There is such a powerful message in this wording that He tells us to go and learn what it means. I think you will agree that He wants us to put emphasis on mercy, even more so than sacrifice. Very interesting, because we cannot show mercy to God, we can only show mercy to those we come in contact with. Jesus makes the exact point again in chapter 12 where He is again confronted by the religious Pharisees. This time because they see Him and the disciples plucking corn and eating it when they are hungry. It's a Sabbath day and they get indignant about it. He refers them to the Old Testament where King David and his followers eat from the temple, which was not lawful for them to do and then tells them that He is greater than the temple and in verse 7 says: "But If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless." Does this tell you what it does me? If we go and learn, we will not condemn but have mercy. Micah 6; 8 says that God has showed us what is good and what the Lord requires of us and they are that we do justly, we love mercy and walk humbly with our God. The very next chapter and in verse 18 tells us that He does not retain His anger for ever because He delights in mercy. Previous | Next BioSphere Main