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 By Daniel Snyder
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17
It was a dark and dreary December night, as I pulled into the driveway on my side of the duplex I lived in. It was getting late and I needed to get to bed and sleep off the dope before work in the morning. I was stoned on synthetic heroin and marijuana and drunk on rum. I stumbled into my house little knowing that the next few hours were going to change my life forever. My roommate and I had been fighting over so many things for months now. Arguing over drugs, money, girlfriends, vehicles...
Going to bed with glass
Looking back to the scene in that house that night I can see how I was fully enveloped in the dominion of darkness. I began drugging myself to sleep as usual. It didn't take long for me to notice there was something in bed that didn't belong there. I felt it with my hand sharp, shards of glass all through my sheets, thousands of them. I tried to rationalize it for a second, how could this have happened? I made my bed in the morning. Nothing had broken in my room. I ripped the blankets off and was shocked to see how much glass was in my bed, strategically placed between my sheets. Ready to slice me up when I slept. It was then I realized where they had come from, and anger like I had never known rose up within me. Rage. I grabbed a handful of the glass went out of my room and threw it right in the face of my roommate. I was screaming and swearing at him at the top of my lungs. He didn't even react, he just kind of sat there with a dumb look on his face, he knew what he had done. I went back into my room seething and wondering what to do next. I was already high and there was no logic left in me.
Steel bar
I grabbed the steel bar I had under my bed and came running out of my room with hate in my eyes. I started towards him with the bar in my hand, ready to do some real damage. I could see real fear in his eyes as he jumped up and tried to get away, I started smashing stuff and putting holes in the wall as I advanced on him. My roommate knew it was a moment of life or death and he probably did the wisest thing he could have done which was run out of the house. It didn't end there, I smashed everything I could get my hands on, whether it belonged to me or him. Dozens of glasses, bottles, plates, lamps I released my rage in violence. Finally my energy spent, I lay on my bedroom floor mattresses turned up, blinds hanging by a corner, drawers ripped out of the dresser hyper-ventilating. What had happened? Suddenly I heard a shout at the door. This was it, he was back for more and I was going to give it to him. I came barreling out of my room with the steel pipe raised above my head. There at the front door were three of Abbotsford's finest with their guns drawn aimed right at my head. FREEZE!
Sitting in the back of the police car later that night, the officer was nice enough to put the radio on, and a song came on by a popular local band the lyrics were "This is how you remind me of what I really am." I cried. I was fully reminded that what I really was, was lost, hopeless and addicted.
A journey begun - a void
A journey was begun on that night years back, a journey searching for what I'd been missing. A revelation came of the void within me and that nothing I tried was going to fill it. God is such a big God! He knew when I was ready to open my heart to Him, and start letting the truth change me. The word says that He who the Son sets free is free indeed!. I really had no revelation of freedom for the first twenty three years of my life. To me freedom meant doing what I want when I wanted to do it. I didn't get totally set free the day after that destructive evening, but the journey had begun
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It was over a year later that I walked into a Church hoping to get zapped' by God and miraculously set free from addiction. My lifestyle had cost me pretty much everything. I'd sold my vehicle for dope, stolen from my friends and family, and had to go on sick leave from work. There was nothing left. Financially I was destroyed and on the verge of bankruptcy. Spiritually I was dead. I was hopeless, depressed, miserable, and angry. God had boxed me in, and I had finally come to a place in my life where I was willing to consider that maybe I needed something bigger than my bright ideas to succeed.
God didn't zap me
Glory to God, he didn't just zap' me and set me free. I was sitting in that Church surrounded by all these happy smiley people What did these people have to be so happy about? I didn't understand it. As I walked out the back door of the Church I'll never forget the woman who was obedient to God and grabbed my arm asking if she could pray for me. Something in me couldn't resist, and I sat on a bench in the lobby and let this woman pray for me. I remember closing my eyes and making a choice to believe and receive. As she prayed I began to cry and shake, I don't remember much of what was said, but when I opened my eyes I was surrounded by over a dozen people who I'd never even met before. I looked around and I could see the compassion and Love in their eyes. Some of them were crying, and they'd never even knew anything about me! One lady spoke to me prophetically, "The Lord will restore to you all that has been lost!" I didn't know what she meant, at the time my understanding was entirely natural' and there was no part of me that was Spirit-minded. What I thought God will restore what was lost to me meant, was that I'd get back all the things' I'd pawned off, sold and traded for drugs. Maybe I'd get my car back, or get out of debt in some miraculous way.
Restoration
It was a few months after that day that I looked around me and realized an amazing truth! Our Great God had delivered me, and restored it all! Where there was once hopelessness, I now had hope, where there was depression I'd been filled with the Joy of the Lord, where there was anxiety, God's peace had calmed me, where there was anger the Love of God transformed me! All the Hope for tomorrow that the enemy had stolen, had been restored by a loving God who is greater than the enemy! I had a future, and my dreams were returned to me!
God gets ALL THE GLORY, for redeeming me and delivering me. The enemy meant addiction for my death. God in His great wisdom has turned it around for good. Every day I get the opportunity to work with others who desire freedom, and have been caught in the bondage of addiction. Not one has fallen beyond recovery! And I serve a God who says that my past doesn't have to control my future!
Daniel Snyder is a graduate from the program at Wagner Hills and serves full time in the ministry. He has a heart and passion to see the Church rise up in the full power that God has called it to operate in! Daniel works in the Wagner Hills offices and is involved in overseeing the Glen Valley Visitor House. www.wagnerhills.com
August 7/2008
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