Nice upbringing
I grew up as a good Catholic kid in a middle class family in
Hertfordshire a nice upbringing. Mum, dad, brother and sister
were all very lovely. I went to a good school and did well. At
the age of 12 I won prizes for being a bright pupil, played in
the orchestra and all those creepy things that good kids do.
The future looked great!
Teenage Rebel
But at the age of 14 somehow everything started to change - it's
a vulnerable time in many people's lives. I began to go off the
rails. I think, looking back - it was whilst growing through
puberty and all that stuff - that I started to experience a sense
of emptiness. It was like a deep insecurity came into my life.
I was trying to find something that would make me feel bigger,
better or give me some sense of impotence. I looked around and
started to get involved with the wrong guys at school. It began
with just smoking behind the bike sheds, doing some shop-lifting
and vandalism - I pushed myself into dangerous situations, starting
to, walk on the edge a bit, looking for kicks and thrills. I
regularly got horribly drunk with the guys in the village. Then
I discovered women! This was a major event. At the age of 15
I threw away my virginity very casually and started to sleep
around. There was a lot of sex. I changed schools, having got
into trouble at the last place, which was a comprehensive, where
I got involved in fights and that sort of stuff, not normally
beating people up because I was kind of skinny, but I certainly
mouthed it off enough. One day this guy came in with a carving
knife and said, "Now it's your turn". He was serious,
a real psychopath. I went to the headmaster and said, "You've
gotta get me out of this school. This is a crazy place."
Instead of receiving the compassion that I thought I deserved,
I got into a terrible lot of trouble. My parents were brought
in and the teachers reeled out all these things I'd been doing
- shoplifting, smoking and bunking off. I didn’t even know
these people had a clue that I was doing these things.
Public School
Anyway my parents quite angrily took me out of that place and put
me in a Catholic public school. All of a sudden here I was at the
age of 15 among all these brainy people who played rugby and who
were extremely confident. I felt desperately insecure; I needed
identity so I looked around anxiously. I hated rugby, I'd seen someone
get quite badly hurt, I certainly didn't have their brain capacity,
and I wasn't a kind of boffin, so where the heck was I going to
fit in? In the middle of my O-level year. I checked around and saw
that some of the guys were a bit different only a few of them, mind
you. They had longer hair and kind of just seemed to be ... unusual.
I followed them one day into a basement underneath the swimming
pool where they kept the suitcases in the boarding school. I opened
the door and I was hit by strange music and a green fog. All these
guys were listening to Jimmy Hendrix and smoking dope. Wham, I had
suddenly found what I was looking for. Here I found an identity.
I became Dave the "druggie", grew my hair and staffed
to listen to The Doors and all that kind of music. It was a whole
new territory for me and it was something I could do very well.
I didn't have to be super fit. I didn't have to be very intelligent.
I just had to have a little bit of: a death wish I guess.
Dave the Druggie
For a 15 year old kid I began to take a lot of drugs. I'd go
to London at weekends, having stolen some money, and hang out
at a place called the Roundhouse which was like a drug supermarket
in those days with Sunday afternoon gigs. People lined up all
around this hall, selling you anything and everything, cheaply.
And so I was doing a lot of speed, loads of acid, smoking a lot
of dope and messing around with all these different drugs with
much older guys in London - really very dangerous. That went
on for I guess about a year. I crawled through my O-levels -
didn't do very well. I began to hate school, hate work, hate
parents, hate authority -l just wanted to hang out and be a hippy,
do drugs and listen to Lou Reed and all that sort of stuff.
Parents go mad
In the sixth form I went totally stoned one weekend on a drug
called mandrax ("mandies") - (They don't make them
anymore, but they just blew you out). I stumbled home. My parents
sussed I was taking drugs and there was major hassle. They locked
me away but my friends carried on sending me gear through the
post. Then I went to college, to start again. I'd convinced my
parents I had changed, that lIwould get my exams and sort my
life out. I went to a local college and of course got straight
in with the guys smoking dope and doing speed. I became social
secretary and had to organise the rock concerts. All very exciting.
And then something very major happened - it was in '76 which
was a very significant year for young people in this country.
Suddenly there was a guy called Johnny Rotten and "Anarchy
in the UK". Punk Rock hit and it was just a rush of adrenaline
and excitement. My hair got shorter, the music got Iouder, and
the drugs got harder. I had a great time for about another year.
My parents were not impressed - there were a lot of arguments.
They said, "You've blown it. You've wasted your life. You've
wasted your education, you've got demotivated about everythincj.
You're aggressive. And look, what kind of a life are you going
to have, how are you even going to earn a living?" I began
to listen and to think, "Yes, they are probably right. But
so what." I couldn't see a clear path at all.
Romantic Love
And then in the middle of it all a young women appeared called
Ruth and she was very beautiful the sister of a friend of mine
at school who everybody fancied. And to my surprise, she seemed
to fancy me. Well, you could have knocked me over. A love came
pounding into my lib; it seemed to be the real thing, and it
just blew me off my feet. We got involved in a very deep, passionate
sexual relationship. I really wanted to keep this girl. This
was the girl. I idolised her. Of course she didn't want a stoned,
punk rocker for a boyfriend. So gradually I came off the dope,
off the drugs, and I had to take a good look at my life how was
I going to keep her? I needed an identity again, needed to do
something to impress her, so I tried working in the theatre.
I'd always thought I'd make a tremendously good film director
or actor. Sadly my claim to fame after six months was to become
the assistant, assistant, assistant tea maker to Tommy Steele,
which really wasn't very good! I threw that in, reckoning that
they'd wasted my talent.
Worldly Success
I know I had one other gift that I was good at, playing poker
- you know, being a bit of a conman. So the obvious place to
go with that kind of skill is into the business world. That's
where crooks go right? And so I started working hard, and by
the age of 21 I'd built my empire. I was a very rich young man,
having my own firm in the city of London. I drove a very fast,
very red Italian sports car and was living with this beautiful
girl in a posh Hampstead flat. I had money, Ihad power, I had
influence. I had parties where famous people would come. So here
lwas, a very successful man. I felt very proud. My friends were
very respectful, even jealous. My parents seemed to think, "Well,
he's done alright for himself. It was just a "phase"
he'd gone through, thank God, he's OK now." I iust wanted
to walk back to my school to impress the teachers. I felt very
good about myself.
The Empire Crumbles
But like all empires, they don't last very long. Mine lasted
probably a year, maybe 18 months. The relationship with Ruth
was very difficult. It was a steamy, stormy, very passionate
affair. We were immature, jealous and possessive, loving each
other and hating each other at the same time. She was in art
school, growing in her own lib. She had been very young when
we first started going out and I was building my life in a very
different way. We weren't married. We thought that was just something
for our parents' generation and they hadn't done a great job
of it; looking at the world, we felt we didn't need that bond
or contract, so it was a highly insecure time. And business was
difficult. My partner and I were spending cash very immaturely
on sports cars and stuff, whilst making money by hook or mostly
by crook. It was a very dangerous way of doing things. Maggie
Thatcher was getting her claws into the economy so we began to
go into big debt. I was under a tremendous amount of pressure
for a 22 year old; under the strain oF a bad marriage when I
wasn't even married, and under the pressure oF bankruptcy in
the business. To make matters worse, that emptiness was still
there. The emptiness I had experienced as a kid and had tried
to fill with drugs, punk rock, sex, theatre, and now business
(sometimes it seemed to be numb or filled), here it was coming
back with a vengeance.
...and Falls
One day the inevitable happened. The empire crashed. I came home
from a trip abroad and found that my girlfriend had begun a relationship
with one of my Friends. She was being unfaithful to me. I can't
blame her now. We really weren't getting on too well. But it
was six years of my life, and it was my whole life. I had built
everything around this woman - it was the driving force of my
life, and suddenly it was smashed, taken away. Utterly betrayed
and crushed is how I felt. I tried to commit suicide by overdosing
on sleeping pills. I didn't do a good job. I think I bottled
out half way through, but I remember waking up after two days,
and I couldn't think of one reason to get out of bed. Maybe you
know that feeling? I couldn't think of one motivation to take
the next breath. I'd tried money. I'd tried romance. I'd been
betrayed. I'd tried everything. Nothing had worked.
Back on the drugs
Eventually I managed to kick myself out of bed. I sold my shares
in the business. Ruth and I finally split up after some months
of disaster and heartache. I moved into a bed-sit, a basement
flat in north London. With the money I had from the business
I turned back to drugs. You see, that "phase" I'd just
been through as a kid was a very dangerous thing because in the
back of my mind I knew there was a way out from pain. And I was
in intense pain: physical, emotional, mental torment. I knew
that through chemicals I could numb it all, could change the
perception of my life and surroundings. And so with a vengeance
and a death wish, I turned back, this time to hard stuff called
methadone, a heroin substitute, a very clever drug! It makes
you feel alive, like a hero, which is where the word heroin comes
from. It's even full of nutrients; the government give it to
junkies. I got this stuff and it numbed the pain real good and
made life bearable, but after three months I discovered that
I was totally addicted to a green fluid. I couldn't get up, I
couldn't go around without it. I had to go to doctors who said
I'd need to be in hospital. Eventually I tried coming off the
stuff on my own with medication they'd given me and it was living
hell. I experienced something of "cold turkey": stomach
cramps and crippling depression. The only way I could get of
methadone was to turn to speed, the chemical I'd taken as a kid.
This got me out of the depression and got me off the floor, so
I became a "speed freak". I took the stuff every day
of my life, pumping myself full of rotten, cut, impure amphetamine
sulphate. It was like my staple diet. And on top of that I would
smoke dope all day long, just to keep the lid on. At the end
of the night, usually 4 in the morning, I'd run away from the
come-down of reality, the pain and the rejection by taking very
strong sleeping pills with whisky. For entertainment I'd do LSD
with my mates; we just lived a crazy life style. Some of you
maybe know exactly what I'm talking about. It was exciting. This
was a life of kicks. We were doing weird things, pushing the
limit every day, just to Find a reason to live. There were thousands
of us in London who'd "dropped out", who just couldn't
hack it, didn't want to hack it, had been huff, been abused,
or felt crushed by the system. Thousands and thousands of young
people, living this life of darkness living for kicks. We were
playing gigs in warehouses at night, smuggling drugs to Paris,
dealing, driving cars out of our brains, dodging the police.
I was sleeping around with women and I didn't even know their
names. I caught diseases and there was just darkness in my life.
Addiction
This went on for a year or two and soon I began to realise that
I really was totally addicted to these things, that I couldn't
go a day, without numerous chemicals in my body or I would be
in crippling depression and physical pain, so I just had to keep
pumping more and more drugs into the system. I became separated
from normality and from the world. At the age of 25 I inherited
some money which was just a wicked thing. I bought an old sports
car and spent the rest on cocaine. I was a dangerous man to know.
The speed was starting to cripple my body; I was extremely thin.
My mind was in pieces with the LSD and my kidneys would be screaming
after a couple of nights of sulphate, which made me turn to pain
killers. I went back to heroin and morphine which would just
numb the searing pain from the amphetamines. At the age of 25
things were looking very, very bleak indeed. This young man who
had been brought up in a lovely Christian family with everything
going for him was dying in north London, in squalor, anger, pain
and resentment. Things were not looking good . I knew that I'd
either end up in prison or in a psychiatric hospital. I had no
hope, or reason for hope in any other life.
Praying Mother
During this time my mother, who was a Catholic, had been through
a kind of weird religious experience. She'd always gone to church
and I didn't quite understand what this new thing was. Whenever
I phoned her up she would tell me that somehow she had experienced
the "power" of God. Very odd. Then she started all
the talk about Jesus - about Jesus Christ and how he could set
me flee from the prison that I was living in. I thought she was
utterly crazy, wacky! The idea of going down to St. Alfonso's
parish church as a drug addict, walking in and saying, "I
need help", seemed mad. I thought people would have screamed
and run away. The church I'd left at the age of 15 I had thought
was boring and totally hypocritical. God, it He existed, and
I thought He did in a superstitious kind of way, was utterly
irrelevant. He was out. there somewhere, but what had He done
for me? My Mother kept telling me about Jesus being alive and
I thought that she was doing my LSD, it was so ... outlandish.
Every time I'd go home to borrow money or have some food, she'd
give me yet another Christian book or tape. I amassed the biggest
religious library in north London and never read any of them.
My Friends had a laugh -we used to tear up the covers to make
roaches For our joints.
Run Baby Run
Then one day, it was a wet day I remember, I'd run out of dope
and had nothing to do. I just grabbed one of these books. The
front cover had a flick knife on it, and I used to carry a knife
(in my paranoia). It was a book called, Run Baby, Run, by an
American bloke called Nicky Cruz. I began to read and to my amazement,
actually enjoyed it. This was a true story of New York street
gangs. I loved New York, you see, that's where my music came
from, the Velvet Underground especially. These guys were into
worse stuff than I was: they were doing harder drugs, were more
violent, and into much more crime. In the middle of them all,
in 1967, came this skinny preacher called David Wilkerson, saying,
"Jesus Christ can set you Free." The guys went spare
and they were going to cut him up into pieces and throw him in
the Hudson River, which is kind of what they do out there. Shaking
with fear, he said, "You can kill me all you want, but God's
love is going to get you." Amazingly, one by one these guys
became religious. This is what the book said anyway; it started
with the gang leader who experienced the "power" of
God come into his life, just set him free from drugs, turned
him around and gave him a fresh start in life. I'm reading this
thing and hope begins to tingle somewhere deep down inside of
me. Maybe there is a God. Maybe there is a way out of this tortuous
life that I'm trapped in. I get to the end of the book but then
realise where I am. That's New York and nothing like this ever
happens in East Finchley!
Chasing the Dragon
I Read a book called, Chasing the Dragon, which means smoking
heroin, which is what I was doing by this time. It was a true
story, of a young Christian woman, a Scottish girl who went to
Hong Kong to be a missionary. She started working with the drug
addicts who live in the opium dens of the wailed city. These
guys had been smoking opium since the age of 10 and now in their
50's, were complete vegetables. Smoking opium was all they lived
for. She, with some other Christians, would pray over these people
in the power of God and they would come off their addiction overnight,
with no cold turkey and no withdrawal symptoms, or so it said
in the book. No cold turkey! No withdrawal symptoms! This was
amazing! I knew something of that hell. 'Again I felt that tingling
of hope in my stomach. Then I got to the end of the book; that's
Hong Kong, and I'm in East Finchley. But somehow something was
stirring, and what’s more, my mother and my sister kept
telling me about Jesus and God's love For me. I was trapped;
yet sometimes I would think about these things. Maybe there was
a way out I thought, but I couldn't find it. So more drugs, more
parties, more darkness.
The Big Valium
Now I wasn't sure if I believed in the devil, or evil, but I
was sure experiencing something bad and it frightened the crap
out of me! It was almost as if during that weekend I kind of
had a "revelation", like an LSD perspective on life.
You see, up until this point I had flirted with death. Death
for me was going to be the big Valium, the big sleep. My pain,
my anger, my hatred, my fear, and my disappointment would just
finish. When I died that would be the end, and I was going to
die soon for sure. I would go out in style, so I thought, you
know like James Dean. David Bowie was singing, "who wants
to be alive when you're 25", I was just going to fizzle
out somewhere. My parents would be upset, but that would be the
end of it. Over this weekend and during this time it was as if
I saw very deeply. You know when you see something deep inside
and you know it's reality; you can't understand it, but you just
know it's true. I suddenly saw that death was not the end, and
all that kind of stuff I had been taught at church, which I had
never really believed, came flooding back. I realised that death
was not going to be a release. If I died at that point, at the
age of 25, the misery, the pain and the torture that I was in
was not going to end. In fact it was going to carry on forever.
This hell that I was living was going to continue after death
and get worse. That frightened me more than anything had ever
frightened me in my whole life.
"Where is this God?"
At the end of the weekend I crawled out of my flat, went home
to my mother and said, "Listen, you've been telling me about
this God of power. Where is He? I need to try him out."
I was desperate and I was ready to try anything, even the most
uncool thing I could think of, which was to try God. I'd tried
everything else - sex, drugs, rock & roll, crime. I said,
"Where is this God?” I wasn't full of faith, I didn't
really know, but I was desperate. She was very relieved and said,
"It just so happens that next week in the next town an ex-Hell's
Angel from America is coming to give a talk. Would I go to that'.
It sounded OK, not as bad as church, so I nervously agreed.
The Hell's Angel
I didn't want to go alone, but of all the hundreds of people
I was dealing drugs with, none of them were Christians. Most
of them were into the occult and Satanism, many of them good
ex-Catholic bays. I did know of one guy. The younger brother
of an old friend of mine who was involved in some kind of church
group, getting into a lot of trouble himself. He lived in this
same town, so I phoned him up and said, "Do you remember
me? You're gonna think I'm crazy, but there's this religious
thing happening, will you come?" He agreed. We went for
a beer and then sneaked into the meeting. It was a businessmen's
meeting, of all things. There were about a hundred blokes in
suits with their wives. Terrible. We sneaked in the back in our
old tatty clothes, spiky hair, and eyes kind of hanging out.
Anyway, there was this horrible music and stuff. Things were
not looking good when suddenly the ex-Hell's Angel stood up at
the front. Now I was expecting this guy to be wearing sandals,
carrying a big Bible, cleanly shaven and would say, "I used
to be a bad person, but now I'm a Christian." That is what
I really expected. But suddenly to my amazement here was a giant
of a guy. He was about 6'8" tail and seemed 6' wide, had
a huge beard, was wearing an old bearskin rug and had a hook
For a left hand- he had lost it in a gang fight. I mean, he was
a real sight! We were trying to act cool at the back as he began
to tell his story; simply, honestly, with a soft American accent,
and no hype. I kind of settled back to listen.
Conversion
He said that he grew up in a good Christian family in the Midwest.
Things had gone wrong as a teenager - he got involved with a girl
but she had betrayed him - I had heard that before somewhere. He
had turned to drugs to numb the pain. I thought, wow, this is like
my life. He got involved with gangs which were very violent, and
his mother who was a Christian, began telling him about "Jesus".
I was sitting there thinking, "This is too close for comfort,
almost a set-up job." He carried on talking about how he thought
she was crazy, but the violence and the drugs got worse and worse.
One day he was driving along Route 55 in his old Cadillac, he was
at the end of himself, reckoned he was going to commit suicide very
soon. People were after him, he was addicted to drugs and he was
in big debt. His whole life was a mess. In desperation he just flicked
in a cassette that his mother had given him, thinking, "Why
not, I've tried everything else," and he heard a preacher talk
about Christ, talk about Jesus" Christ coming as man, coming
2000 years ago to this planet. He came in order to die for mankind,
so the preacher said. The guy thought, "Well, big deal, what’s
that got to do with me?" Then the preacher began to say that
2000 years later through the power of God, our lives could be affected
now. Whatever your problem is, whether it is drug addiction, depression
or despair, this violent crucifixion, this murder of the man who
was God 2000 years ago could change our lives powerfully, wherever
we are, even now! At this the Hell's Angel pulled over. He got out
of his car and knelt down on the road and cried out, "God,
I don't know if You exist, but I'm at the end of my tether. If you're
real, come now and show Yourself." God came into his life there
and then - on the side of the road. He just experienced the power
and forgiveness of God, came off drugs, the addiction was broken,
the depression lifted and his life changed. He now spends his time
just going around the world, telling people about this "Jesus".
The most courageous thing I have ever done
I was transfixed. Can you imagine? I'm at the end of my own tether
and here's a man in flesh and blood, a cool looking guy, telling
me that God is real and moved in his life. This was not distant
or in a book. This was not at the other side of the world. Here
he was in this room. That hope was beginning to stir in me again.
I was sweating and it was like my life was at a cross-roads.
Then he said, "There are 3 people in this hall who need
to meet with God - tonight. Don't leave it, because it could
be too late." He had said that if we reject this message
and our own way to .destruction, that place is called hell. It
could be too late! I knew he was talking about me. I knew that
this was it. I had to - God tonight. If He did not exist or would
not come to me, fair dues, I would go and die somewhere. But
I had to try. I had that much fight in me to survive. Then, to
my horror he said, "Those three people, you've gotta stand
up, now" Can you imagine? There was a hundred businessmen,
my mother was there, I am desperate, I am sweating, and he is
saying, "You've got to stand up in front of all these people."
I gripped my chair. "No way!" But he seemed to wait
for an eternity and then I found myself standing to my feet.
It was probably the most courageous thing I have ever done, and
I had done some stupid things, some criminal things, things that
took guts in the eyes of my friends, but here I was, standing
in front of God, and I was saying, "I NEED YOU." I
was saying to a God that was not even sure existed that I had
blown it, that I cannot make it in this world on my own - I don't
want to make it on my own. It doesn't work, there is nothing
to live for, and I need help. He led me through a prayer, which
as I think back all those years now, went something like this:
"God, I ask that You forgive me for my sin." You know,
sin is not a word that people use much and I didn’t use
it, but I knew what sin was; I did enough of it! Listen, I knew
about my life, about the drugs, the dealing, the abusing women
and being abused. I knew all that stuff was wrong. But I also
knew that in my heart, inside of me, things were wrong too -
hatred, resentment, me. I have done wrong things. I am doing
wrong things. I am sorry. I want to change." And then
he said, "Now pray that you will believe in Jesus. Pray
and say that Jesus is the Son of God, and I believe in you."
It was as ill had a little speck of faith inside me, somewhere
deep inside, enough to say, "Jesus, I think I believe in
you and that the cross you died on was for me, and that you rose
from the dead which is enough to free me now." Then I begged
him to come into my life, to forgive me. It was as if something
lifted me there and then. I stood here and hope burst into life.
I felt weight lift off my shoulders, a heaviness of guilt and
despair. The meeting came to an end and I rushed out down the
pub with my mate Tim, drank lots of beer and nervously smoked
cigarettes; something crazy was happening inside of me.
There has got to be more
But I was still addicted to drugs. I was still addicted to this
lifestyle of darkness, yet now I was beginning to believe in
God and feel hope. It was a strange kind of time. I was sitting
on a fence and I know I needed more. I had read in the books
that these people had experienced "power". That night
I had not experienced power, I had experienced something like
love and forgiveness, but I needed physical change in my body.
I went back to my mother and said, “Listen, there has got
to be more. This is not enough!" She said, "You need
to go to a prayer meeting." Boy, that sounded deadly, but
I was desperate. We were desperate. She told us there was one
happening next week and that if we went we would meet God' s
power.
A Terribly Embarrassing Situation
So we went off to this town. It was a wet night in February.
We had convinced ourselves that we would find young people with
guitars and pretty girls, that it would be all right, God's power
would be there! So we walked up the drive and rang the bell of
the old convent. The door opened and to our horror, instead of
being greeted by pretty girls with guitars, there were about
40 middle aged Irish ladies and 3 nuns. Before we could turn
and run down to the pub, which was our instant reaction, they
kind of grabbed us, hugged us and took us in. They sat us down
in the front row of the room where there were loads of people
and put hymn books in our hands. It was almost as if the nuns
blocked the doorway. 50 here we were, trapped in this place.
It was very hot. Anyway, they began to sing - oh, it was terrible.
These were out of tune 1960's folk songs, bearing in mind I was
a Lou Reed fan! Anyway, we began to take the piss, and my friend
- he was a very big guy - couldn't hold his laughter and it got
very embarrassing. We reckoned they would kick us out, but they
wouldn't even let us go. It seemed to last forever, this terribly
embarrassing situation, and I was thinking, "This is a horrible
mistake; I just want to go smoke a joint and get out of my head
quickly." Then something suddenly changed. These old Irish
ladies who couldn't sing to save their lives began to sound like
angels. It was as if they began to sing in a new language, all
of them at once. It was harmonising and beautiful, and we looked
at their faces which were glowing. They seemed to just know that
God was there, and suddenly the atmosphere changed in that hall;
we could begin to sense God's presence, a power and a love all
around us. Only weeks before I had tangibly experienced a presence
of evil and here I was now, experiencing God. We stopped laughing
and listened in awe. This strange language is called singing
in tongues. I had read about it; when they prayed with the junkies
in Hong Kong, they used it. Apparently, if you remember, 2000
years ago Jesus said, "I will send the Holy Spirit who will
give you the power to do the things I did." When the Spirit
came to this place called the upper room at Pentecost, 120 disciples
- that's all that was left after Jesus' death - they just suddenly
got zapped and spoke in new tongues; then they went out and healed
the sick and raised the dead. I had read about it and here I
was, surrounded by this noise. They soon stopped and carried
on singing their folk songs and we started laughing again. On
the way out they grabbed us and said, "Listen, God can change
your life." We nervously laughed and left. But the next
week we went: back. See, I was still taking drugs and was still
trapped. I knew it would not be long until I had to go back to
London and dive back into the same despairing life-style. There
was something here, something I needed.
God can set you free
We went back and on the third week they grabbed my friend Tim
and said, "You don't have to smoke anymore. God can set
you free." Now Tim was a 40-a-day man. He was only 19, had
been smoking since his early teens. He had tried to come off
and had chewed his fingernails until they bled. These old dears
said, "Jesus Christ can set you free from smoking,"
and he laughed, but they said, "Come on, give it a go."
So he said, "Hurry up, I'm dying 'for a fag," and they
took him away to a little room. Five minutes later he burst out
with a huge grin on his face and seemed to be glowing. He had
definitely experienced something and when he went outside he
said, "I don't need to smoke anymore." I sceptically
replied, '"Yeah, yeah, yeah," but he threw away his
cigarettes, which took ages because he always carries so many
packets! We filled a bin with these things then went down to
the pub and had a couple of pints - no cigarettes! Next day,
I phoned him up, no cigarettes! Third day, no cigarettes! A miracle!
Tim had been set free from an addiction to nicotine and hope
welled up inside me.
"God give me everything"
The next week it was my turn! They were going to pray with me
for the drugs and to experience this power for myself. I went
very nervously, almost not going to be honest with you, because
if God didn't show up, there was nothing left for me. I would
have to return to emptiness. And, I felt unworthy maybe God wouldn't
come because of all the bad things I'd done and said. I felt
terribly confused - yet I went. Well these old ladies laid their
hands on me and began to pray in the strange language. It was
as if God just started to flow into me, as if somebody was just
pouring precious warm liquid. I felt the insides of me warm up,
and it was as if the emptiness - that hole that had been inside
of me since the age of 14 - just filled up. What is more, I began
to speak in tongues too. I began to thank God, praying inside,
saying "God, give me everything. I am desperate. I want
it all I want to be powerful. I want to be free. Fill me up.
Come Holy Spirit, do your stuff." I began to lust speak
and my words changed into a language that I had never spoken
before. And I felt … set free. At last!
No Cold Turkey
Then they prayed with Tim. The same thing happened to him, and
he couldn't even speak French, let along anything "angelic".
We just left that place buzzing, floating out. I knew that I
was free. Free from drug addictions, free from the Other crap,
the sleeping around and all that stuff that I didn't want to
do any more. It was true: on the 18th of February 1985 I had
been released. I didn't need to take drugs again - no cold turkey;
I had no withdrawal symptoms. I threw away my drugs and I was
free. It was a miracle. I couldn't do that on my own I would
have been on the floor weeping after two days! But now, it was
as if I was trapped no more, on the inside.
Friendship with Jesus
More than that, I really met Jesus. I suddenly knew that Jesus
Christ is real. I began a relationship, a deep friendship with
him, began to talk to him, experience him and heard his voice
in me, speaking, encouraging and gently leading me. That emptiness
and loneliness that I had always experienced had gone. You see,
for years, at the end of every day, whether I was at a party,
at home with my family, stoned out of my brain, or in bed next
to a beautiful woman, I knew that I was all alone. When my head
hit the pillow it was just me, I had to face my life and all
of the struggles alone. Suddenly that had changed. No longer
was I lonely on the inside. I have been a Christian for 12 years
now and I have never felt empty like before. I have had tough
times, but ultimately, deep down inside, I know God is with me
and His Spirit, His power, is flowing through me.
A Brand New Start
We just kept going back to the meetings and experiencing more
power, more 'healing. and more freedom. God had given me a brand
new start. Like I had screwed up the first chance. I had screwed
it up big time, but I had turned to Him, and instead of Him burning
me out, as you would think a god would do, He came with forgiveness
and mercy and said, "Here is a new life. Start again. But
this time, do it with me, and it will work." And that was
12 years ago and it is still working. I am still a Christian,
and I am seeing amazing things happen to my life. I do face trials
and struggles like everybody else, but I have never been so satisfied.
Everything has slowly fallen back into place in my lib. I might
not have the flashy car anymore, but I do have a beautiful Italian
wife! [You see, when you give your life to God, He will always
look after you.] He knows what we really need better than we
know ourselves. I have never been so joyful, free and peaceful
as I am now. This is an amazing truth. This really happened to
me and it can happen to anybody!
Six Guys and one Girl
We began to meet with a few other guys, and they experienced
the same thing.,-Seven of us, lapsed Catholics, six guys and
one girl. We just started to meet and God's power would come.
Other young peaple turned up with problems some heroin addicts,
some depressed, .some normal kids, pissed off with life, no meaning,
no hope, fearful, insecure, hating themselves, and depressed.
We would pray with them and the Spirit of God would come. We
would fall about laughing half the *time, but God didn't care.
He would come and they would start speaking in tongues and be
amazingly set free. We soon had a group of loads of young people.
It has ,grown to hundreds now, meeting in St. Alban's. Some of
us live together, sharing this life and having a real laugh.
We go into schools and just talk to young kids. We have a big
meeting with a rock band and just praise God, in a lively way
- Catholics and Protestants. You see, when the Spirit of God
comes, there is no division. Young people, old people, meeting
together, experiencing God, experiencing real life, hope and
a future. What freedom.
Free from Fear & Guilt
In the Bible - I read the Bible now which I can even understand!
- this bloke called St. Paul wrote a letter to a church in a
place called Colossae. This is what he said abut them: "You
were once alienated from God. You were once hostile in your thinking.
You were once wicked in your behaviour." That is how I was
and that is maybe how you are now. You see you don't have to
be a drug addict, you don't have to be a "bad" person
on the outside to be hostile, to be separated from God, to be
wicked, to be sinful. Sin is everything that opposes God. Sin
is selfishness. You can be, I was going to say a member of Parliament,
but at the moment they're getting hammered, aren't they? But
you could be a "good" person, a nurse, a doctor or
whatever it is, but on the inside there is a hostility in you
to God. You want to go your own way, do your own thing. We experience
what this guy Paul talked about: "Why is it that I do the
things that I don't want to do, but I seem unable to do the things
that I want to do?" I know why: because he was TRAPPED,
trapped in sin, and failure. This is what this guy was saying
in his letter, this is how mankind really is. But God loves us
too much for that, so He sent Jesus, He sent His son to come
to free us. The way He did it was on the cross. He died in our
place. You see, we deserve to die, I deserved to die for the
things I did because sin has a consequence of death. Selfishness
is the most obscene thing. It kills people. Just look around.
It really hurts people, doesn't it? So God sent Jesus, and in
his body on that cross, somehow he absorbed miraculously the
results of our sin. He died in our place, rose again with new
life, and he offers it now to everybody, even 2000 years later.
He says that those who receive this, even now, suddenly can become
clean, become free, become faultless in the eyes of God. We can
approach Him, God almighty, free from fear and guilt. This happened
to me. And it can happen to you too.
He will be my Strength
Whatever your circumstances, this can happen. And it does not
mean that you have to wear sandals. You see, I was so frightened
of becoming a Christian. I thought it was going to be boring
and dull and I would have to be square - that's just garbage.
But certain things had to change in my life. I had to stop doing
some things, going to some places, and hanging around with certain
people. Now I want to walk with God. I want to walk in His power.
I want to be humble. I want to be loving and kind. I want to
be real and true. I want to be pure. I don't want to be an idiot
like I used to be. And God says I can walk like Christ. But to
do that, I need to rely on Him. I need to trust Him. You see,
God knows that you and I can't be good people. Much of religion
is so off-putting, isn't it? Because it comes as laws and regulations.
"Do this, do that. Be this, be that. Don't do this, don't
do that." That is not Christianity. Christianity is about
freedom and joy. It is not regulations and a boring, hard life
of failure and guilt. Much of religion, much of church even,
is sold in that way, and it is a complete lie. God knows that
you and I can't be like Jesus. We cannot be good, clean holy
people. He doesn't expect us to be, in our own strength. He died
for us and through this miraculous power somehow He exchanged
lives, taking my old wicked, selfish lustful criminal life. He
killed it, in advance of me even living, and offered me a brand
new one. So all those years later at that meeting, when I said
yes and those people prayed over me, I felt filled with this
new life, like having a new heart, a new power pack in me. I
literally felt it happen. From that day onwards I have had in
me the power and the help to live a different way.
The Challenge of Each Day
Now when lam faced with the challenge of each day - and there
are so many - if I cry out to the Jesus who lives in me through
His Spirit and say, "Listen, I am going to meet this guy
and I know that I am going to blow it, I am going to get angry,
I am going to get hostile, but you are in me and you are never
hostile, You are gentle and kind, help me, I need you to live
your life in me. If I do that, if I have that altitude, he is
there. I mean, it is miraculous. I can go to that meeting or
whatever it is and not lose my temper. And I can get into situations
where normally I would be frightened, and I won't be frightened
because he will be my strength and my courage. I can go into
situations that are beyond me and I will have the wisdom and
understanding I need or the compassion and love beyond my normal
sell: which is so very limited.
This is the Good News
You see, this is the message of Jesus. This is the good news,
that Jesus comes into us to give us the power to live. And the
good news goes even beyond that: when I die I know I am going
to live forever because there is something eternal in me already,
and I am no longer frightened of death. I am more frightened
of the dentist than lam of dying because I know when I die I
am going to be in eternity with God. I am going to live forever
in heaven. That is real freedom. Millions of people live in fear
of death, millions of people live captive to addictions, tied
up in terrible relationships, in fear, insecurity, anger, addicted
to pornography, alcohol, whatever it is. People are trapped all
over the place - trapped to greed, not having money just kills
them. Whatever it is, all this has been dealt with in Jesus Christ.
He Chooses the Weak
This is truth. And it is for you, and it is for your family,
for your friends, for the whole world, for those who would only
believe, who would simply and honestly pray i the prayer that
I prayed 12 years ago - a humbling prayer, a surrendering kind
of prayer, say, "I have blown it. You are God, forgive me.
Come into my life, Jesus. Come and lead the way." And if
you pray that prayer from your heart and get in touch with other
Christians (you see you can't really be a Christian on your own),
get in touch with me or I somebody, and say, "Listen, I
want to make this decision in my life, to be a Christian."
Or maybe it is to try again if you have turned away from God.
"I want to walk in God's power," then you will get
the support you need. You can do it - you can walk free. Yes,
you will I stumble and you will fall, but it doesn't matter.
Forgiveness flows, time after time. I do some terrible things,
say some terrible things, and I turn back to God and say, "Forgive
me," then guilt lifts and I am free again. He is teaching
me like a child. I am growing up. I am growing up to be a man
of power. Not that I boast because I am nothing. God says in
the Bible that He chooses the weak things. He chooses the broken.
We are in the right place because He chooses the weak things
and the broken things to shame the wise.
Destiny, Purpose & the Reason to Live
God has got a plan for your life, whether you are married or
single, male or female, young or old, clever or not clever, God
has got a powerful plan for you. You have not been put on this
planet just to live 20 or 70 years, scrounging around looking
for food, work, sleep and shelter. That alone is not why you
are here. You are not here for yourself. You are not even here
for your family. You are here for the broken world around you.
You are here to help people. It is in you. You know it is. Somewhere
inside there is a part of you that just wants to help other people
but you probably feel impotent. That is howl felt. How could
I, Dave Payne, help anybody? I have no qualifications, an ex-drughead,
and now God uses me, quite amazingly at times, to help other
people, and He will use you too. What a destiny. What a purpose.
What a reason to live. It's for you and its absolutely FREE!
David Payne is now director of Catholic Evangelisation Services
- www.catholicevangel.org
The
full text of a powerful testimony by David Payne 
