|
 I
am 43 years old and sometimes wonder where the time has gone it seems like
yesterday when I was a teenager. One of the best things in my life was
marrying Karen my wife in
1988. We have been blessed with three beautiful children
Rachel, Jonathan and Andrew. My working life has involved working in banking
and finance for the past 25 years, so I suppose you could say I am good with
numbers.
I became
a Christian only 12 years ago through the influence and love of many good
friends. My salvation was not one of those Damascus road experiences. It was
a slow yearning for something that was missing in my life. Today I stand
complete in the glory of God. Jesus Christ did truly save me and now he
plans to use me.
My encounter with Christ
You never know when or where you
will meet God. For me it was on a bridge in Bangkok Thailand. As a family we
had planned a trip to Asia in 2004. On the first day I decided to take a
walk around the city on my own, mainly to stretch my legs and allow Karen to
unpack without getting in her way. As I crossed a footbridge over a busy
highway, I saw him was sitting there staring at me begging for my help. As I
walked by (Yes I walked by) I could not take in what I was seeing, it seemed
unreal. In my world, the Western world, these sights just don’t exist. The
picture of an emaciated boy with legs like sticks and a swollen belly (the
same as you would see in African famine children) begging with a paper
McDonalds cup in the middle of a busy city was hard to take in. And then
there were the other people the city dwellers (the goats) who seemed to be
entirely blind to this child’s plight. Yes I also walked by, in fact I
walked on for several blocks troubled by what I had seen and unsure what to
do. Then I realised that it was God who was speaking to me through this
Christ like child. I recalled the teaching Mathew 25 verse 35 (‘for I was
hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirst and you something to
drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you
clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came
to visit me’) and realised I needed to become a sheep. I rushed back to
see if I could find the boy but just as God had placed him there now he had
taken him away, my heart sank. I worried that had I failed God test? For
the next few days my daughter and I wandered the city giving money to any
desperate person we saw but there were so many. Eventually we headed home to
Northern Ireland.
A few months later a young man
called Stephen McIntyre came to our Church to talk about an orphanage in
India called Little Hearts (he had visited us before and this was his second
visit). As Stephen went though the slide show of children in the orphanage.
I saw the same face I had seen in Asia and knew that I was being called to
serve in this ministry. Some months later Stephen and Raymond Thompson
formed ACTS ministries and I joined them as treasurer and hopefully so much
more. For me this Journey is just beginning. For me Christ is at the centre
and words can’t begin to explain the joy I feel when I think upon this and
feel his presence in it. For you I hope he calls you, I pray you have ears
to hear and a heart to answer.
email Peter:
peterregan@thinkpositive.co.uk |
