Sadly, however, for me going to church was an enjoyable experience but for all the wrong reasons. Kids, close your ears!! I would see it as an opportunity to push behavioural boundaries & test my parent’s patience to the limits. Endless fidgeting in the seats to annoy my neighbours, pulling faces or making subtle noises to set my brothers off laughing, or even on one occasion, slumping so low in my seat with a face full of attitude that my own Dad had to reprimand 10-year-old Nathan from the pulpit with child friendly words that raise a laugh in our family to this day, “Nathan, sit up in a reverent posture” as the congregation looked on! I mean c’mon who talks like that!!

I enjoyed church, I knew all the facts about Christianity but knowing those facts made little difference to my life.

Throughout my teenage years I was constantly plagued by a nagging curiosity, a curiosity that wouldn’t leave me no matter how much I tried and how much advice I sought. And that was the reality that one day, no matter how enjoyable my life was back then, and is now, it will end. One day I will die. What next? Was I abnormal or was I just confronting a reality at a young age having seen some young & middle-aged folks in our close-knit community die. The stark reality that this life is temporary and death is permanent struck me powerfully in those teenage years and I resolved that the decision about what comes next has to be the most important choice each one of us has to make. We all get one chance to make the right choice. We cannot afford to get it wrong.

When I got to about 18, like most peers attaining that age, I started to have some cares in the world. I had a job to hold down, a few bills to pay and an identity crisis.
If I died right now, where did I stand with God? I didn’t really know.

As part of my soul searching, and despite not being a student, I joined the Aberystwyth University Christian Union as a bit of a hanger on to try and make some like-minded friends. Being brutally honest looking back, I joined it not to truly find likeminded peers, but to find a girlfriend. This probably sums up quite well where I was in my soul searching, I had my priorities all wrong.

A turning point came at the Evangelical Movement of Wales conference in Aberystwyth that I attended whilst hanging onto the coat tails of my new Uni friends.

The man giving the talk in the Welsh chapel that night spoke so clearly. God used his message to strike an urgency in me; I either had to believe in Jesus Christ as the only way to have the wrong in my life forgiven or to just carry the burden myself and take my chances.

The message that night was clear & the bible is crystal clear – there is no half way house; we either trust in Jesus and his promises or we don’t. And I decided to trust.
And for the first time in my life, I didn’t fear death, as I had invested in a hope that can never perish, spoil or fade.

Jesus promises in John:
“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die and whoever lives by believing in me will never die”. And then Jesus hits us all with a personal challenge, “Do you believe this?”, and for the first time, I could confidently say – yes!

In the 16 years that have followed, it has been a rollercoaster. Life is not plain sailing – and life as a Christian is definitely not plain sailing. I’ve had some wonderful times and some very dark times. I’ve been blessed with a wonderful wife, two beautiful boys, a home, a job to name just a few.

Whilst life’s challenges have ebbed and flowed, and life a rollercoaster ride, I have found in Jesus Christ a faithful friend who never leaves me, always helps me and is faithful no matter what my circumstances or shortcomings. I have experienced first-hand answers to prayer in seemingly hopeless circumstances. But above all I can be absolutely sure that the eternal God will not punish me for my sin when I die. Why?
He punished his own son on a cross in my place.

And I suppose to complete the jigsaw, why baptism, why now?
If I’m being honest, I’ve put it off and built in delay tactics because I hate being the centre of attention. Baptism does not get you right with God, it does not make you a Christian. And that’s how I rationalised it in my head as a get out of jail free card.

But the longer life went on without doing it, the more uncomfortable I felt whenever I saw the next round of baptisms coming up in the notice sheet. Jesus commanded baptism to outwardly symbolise the internal change within a believer so I recently felt compelled to actually get on and do it rather than delaying any longer!