My testimony: how I came to Christ

Summary:

I created multiple blogs, which can be found under the following link:

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I wrote these things as a Christian. 

You can find below my testimony on how I came to Christ. 

1) Early childhood:

I am a man, born in 1992, in eastern France. 

My parents were both Christians, part of an evangelical (leaning Pentecostal) church. 

When I was about 6 months old, my mother (in the picture below) told me that I was often playing with her necklace that had a Huguenot cross:

My mother told me that at the time I probably was attracted by the little part of it at the very bottom of it:

This little part was a dove, representing the Holy Spirit of God coming down to reach someone.   

2) Childhood: first encounter:

My parents invited me to join them at their local church. I used to do drawings there, I do not remember really paying attention to anything that was happening there. 

I was mostly interested in dinosaurs, video games, dominoes, construction games, soccer, breakdance. Those things were filling my thoughts and were drawing my attention. 

At 8 years old, I was in a camp with other children while my parents were on vacation. One evening they were singing some praises/gospel songs. I didn’t like singing. I decided to sing one song, but if I did it I wanted to mean the words and be real. I did so. The song was saying something like: “Jesus I open my heart for you”. 

When I said those words, something spiritual suddenly happened. A sort of peaceful, loving and powerful presence sort of encountered me. I had no idea at the time what this was. 

I then remember having come to the front, probably to answer a call to "give your heart to Jesus", and the next memory was me being in the arms of an older woman who was taking care of the children as I was crying. I was crying because I felt a huge feeling of love inside of me that I wanted to share with everybody, it was so powerful and beautiful, I never felt that ever. 

In the room where it happened was written a text in the very front of the room on the top. It was apparently a Bible verse. And that verse said: Zechariah 4:6: "It is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.":

3) Teenage years and young adult: focusing on video games world records:

Even though I made a decision to give my heart to Christ when I was 8 years old, and I had at the time an actual encounter or visitation, my life did not change. 

The years following that were focused on my interests, the same way it had been before that. 

Around 12 years old I was given the choice to not go to the local church with my parents, and that meant for me having more time to rest, so I chose not to go there anymore. 

Around 13 years old, I had a strong interest in world records. I myself wanted to achieve high scores. A video games magazine at the time gave the opportunity to do just that: achieve records on different video games, and send them the scores for them to publish them around the country. I found myself doing that and be 1st in multiple high scores and video games, as the magazine was publishing and commenting on my scores from month to month. 

Around 15 years old, I found a video games records website where world records from players around the world were publicly shared on all kinds of videos games. This became the start for me of a quest: becoming the overall best world record holder in the world on the global leaderboard.  

Only 1 year later, around 16 years old, I entered the Top 5 of the best players in the world on their global leaderboard. I was very far from the Top 1 but I knew at that point that I could make it. I devoted most of my time outside of school and other projects to setting world records on a variety of video games to climb to the top. 

And several years later, that day happened. When I was 21 years old, after playing intensively for about 6 years and a half since starting, and thus playing almost every day several hours per day for about 2,358 days, I finally reached my main goal: to be first on the global leaderboard for the total of world records on the website with all games combined, with a total of over 18,000 world records, including over 7,000 non-equated (untied) world records. 

4) Young adult: second encounter:

In parallel to focusing on my interests, I sometimes went to a youth group at the local church of my parents on some weekends, but I went there mostly because I liked the people there, they were kind and faithful people, I knew many of them for years. 

At the time I would have considered myself to be a Christian by name. I did believe that Jesus died, rose again and was alive today. To me it came down to what I had experienced when I was 8 years old: I called the name of Jesus, and I encountered what I had never encountered before or after. And so I believed. 

Around 21 years old I was invited by someone from that youth group to an event at another local church in a big city. It was only between young people there. I decided to join. And similarly to when I was 8 years old, the same thing happened. I usually was not singing, but a certain song came that resonated somehow within me, it was a song I liked. It was saying: "Jesus I offer you my heart, it doesn’t belong to me anymore". I sang those words, with honesty, as it would be meaningless in my eyes to sing something without being honest as I didn't like singing anyway. And suddenly there and then a similar experience to what I encountered when I was 8 years old happened. I was visited by a peaceful, loving and powerful presence. It made me go on my knees. I had invited someone at the time who was next to me and saw me crying from that, and knowing that I was extremely rarely crying that person wondered if I was sad or something. I was encountering the most loving presence I had felt, the same way I did when I was 8 years old. 

After it happened, I attempted to explain what just happened to me to the person I invited but they did not understand. I then saw that someone from the church had seen me having this encounter, and I approached that person to ask what this was, as this was the second time now in my life it had happened. And that person told me, with a kind smile: "it's the Holy Spirit". I did not know what to answer to that because I did not even know what or who the Holy Spirit was. But I heard the answer, and I simply moved on and continued my life. 

I was not transformed after this experience, the only lasting effect was a memory of this experience but that was it. It did reinforce for me though that Jesus was real. I knew it because I uttered His name to invite Him, and then I encountered a spiritual loving presence as a result which I had not experienced in anything else in my entire life outside of this encounter and the encounter when I was 8 years old. 

5) Adult: Helping people on a video game and ascending:

Around 22 years old, I continued to grow as the Top 1 record holder in the world on the global leaderboard of video games. I attained at some point some goals I wanted to achieve. 

In parallel, I started playing a certain video game on my phone, which was a strategy tower-defense game. The game is not well-known to the point of having been mainstream, but there were millions of players on it still. 

Over the course of less than a year I began to ascend the global leaderboard of the game, playing every day, every 3 hours, for several hours per day. I became a part of the best team in that game, among the elite players who spent tens of thousands of their money on the game when I personally had spent close to zero. Players online noticed this and started asking me for help. I started helping people on social media and because my personal inbox became inundated by messages over time I decided to start creating content online to help them. 

I started creating tutorials on YouTube which got more views than I expected, and only 10 days after creating my first video tutorial on that game the official social media page of the game shared one of my videos on their official social media page (which had hundreds of thousands of people), sharing that a "veteran" of the game explained how to get the most out of a certain feature of the game. 

This started an avalanche. I created more videos based on what people were asking me, and the offical social media page of the game rapidly shared more and more of my videos. 

After playing for about a year in total, I entered the Top 100 in the global leaderboard of the game (which had millions of players). I was spending hours creating videos every day, while completing my 3 years studies in university and having a life with friends and other people next to it, and maintaining my competitive advantage by playing several hours per day every day to continue climbing. 

In parallel I decided to stop doing world records as I had difficulties keeping up with both at the same time, I had to make a choice and because this was helping a lot of people online I decided to go that way. One month after attaining the Top 100, I attained the Top 50. I knew competition was fierce at the top and whenever I would not play people would work to bring my place down. However I continued relentlessly my pursuit: creating videos every day, playing hours while keeping a life outside of that.  

6) The dream job:

Around 23 years old, as I was continuing my pursuit, my Youtube channel started having more subscribers and views than the official Youtube channel of the video game I was playing on (in a few months). I was playing for a year now already. 

At that point my goal was to create YouTube videos full time. I was creating them every day, while improving on the game and searching for new things constantly. My goal was to become Top 1 in the global leaderboard in the game. After playing for almost a year and a half I started to be very close to that. And people started to notice and that I started to appear near the top of the global leaderboard, not being only in the Top 50 anymore. 

And suddenly, the director of the game company producing that game contacted me in private on the official forum of the game. He said that he wanted me to create the official videos for the team. He then invited me to meet the team producing the game in person. Astoundingly I learnt then that their team was a German team being less than 3 hours away by car from where I was living. 

I went to visit them. I signed an unlimited contract to work with them as the content creator to create the official videos for the game. I started working for them from home for a few days but quickly they invited me to come and live in Germany to join the team there. I moved to Germany in Frankfurt, I joined the team developing my favorite game to do what I loved doing.

This was like a dream coming true. I was paid to play my favorite game, improve it, and create videos for it. And I got to even keep my Youtube presence and continue doing videos of the game on the side as I liked. 

And also, I was still playing to climb the leaderboard inside the game. And on the exact day I moved into my own flat in Germany, I also reached the Top 1 of the global leaderboard of the game. 

7) The high life:

Around 24 years old, as I was in Germany working my dream job, being top of the global leaderboard of my favorite game, and having a flat almost on the top of a building with a view on the entire city of Frankfurt, I felt on the top of the world. 

I had reached everything I dreamed for. And it kept on growing: my salary, the Youtube channel, the number of people I was seeing in Germany on the side. I genuinely had the impression of living a dream. 

At the time I had put to the side attempting to join a church of any kind. I would still have considered myself to believe in Jesus, and I even talked about Jesus to people, but really my heart interests were solely focused on the things described above. 

I remember that at the time as I was experiencing so many things in that city, and as my life looked like several movies playing in parallel, that I could not help but say that after experiencing all those things "I can die in peace now". 

8) The strange inner reality:

As my life was looking like a movie, and I had everything that I honestly wanted, after some time I started experiencing something strange. 

After maybe a year and a half, being 25 years old, I was not feeling satisfied anymore inside of myself. It was as if I was drinking water from a well to quench my thirst and it did work for a while but then I needed more. It did not really quench my thirst, it seemed to work only temporarily, and then I was feeling emptier sometimes even afterward. 

I could not comprehend how this was a thing. I had everything I wanted to achieve. And yet I felt a sort of emptiness after reaching it. 

I thus told myself that I maybe needed to dream bigger, and attain bigger goals. And so I did. I attained my dream goal on YouTube in terms of number of subscribers. And yet again, after that the only thing I was thinking was: okay let's go to the next thing. 

This is where I told myself that maybe some restrain is what would help this dilemma. And so I started doing that: restraining my activities. Living a simple life enjoying the present moment and not attempting to achieve anything. But somehow it felt hollow. And still the emptiness grew larger within me. 

And so I went back to indulge in everything I could to satisfy my desires. And yet still I felt empty. I watched tons of videos, instructing to just be happy with what you have and that's it, or that it was okay to feel this way and better days would come, and giving all kinds of other opinions. But again as I was following those pieces of advice it left me somehow still in the same situation. As if drinking but sensing an empty well within me that remained empty. 

This was extremely strange to me. 

9) The call:

I was rarely in contact with my parents, they sometimes saw me on the weekend when I would go to France but I wasn't really interacting much with them, even though I did really appreciate them.  

One day, my father called me. It was very rare that he would call me to speak. I answered the phone. He told me that he wanted to talk to me about something. He asked me why I still wasn’t water baptized after all these years since being a child going to the church. I had no answer. 

He then added that I needed to make a decision to position myself with this. The way he said it was kind, yet straight, but it was fair for him to say that. He was right. I had said to many people over the years that I believed in Jesus and yet I was not even water baptized (which was understood by my father as a command from Jesus for people who believe in Jesus). 

When he said that to me, I somehow had the intuition that it was the right thing to do for me, but I also knew inside of myself that it was incompatible with my lifestyle in Germany. It's like, without anybody telling me, I sensed that I had some clean up to do before I would do such a step. 

This call somehow really worked something within me. 

10) The turning:

In parallel, I was spending time with various people in Germany. 

One of them was a Christian, who revealed to me later that since meeting me that Christian had been praying for me in secret. 

Another person in Germany was someone whom I discovered was having a life centered around selfish indulgence and moral compromise. When I learned about it I felt a strong sense of distaste. But the very moment I sensed this regarding this person, something happened where it was as if a mirror was held up to my face: I was doing the exact same things in my own way.

​This disgusted me. I became suddenly disgusted by myself. I had not realized consciously until that point that I may not be morally clean. I had actually kept my conscience to remain as good as possible. I was telling the truth as much as I possibly could. I was doing my best to be a kind person as much as possible and remain a gentleman. People would appreciate me and say I was a good person. However it seemed like underneath the surface there was something rot. 

I spoke to that person about what I discovered about their lifestyle, the person admitted to it. I also confessed to that person that it was the same for me. We were just two people, being convicted that our lives were morally unclean, plainly confessing to each other our dirty laundry, but without knowing what to do differently about it. It was as if we fully confessed to each other that we were in a mud, but knew of no way to come out of it. 

This is where I decided that a radical change was needed. This was also happening in parallel of my father's call as explained above. I decided that I needed to reform my life completely. Everything that I knew could be wrong I would stop. 

​

I managed to stop for two weeks, but then I fell right back into it. I tried again, stopping for a week or two, and hit a wall: I realized that even though I wanted to practice what was good, I did not have the power within me to achieve it. 

I gave up at that point. I could see that I didn't manage to come out of the mud for a long time and the addictions I had so I just accepted that this would be part of my lifestyle (I was addicted to video games, addicted to getting more money, etc).

11) Seeking the Holy Spirit:

After a month from my father's call, and having tried to reform my lifestyle but not managing to stand outside the mud over and over, I gave up on trying. 

I felt worthless within me, even though I had achieved so much outwardly, inwardly it was as if I had nothing. 

I was still attempting to try new things to quench the thirst and the emptiness I was sensing within me. I had tried almost everything I could think of at that point and nothing worked. I even ended up sensing even emptier each time. 

One Monday, I came back from work in the evening. My plans for the evening got cancelled last minute, so I sat down in my kitchen and planned to work on some videos for the evening instead. 

While eating, and while having an evening empty of my initial plans, I thought about how my inner reality felt empty, and what else I could possibly try for that. And I suddenly was reminded of when I was around 21 years old (which was 4 years prior to this). I was reminded of how I had an encounter after singing about Jesus and how someone told me at the time that this was the Holy Spirit. I was reminded of how good this felt at the time. And I thought that because I had no other solutions anyway, then why not trying that again, this felt good and maybe there was more to this. 

As I was sitting on my seat in my kitchen drinking a shake, I went on Youtube and I searched for the words "Christian Holy Spirit". I did not really know how else to search for that, as I was a Youtuber at the time and most of my life was around Youtube I searched for this there. 

I watched a few videos but I didn't really connect, they didn't really remind me of what I experienced when I was 21 years old and 8 years old when I had an encounter at the time. 

I then found a video of a girl who was probably 12 years old, she was singing a Gospel song in front of a church assembly, the video was called "Holy Spirit touches little girl while singing". I looked at the whole video patiently, as she was singing, and around the end of the song, she started to cry. 

At that moment, I saw myself in her situation, I saw the 8 years old me, and even the 21 years old when I had the same kind of encounter. 

I was so happy for her because I knew within me that it was genuine. I felt compassion, but I thought that experiencing the same thing was probably not for me, and I don't know why but I said: "Thank you Jesus for giving that to her". By these words, I addressed Jesus genuinely, and I meant in my heart that, I was genuinely happy that at least she got to encounter the Holy Spirit, while I personally believed inside of myself that I was way too dirty and far away to be able to experience that, knowing how broken I was.

As I expressed those words out of my mouth, I suddenly felt a peaceful and powerful presence coming upon me. 

12) Receiving the Holy Spirit:

As I felt a peaceful and powerful presence coming upon me, I then felt that presence entering right inside my chest, right in the middle of my chest as if I felt water being poured inside of me. And this presence then filled my entire body. I felt a profound feeling of love, joy and peace all at the same time above anything I had ever encountered. 

The experience was overwhelming, as I was sitting on my chair in my kitchen with my food in front of me when this happened. I was crying out of joy. I felt suddenly full of love, it was filling my entire body. 

I then heard a soft yet powerful voice inside of me, as if audible but from the inside, and coming from the personal presence that entered in me. I knew immediately Who was speaking to me. 

He told me things, sentence after sentence, that I had never had thought about or heard, and also that for some were totally opposed to the worldview I had at the time. 

He then proceeded to talk to me about Himself, saying: "I am personal, I am close. If you open your heart completely, I will come closer", all while I was feeling waves of love, peace and joy within my entire body from His presence. 

I then received the following instructions within me: "Share this with the world. You want the most people to know this, have hope and a future."

I then took my phone, and thought to immediately text someone who was close to me at the time about what just happened to me. I did not really understand what just happened to me but I knew that it was a marking moment in my life, that is all I knew at that point. That person had no idea what was happening to me, and was attempting to catch up to what I was sharing but had no idea or frame or reference for what I was sharing, but said that if this is important, I better write down what happened and what I heard. And so I did that. 

As I continued writing to this person to share about what happened to me suddenly I felt the presence within me being strong again, and I was filled with waves of love, peace and joy at the same time, being overwhelming, and as this was happening I heard His soft yet powerful voice again, saying "He does not abandon you", "You will always have someone on whom you can rely", "Come to me", "Love". 

I sensed then inside of me as if the way I was thinking was being transformed. As if my thought patterns were being renewed to come to entire new ways of thinking, not from my own but being done entirely by the presence within me. I wanted to text back the person but as I wanted to say something the presence within me would give me to write something else, and so I shared to the person about Jesus Christ and that He is alive and that the Holy Spirit is real and God is real and alive. The person was very confused as this was not the kind of things I would say or even the way I would speak. That person knew me well and knew that I was someone very reasonable and so that person was reading while asking questions about all of this. And I kept on receiving thoughts from the presence within me to share with that person, but the person would answer in a way as if they were missing the reality of these inner things. 

As I was speaking to that person, I put into words for the first time everything the Holy Spirit would be here for me. I wrote those things down. The person was really confused at that point as they were not understanding seemingly those things. I decided to take a little break from texting in order to take a bath. 

I usually would never take baths, only showers as they were quicker. But for some reason I sensed that I needed to take a bath. Before I did so, I felt a conviction to gently establish healthy boundaries and step away from relationships that were actively pulling me down. After doing so I took a bath, went under the water, and went up again. I stayed a bit and then I went out of it and sat down on my bed. 

As I sat there I was suddenly filled with love, peace and joy at the same time, for the 3rd time now, and I heard His voice telling me that this was the real joy, this was the real happiness, this was everything I was looking for. For the first time my emptiness was gone, my deep empty well inside of me had been filled with water that was fully satisfying me without leaving me thirsty afterward. As if the water rested within me, as if the water stayed within me. 

I then suddenly had an inner vision, as if a picture that imposed itself within me that I could see, and I was seeing chains of a slave in my wrists and feet being broken. As this happened I felt a freedom like I never ever felt could even be possible. And if you had asked me up until that point I did not even know that I would have needed freedom from anything. 

I sensed immediately that I was freed from all the addictions that were binding me, in an instant, and more than that. And this remains true even up to today, I have been set free that very evening of all the addictions I had previously given up trying to fight because I had been a slave to them and could not overcome them, and not only that. I sensed within me that the Holy Spirit was the key to that. The Holy Spirit had the power I needed to be set free and remain free. When this happened I said within myself: "thank you for have delivered me", "I was imprisoned in my chains", "You are the greatest". I then suddenly had within me that I was dead before (but now I was alive). 

Just after that I realized that when the person I had texted told me to write down those things, that it would be useful to share my testimony for my future water baptism, as my father had called me to do. And I had a sense that it would also be useful for greater works than this. 

13) Led by the Holy Spirit:

I went to bed, feeling completely transformed as a person, as if I was newly born into the world. 

I went to work the next day and I noticed immediately that the Holy Spirit I encountered the day before was still within me, I could feel His presence, and He was guiding and leading me to do good things. 

When I was thinking of bad things, He corrected me and showed me how to think instead. He led me to text people things that I could not have possibly known but only God would know. He led me to have more love and compassion for people, to be generous toward them without seeking anything in return, to have pure thoughts directed toward the good and the helpful. I was having an on-going inner experience the entire day where the Holy Spirit within me would interact with me and lead me and teach me. 

The first thing the Holy Spirit did when I came back home after work was to tell me to get a Bible. I did not have a Bible until now. I had the idea to check on internet if I could find one online. I did find an application to read the Bible for free. I downloaded it and opened it. 

I had no clue what to read so I leaned on the Holy Spirit and I was led to read Ephesians 1:13. I did not know that there was a letter called Ephesians. I did not even know there was such a thing as the Old Testament and New Testament. Even though I went to a local church for many years when I was younger I was ignorant of practically everything. 

I used an easy to understand Bible version because I had difficulties understanding the more literal ones, and that passage read:

Ephesians 1:13: "It is the same with you. You heard the true message, the Good News about the way God saves you. When you heard that Good News, you believed in Christ. And in Christ, God put his special mark on you by giving you the Holy Spirit that he promised."

Exactly as I read that, I had a witness within me that this was exactly what happened the day before. I had been given the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was now in me and was remaining in me, like I noticed during the afternoon. A more literal translation of that passage says that "you were sealed with the Holy Spirit". It was exactly that, I was sealed with the Holy Spirit, Who was now in me to help me and lead me. 

I started to read more of the Bible, and discovered the words of Jesus for the first time. As I was reading them I could feel within my chest the Holy Spirit witnessing strongly about them. His words felt like they were alive. They felt like they were describing reality at it is. 

When this happened I was mad that I had not read the Bible before. I had been 25 years on the earth and did not think to even look at what Jesus said in the Bible. I really felt like I had wasted so much time before that. 

Even more than that, I discovered that everything I had experienced with the Holy Spirit and everything He told me was found in the Bible: living according to my own mind and desires, focusing on vanity, a call to repentance, being convicted of sin, not being able to practice the good I want but doing the evil I did not want and being a slave of sin, being poor in spirit, recognizing I was a sinner, seeking for the Holy Spirit, receiving the Holy Spirit, being filled with the Holy Spirit, being born of the Spirit, having the Spirit dwell in me, being a new creation, being made alive, being set free from the slavery of sin, having the mind renewed, being transformed by the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, these are all experiences I had experienced myself but did not have the vocabulary to properly describe them. The Bible was providing me with the proper vocabulary for these spiritual realities that one can experience. And the Bible was witnessing that many others had experienced that with God. 

I kept on experiencing things with the Holy Spirit, and Him then showing me in the Bible where those things would be found, teaching me. Like Jesus said in John 14:26: "the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, that One will teach you all things, and remind you of everything which I said to you." 

What was powerful was that the Holy Spirit was from the time I received Him transforming me from the inside, His presence was influencing me from the inside, nudging me in different ways that I should go, telling me things that I should know, etc. This was the key that I had been missing concerning Christianity all those years: the Holy Spirit of God. He made close what was distant. He made real what wasn't in my life. He opened my eyes to the spiritual realm. He opened my eyes to this world. He opened my eyes to what mattered. And is still in me. And is still doing it since then. 

I also learnt later that minutes before I received the Holy Spirit my father in France had been led to pray for me (I later confirmed with him, through verifiable data he also kept on his phone, that the exact time he was praying for me perfectly matched the timing when I then received the Holy Spirit). 

Of course I also got baptized in water and got to share all of this with people who knew me from my childhood, and even beyond. 

And now, after waiting patiently for several years for the right timing for it, I am finally able to fulfill the following words that the Holy Spirit instructed me to do on that precious evening when I received Him: "Share this with the world. You want the most people to know this, have hope and a future."

So here it is. Here is my testimony on how I came to Christ. And even more: how Christ came to me. 

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