Have you ever heard a story of God miraculously seizing control of someone’s social media?
It all began in the early hours of Friday morning, when Blaise woke up at 3am. This wasn’t something he was used to (he’s a pretty heavy sleeper!), so picking up his phone to see the time, he ended up scrolling on instagram to send himself back to sleep. However, instead of finding a few memes and pictures of mates on their jollies, like every other time before, his instagram feed was filled with content about Jesus. Coming from a multi-faith background, he’d never searched for Jesus online before, but found himself watching video after video after video about Jesus. There was no logical reason for his instagram to be showing this content to him, and as he switched his phone back off, he couldn’t help but question why he was seeing this stuff.
“This must be something. This has to be something. I don’t understand how this could come from nothing.”
Waking up the next morning, he described it as though something had ignited within him, and he began to seek and question what this was all about. He asked people around him, but just wasn’t sure what to believe, so, with other choice, and no answers, he went to God himself for answers:
“God if you’re there, if this is what you want me to believe … then just give me one sign, one big sign, and I will believe.”
Blaise got ready to go, like any other day, and headed into the city. On his usual commute, he turned a corner, and there he saw it. A sign. Or more precisely, one of those giant billboards. This giant billboard hadn’t been there just a few days before, and as he’d turned the corner, the image had changed, from an advertisement, to giant sign, spelling out the words ‘Jesus Christ wants YOU’ in big, bold letters. Undeniably, a sign from Jesus! This was an invitation he couldn’t refuse.
“That’s it. That’s my sign. I just knew then that he was trying to talk to me”
Then came the Monday, where Blaise headed into town, and walking into a Church, he asked if there was a pastor he could speak to. "I told him my story, and I just wanted to know, hear more about Jesus, and about Christianity.”
What began as curiosity and questioning was about to become a moment of profound encounter, as they prayed in response to what God had been doing.“I’d never prayed before that. I didn’t know what to do, but when he was praying for me, I felt it. I hadn’t felt that before. That’s when I knew, myself, this is what I wanted to do. This is what I needed to do.”
What began as a strange moment on instagram at 3am on a Thursday night, utterly transformed Blaise’s heart and life.“It was like he put a seed into my mind, which grew, into me questioning it, into me asking for a sign…. And now here I am. After that I started practising, I found my Bible, I started coming to church…Being a Christian has changed my life”
The story of how Blaise met Jesus is just one of so many encountering Jesus across this country. Stories of God calling people. Stories of God revealing himself in strange and beautiful ways to those seeking. Stories of the Holy Spirit moving in power amongst this generation. Time and time again, it becomes clear that God is drawing this generation to himself, and He wants to use His Church to do it!
Are we ready to open the doors and welcome the people that God is bringing to his Church? Are we praying big prayers, over students and young adults, that we might never meet?
It was so encouraging to join together with many hundreds across the country for Do It Again, but how can we, in our local contexts, continue to press in with prayer, so that we can hear more stories of students like Blaise?
