“You and I are gonna live forever”

Ryan is part of Redeemer Central. Read the story of his amazing journey from being a stereotypical kid brought up in a Christian home, to living it like an Oasis song, to finding something special in the city.

Ok, I admit it. I was one of those stereotypical kids - brought up in a Christian home. Mum and dad, who loved Jesus, were involved in church stuff up to their necks and wanted the same for their three sons. My reaction from my early teens was to run as far and as fast as I could in the opposite direction. Was I trying to run away from God? You bet, but I found out it’s not easy to hide from someone who counts omnipresence as one of his defining attributes.

There’s this verse in Genesis that says when God looked at the wickedness of man on the earth he saw that “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Then it got a bit wet and quite a few people died. When I first read that verse I found I could relate to it - I just loved to be up to badness - if it feels good, just do it and forget the consequences. Rather I tried to forget. My knowledge of God’s reaction to the “thoughts of men’s hearts” scared the spit out of me. Like the brothers Gallagher nasally whined “You and I are gonna live forever!” - right? Yeah…but more of that in a bit.

Where do you go when you want to live your life by your rules? The city. So, off I went to Queens University Belfast to study architecture and threw myself into the student and clubbing scene without restraint.

I ended up in my mid-20’s weighing 8 1/2 stone, seemingly more cigarette smoke than food passing my lips, and with some very strange goings on in my head; the result of too many psychoactive pharmaceuticals and Amsterdam’s finest having done it’s worst. Throw into the mix a large portion of this time was spent in a destructive relationship with a girl and looking back now I can see I was in pretty bad shape mentally, emotionally, physically, sexually and spiritually. It seemed I was finding I could say to myself with increasing regularity “Well, that’s another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into” as I struggled through my architecture degrees and one messy, self-inflicted disaster after another. But still, I was resolutely fixed on living my life, my way and nothing but nothing was going to stop me.

All that simply to paint the bleakness of the background against which Jesus started to shine, mainly through the witness of the only Christians I came into any kind of regular contact with - my folks and my brothers. I saw something different in them. They had a spark of divine life in them that I was very aware others I knew lacked. And I guess they just loved me through my self-destruct mission even though I made it as difficult as possible for them to do so. My brother spoke to me about Jesus as though he was alive - and I really wanted to believe him!

God had showed up in my life. “Enough! Come home.”, He seemed to say.

Throughout this time I struggled to see God as good - God as Judge made much more sense to me and that was my default perception of Him. I was bad and needed to be punished and God had the wooden spoon big enough to do the job in that place designated for bad eggs like me…hell. F-O-R-E-V-E-R. It began to crush me. The suicide of my girlfriend’s dad didn’t help - she was terribly raw and broken and had many questions I couldn’t answer or even help her in any way really. I guess I became very conscious of the eternal.

Years of sitting under gospel presentations and teaching as a kid had planted deep within me the knowledge that God actually loved me and had provided a way in Jesus’ death and resurrection for me to be brought into a right relationship with Him. I knew God was calling me out, even though I had my own skewed ideas about who He was. So, one (drunken) night I blurted all this out to my then girlfriend. Oh dear. That was not what she wanted to hear. We were buying a house together after all and me becoming a Christian was simply out of the question! “You’re a sheep, weak, brainwashed, it’s a product of your upbringing”...blah, blah, blah. But not long after I found myself working late on my own and after reading a simple gospel presentation I got on my knees and cast myself on God’s mercy. That was it. Turning point. Peace.

Difficult times followed, break-up with the girl, loneliness as I necessarily stepped out of the tight group of friends we’d both shared and uncertainty in this new life as a child of God. But I held on for dear life to this precious jewel of right relationship with God I’d been gifted with and here I am today, 5 years in and never looking back, me and Jesus working the messiness that is my life out together.

I had approached God from a place of fear and desperation I guess, but God in His mercy met me there and my rudimentary and warped view of the character of God and the gospel is being replaced by revelations of just how GOOD He and the message of His grace toward us in Jesus really is. I may blow hot and cold in my enthusiasm and love toward Him, but I know God, being faithful, loves me with His unwavering steadfast love. I can still on occasion bow under my idolatrous tendency to see God primarily as angry judge but He never fails to gently woo me with His scandalous grace and His unending mercy.

God saw fit to bring me together with a wonderful wife in Jude and grace us with a gorgeous daughter Ynes and together we’re ready for the next installment. Where do we sign up? Oh yeah, we already did - at Redeemer Central. It kind of feels right to get back into the city that I once went to hide from God in…but this time as part of a vibrant Christian community on mission with Jesus.

Bring it!

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