Policeman scoffed at religion

I am currently a serving Police Constable with the North Wales Police. I am forty-six and became a Christian six years ago. Mind you, like so many other people, had I been stopped in the street before that time and asked, ‘Are you a Christian?’, I would have replied ‘Yes’. However, there is a difference between saying you are a Christian and being a Christian. Becoming a Christian did not happen to me overnight but over a period of months.

I didn’t know I was a sinner

As a child I went to the Church of England, was baptised and confirmed. I learned about God and Jesus but never knew Jesus as my personal Lord and Saviour.

I am one of five brothers. My mother died when I was ten years old. Neither my mother nor my father attended church, and none of my brothers are Christians. As a teenager and in my early twenties, I did all the usual things young men do; drinking, smoking, dancing, girlfriends, staying out late, and generally thinking only of myself. I never considered myself a bad person, but on reflection I have done some really rotten things and hurt a lot of people in my life. I was a sinner and did not know it.

I joined the Police Service in 1973. It was when attending a CID course for detective training that I was given a Gideon pocket Bible, which I thumbed through without reading. This Bible, which I kept, eventually ended up in a dusty old box with other odd items accumulated over a number of years.

Despair

I scoffed at religion and maintained that my belief was personal to me. On one occasion, a friend was at my home and he started to talk about God and Jesus. I did not know that he was a Christian; not that it would have mattered then. I insulted him and, on reflection, also insulted God and Jesus Christ.

Just before my fortieth birthday, the bottom seemed to fall out of my life. I was overwhelmed with despair. As a result I started drinking heavily, visiting discos, looking to fill the hours of loneliness that I was feeling. A friend started to help me through this very difficult period and on one occasion mentioned how Jesus had died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins. I did not know he was a Christian either.

One evening when I was alone and feeling sorry for myself, I started to look through the old dusty box and found the Gideon Bible given to me ten years earlier. I started to read it and found the words gave me great comfort. Unknown to me, God was at work in my life.

Christian friends

I started to attend a church and prayed in the best way I knew how. One day that summer on the promenade at Llandudno, I was handed a Christian leaflet by a member of the United Beach Mission. I took it home and read it. At any other time I would have just brushed by him.

I talked to my Christian friend and he loaned me a book called Condemned forever (an Evangelical Press book by Eryl Davies). After reading it, I knew that unless I changed my ways I was condemned.

Another milestone in my becoming a Christian was when some plans I had made for a holiday fell through. Not wanting to be alone, I contacted some old friends in Pontefract whom I had rarely seen over a period of fourteen years. On my arrival in Pontefract, I was made welcome and over the next few days learned that both were now Christians. They told me how they had come to know the Lord, and the reality of their faith in God and Jesus Christ showed.

I went with them to the Pontefract Congregational Church and left armed with Christian books and tapes, full of elation and joy. On my way home to Llandudno I listened to one of the tapes about how near God is to us. I felt moved. The Holy Spirit was with me and the Lord came into my life.

I know that through God’s mercy I have been saved and now am a Christian; and I give thanks to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who is the light of my life. The Gideon Bible, given to me all those years ago, has been passed on. I pray that, some day, its new owner might also open and read it, and like me be led to God.