Testimony--Revised

So my personal testimony has to do with Ignition. Ignition is this huge, really amazing, youth conference, with intense teaching, great dramas, and lots of of prayer.

The first year I was old enough to go I, for reasons that I can't actually recall, decided not to go. I have regretted that decision ever since. The reason for this is that the following year, when I did go, I truly became saved.

I had confessed my sin and “said” I'd given my life to God and all that stuff but I never really understood what it meant to be saved. That is, until that first Ignition conference. That's where I first really met God and discovered who He really is.

The weird thing is that before Ignition I didn't really feel empty or like I was missing anything in my life. Of course I grew up in a christian home, and I was home schooled, so I got a lot of biblical teaching along with my schooling, but I still find it odd that I didn't realize I had been spiritually empty until I was spiritually full.

But anyway, I went home and started reading my bible every day and talking to God, not just praying but actually talking to God. I did this for some time but after a while it got really hard, so I quit.

Then, the next year, at Ignition, I had the same revelation as the year before and decided to start reading my bible and talking to God again. But this time I knew I could not keep the awesome feeling I felt about God inside of me, and, sure enough, the feeling went away again.

But this time something strange happened. Some time in the middle of that year I had this strange desire to read the bible. I couldn't describe it but I started to read, and kept reading up to the day of the next Ignition conference.

One of the things I read was, amazingly enough, the book of Job. I was very surprised that I actually found it quite interesting and very beneficial, seeing as most Christians find the book of Job to be very long and tedious. In Job 2:10 it says “In all this, Job did

not sin in what he said”. This was right after he had lost all his riches and all his children and it just made me realize that if Job could go through all that hardship and loss and was still able to worship God then so could I.

Another book of the Bible that I found quite helpful was the book of Esther.

In Esther 4:16 it says “When this is done, I will go to the king,even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish”. I have always been a little timid and shy, so this huge act of courage on the part of Esther in an attempt to save her people showed me that, through God, even the most timid person can find courage.

But something else happened that year. I started having trouble with school. I realized that I had to rely on God to get me through this hard part of my life. And He did.

Then when I went to Ignition that year I already had that amazing love for God in my heart.

So I didn't discover God's amazingness this time . I discovered something else. I discovered that I already knew everything that the speakers were teaching us about God.

God was telling me it was time to move on. He told me that he had a new path for me...