The year was 2006, I was in my first year of college and just a few months into salvation. My friend, Mark Masai, was visiting me at the “Prefabs” hostels. On this particular day, he needed a data cable to transfer some photos from his phone into my computer. I had lent mine to another friend. I picked up my phone, dialed that friend’s number and put the phone to my ear. After several rings, the phone went to voice-mail.
“F*%#!” I blurted out.
I redialed the number, “please leave your message after the beep.”
“S#%@ man,” I said as I scratched my head, “what are we going to do now?”
But Mark didn’t offer any suggestion, and he didn’t seem to share in my frustration.
He simply gave me a long, hard, look and shook his head.
“What?” I asked him, confused.
“OKOKA KIJANA!!” (Get saved, young man!) He told me with a strange firmness in his voice and a steely look in his eyes.
Believe it or not, that was the last day I ever cursed or even felt the urge to let out another expletive.
To understand the significance of this moment, you have to know me in the months and years preceding this moment. Until that particular day, I never had a problem with cursing — I would do it any time, anywhere.
My sentences were punctuated with curse words and my lips would spit out four letter unprintables with the ease of a drunken sailor. Yes, I had accepted Christ just a few months earlier, but some habits were simply too ingrained to drop, and cursing was one of them. I cursed unconsciously. It was like sneezing, never premeditated.
I recall this day I was in church, standing at the third pew from the pulpit during “praise and worship” when this beautiful lady stepped onto the stage to lead the session.
“S#%@!” I said reflexively, albeit inaudibly.
Then when I realized I had just cursed in church I went “F*%#!”
It was that bad.
But on this day, I don’t know what went through Mark’s mind, and why he said those words. But something happened that day. In the blink of an eye, I lost a habit that had become part of my being. It was a miracle.
Yet, even as I say that word, miracle, I am a bit reluctant. The thoughts going through my head are “I am supposed to be a cessasionist”, “I should not believe in miracles”, “there must be some other explanation to what happened”. For the longest time, I tried to convince myself otherwise. But it was futile. No psychological or sociological theory could explain away what happened. Not under those circumstances. People don’t just drop habits like cursing in a heartbeat.
But God does, and I believe what happened that day was His doing.
The truth is that I still don’t believe IN miracles, because I believe in God.
And He delivered me from a bad habit without having to go through the long path of “process”. God simply chose to do it with the snap of His finger.
Yes, I don’t believe IN miracles, but I do believe miracles.
And I thank God for making me privy to such a powerful one.
Cornell
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The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them.” – G.K. Chesterton
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