Last month I met George for coffee. He’s a final year student at UWE in Bristol. Like most students, he’d arrived at Uni a few years ago with no faith, and without much experience of ever going to church. His parents weren’t Christians but his grandparents were. He never thought he’d end up going to church, and it certainly wasn’t on his radar when he rocked up at Uni. He explained to me how that all changed…
Midway through his first year, he was smoking weed with his mates, not uncommon for him at the time, but this time he perhaps went a little overboard and felt quite unwell. His mates had to help him to bed. It was whilst he was asleep that he had a strange dream.
In the dream he was walking towards a cliff, and the sun was setting on the horizon. Over to his left, in his peripheral vision, he could see a strange figure that he couldn’t make out. He tried to turn to look at the figure but couldn’t turn his head. He woke up. That was strange, he thought, probably just the weed…
The next night however, stone cold sober, he went to sleep and had the exact same dream. This time he could turn his head a little further but still couldn’t make out the figure. This is getting really weird.
Finally, for the third night in a row, the dream repeated itself, only this time he could turn his head fully. Instantly he was able to turn and look at this figure who he could now see was glowing bright white light.
When he woke up, he realised there was only one place he could go for answers as to the meaning of this strange recurring dream… Google. He Googled what it all meant, and result after result all pointed in one direction: Jesus. He read so many stories of people seeing figures in bright white in their dreams, and every time it always seemed to turn out that it was Jesus appearing to them. Perhaps Jesus Christ really is appearing to me in a dream? He thought.
He downloaded the Bible App, the logical next step when one thinks Jesus is appearing to him, but of course started at the start - in Genesis. It’s a long way through the Bible before you get to Jesus if you start in Genesis, but George didn’t realise this at the time. A bit disheartened and not really understanding what he was reading - he gave up somewhere midway through Genesis and put the whole Jesus thing on the back burner.
It wasn’t until the Freshers Fair at the beginning of his second year, that he ended up chatting to some guys on a stand who told him about their church that met on campus. Thinking this was a good opportunity to get some answers, within the next few weeks he went along. He’d only ever been to church for weddings and the like so he did what he thought you were meant to do - and dressed in full suit. Turning up he realised everyone else was in jeans and t-shirts, and he was rather overdressed. Unphased, he took a seat and the service began. He was really enjoying the music, listened to the talk and then the moment came, the moment of truth. He hadn’t known this was going to happen, but someone from the front then invited anyone who hadn’t ‘given their life to Jesus’ yet, to come forward and pray to give their life to Jesus.
He wasn’t 100% sure what this meant, and didn’t stand straight away - but did start to feel strangely hot. Then the woman at the front said it again - giving another invitation. He started to feel even hotter. She invited people again. This time he was so hot that he thought ‘maybe this is what I’m meant to do, maybe that’s why I’m so hot…’
He put his hand up, and then the woman led him in a prayer of surrender to Jesus. It wasn’t until he was there - literally praying the prayer - that he realised he did actually want to do this. It all clicked. He realised he really did think Jesus was the son of God, and did want to choose to give his life to follow him.
That day was the start of a faith journey George is still on. George still goes to church, albeit a different one from where he first made that commitment.
“I never thought I’d end up going to church,” George said to me, “then when I did I just stayed…”
