I love listening to all the amazing stories of people, who’ve met Jesus in a miraculous way. There’s no doubt that they have the power to build and encourage faith in us. As humans we feel comfortable with contrasts – when changes are major, and differences are easy to see. Sometimes, as Christians, it makes us despise the stories that are not THAT dramatic at first glance. The same happened to me, and for many years I’ve been underestimating the power of my own testimony. The story of a boy, born and raised in a Christian family, who was found by the grace of Jesus in his adolescence.
When we come to Jesus, we accept him as our Lord and Saviour, and as I look at my story with him, I see these two acceptances as being separate events in my life.
As I’ve already mentioned, I was raised in a Christian family, where both my parents were involved in planting the church in my hometown. When I was a kid, a devastating division came to our community, which resulted in dozens of people leaving the church. My parents were caught in the middle, but finally both left the congregation too. As a result of this, I experienced a huge amount of misunderstanding, hurt and bitterness when I was growing up. The reasons for what had happened were not clear to me as a teenager, and so I started to blame my parents, which then started to undermine our relationship. In those days, I didn’t have much respect for my peers in the church we were attending, and I found myself feeling more interested in making new friends outside of that community. At 14 years old I had my first experiences with drug and alcohol abuse. The tough relationship that I had with my dad made it more likely that I would run away from home, rather than look to my parents for support.
JESUS AS MY SAVIOUR
In Advance we talk a lot about the power of invitation. This is true of my story. In the depths of my miserably, chaotic teenage life, I was invited. First of all, by my friends from the church who I didn’t have much respect for, but who invited me to take part in a retreat that they were going to. Even though I refused their first attempt, they kept on pushing, and ultimately, about an hour before the bus left, I accepted the invitation.
The second invitation came directly from the Holy Spirit as we all stood in worship during the evening meeting. I felt like Jesus himself was calling me to come. In that moment I found myself so broken, super-weak and needy. I prayed the sinner’s prayer and received Jesus! As a 15-year-old kid I gave my life to Jesus and started my adventure with Him.
JESUS AS MY LORD
The year after this encounter, I was baptised. In the meantime, my mum came back to church; things seemed to be better and better, nevertheless, over that time, I was still struggling with some consequences from my previous life. I finished high school and then left my hometown in order to continue studying..
It was the summertime, and I went to a festival with my friends. One night we were hanging out in a café, just talking, and it became clear that we all shared the same feeling. We’d discovered the desire of getting serious with Jesus. To serve him, and to give him 100%.
From that night on I started to pray and to ask God about his plans for my life. The breakthrough came when I was reading the bible, specifically Nehemiah 1-2. One night I was struck by the heart-breaking need to bring the gospel to Poland, to the places where there was no hope. From that night on, I was crying out for our nation for several weeks. That was the time when I truly received Jesus as my Lord, giving Him all the rights to my life, my availability, my will and my talents to reach my nation. That was where my adventure began; it goes on and on as I follow his plan for my life, encouraging his church to share the gospel and to invite the lost to meet Jesus. Today I’m so thankful for the story of my life and I see its power to encourage many. Never despise your testimony – in every single chapter of your adventure with Jesus, there is a miracle to be shared.
Written by Kuba Marciniak.
Kuba’s been our Advance Ambassador in Poland since September 2019. Married to Daria, together they’re leaders in Charisma Church in Krotoszyn. For over 10 years they’ve been involved in Youth Alive! ministry in Poland, reaching the young generation with the gospel and serving the local church to help them in building and growing their youth ministries. Kuba is passionate about stirring the Church to reach the local community whilst also being a big Die-hard fan and a lover of good coffee, trail running and memes.
