Meet Barry

Cry out to the Lord and He will answer you (Jeremiah 33:3).

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My story starts over 25 years ago. At that time I was divorced, because of my adultery with another woman. I was also three months into a break up with my current girlfriend of five years. I had been praying to God to bring her back but nothing seemed to be happening. So this particular night, I decided to pray in the name of Jesus. I had remembered someone say, from many years ago, that if you pray in the name of Jesus He will answer. So I prayed and said I will make a pact with you Jesus – if you bring my girlfriend back - I will see that my daughter goes to Sunday school. That night when I got home my girlfriend had returned, but she had brought her new boyfriend back with her. But even so, I eventually won her back three weeks later.   

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After that, I decided that Jesus had done His bit, so now it was up to me to do mine. So I took my daughter to Sunday school the following week. I had no intention of staying so I just dropped her off and picked her up later. However the next week, when I went to church, a woman spoke to me and suggested that I stayed for the service because by the time I got home it was almost time to come back again. So I started going every week. Seeing that now my girlfriend and I were reasonably happy, we got married and had a little boy together. But soon enough things started going badly again. I became a workaholic, working all hours. I was gambling, drinking, lying, being self-centred, not being considerate of my wife. So things went from bad to worse and my wife left home.

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It was around that time I finally realised what I was doing wrong. Even though I took my daughter to Sunday School and had attended church, I had never actually confessed my sins to Jesus so as to receive His salvation. You see, Jesus is a gentleman. He will never come into your life unless you ask Him. He died for our sins and was then resurrected to set us free, but He won’t force Himself upon you. You have to humbly receive Him. 

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One night, after my wife left, I was feeling rather sorry for myself. So I shouted out to God and blamed Him for everything that had gone wrong. I asked Him why all this was happening and said I couldn't handle this myself anymore. So I told Him I would give Him my life and my messy marriages. After I’d shouted out, I actually felt quite calm, as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

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About four weeks later, a Christian evangelist came to our area and set up a tent for meetings in our local park. When I was passing by, somebody handed me a leaflet. I then saw that they were going to do some drama at the meeting. So I thought I would go along because I used to enjoy doing a bit of drama myself. 

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So my mate and I went along and the evangelist was speaking about one of Jesus' parables. As he did, it felt like I was the only one in the room. Everything he was saying was piercing my heart. The evangelist asked if there was anyone who wanted to meet Jesus. At that point I raised my hand, and they invited me to come to the corner of the tent, where they prayed with me. At that moment I felt something go down the back of my neck. It was as if somebody had squeezed a sponge full of water and it was dripping down my spine. It wasn’t until about three months later that I read about receiving the Holy Spirit. It was then I understood that this was what had happened that day. That same day God also miraculously delivered me from a 30-35 a day cigarette addiction. I simply asked God to make the cigarettes ‘taste bitter’, and He did. When I tried to smoke one, I only got half way down it, then just threw it away. I never smoked again.

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Soon after that I came to Life Church, where I met a lovely woman called Moira who had also just recently been saved. We have now been happily married for over two decades. We have both learnt to love Jesus more than we love each other, which helps to keep our marriage strong.

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My story isn’t about ‘finding religion’ - it’s about finding the REAL Jesus Christ and asking Him to come and change my life. I know that if you put Jesus first you will never look back. He stands at the door and keeps on patiently knocking. If you open the door to Him, He will come in to your life and start transforming you with His love. (Revelation 3:20). But the door handle is on the inside of you - so you have to open the door of your own heart to truly let Him in. He can then transform you, like He has transformed me.