My story

A man who learned how to worship God.

I was born in Hurbanovo and I grew up in this city until the age of four. Then we moved to Galanta. Since I was a child I used to go to the Church community and my parents educated me according to faith principles. After we moved, my parents stopped going to Church gatherings. My grandmother brought me to church every Sunday. Actually I did not want to go there, but there was no way to negotiate with her. Every Saturday night she reminded me that we had to go to church on the next day. I often “prayed” for snow or some other natural disaster that would hinder our way to church, so that I could stay at home.

I didn’t like to go to church. Actually, I detested it, but I was forced to go there with my grandmother until the age of 14.

Then something happened. They needed a piano player in the church choir. I was a student of the local Music and Art school and they proposed me to come and try. I liked this idea. When I used to go with my grandma to church, I noticed that the piano and organ players were continuously changing; and I was sure I could play better than them. When they invited me to join them and play, I thought I would go there, show my ability, and then proudly quit them – because I didn’t really like that place. I went there with my cousin. We both wanted to make fun of them and then go away. When I went there and we started to play, I realised they were all young people and they were “not so bad”. We gradually became friends. I started to have regular rehearsing with them and became a member of their choir. I didn’t know too many songs. I was able to read and play with music books but I wasn’t too good in improvisation – which is often the case when praising. Back then I was not yet re-born, but I started to be gradually involved in worship.

One afternoon I came home from rehearsal and I started to play piano at home. You are the Lord, You heal us... and then, the lyrics in the second strophe state that God’s Word will change us. I was sitting before my piano and playing. I was just trying the chords. Suddenly, when I sang the words – Your Word will change my person as well – I started to cry. I didn’t understand what was going on and I got scared. I didn’t know why I was crying and what happened to me. I wrote to a girl and asked her what it could be. She replied it was God’s touch and I had to pray. I walked around my house praising God. I prayed and confessed before God that I am a sinner. I confessed all my sins, but I still didn’t understand. I felt relief and forgiveness from God. I first felt God’s touch in my life and I was like reborn. I was 15 years old.

Twelve years have passed since that moment. Today, worship is something so deep for my soul. I experienced close encounter with the living God. I was born again. I don’t really believe that worship is simply singings songs.

Worship and worship songs are more than that. It is an attitude of our heart. We don’t just sing melody and lyrics, but we have it in our hearts. I put my heart in worship. I do not just sing with my mouth, but also with my soul. When I worship the Lord, I can confess and declare the divine truths. When I sing with my heart I know that it has a huge power.

Since then I understood that praising is a decision – our decision to join it and rejoice. It is our lifestyle, not just 45 minutes in church on Sundays and good music. On Sunday we have a chance to worship God with our brothers and sisters. We always come to God in faith and loyalty, regardless of the fact if we are successful or not. We are always conscious of His goodness and we worship Him. Sometimes it is easy for us to join worship. Sometimes we have hard time and we have to fight quite a lot to start praising with our heart.  When I prayed, I asked the Lord: why is it like that? Why we sometimes enter His presence during worship in such an easy way, and why in other occasions we are not able to achieve this. The Lord answered through this verse: – For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them. I meditated about this verse – to what extent is it relating to worship... and I received this explanation:  when we join the worshipping community and we have the desire of worshipping the Lord, then God is among us and we can easily join worship. He promised it and His word is the truth.

If we go to church and think that those people are not nice, that we could do things better, that these things do not suit us, and so on and so forth, then we choose the wrong attitude – we are not gathered in His name, but we are there just on our behalf.

And I realised that this is the reason why we sometimes have hard time to join worship in our church. He is present when people are gathered in His name.

When we start praising with our expectations in our mind, criticism, judgment, unhappiness, then it is not easy for us to worship God, because we are there on our own behalf. These situations are quite common.

I would like to write about another story where worship plays a very important role and the Lord was glorified.

We used to meet once a week at 6 o’clock in the morning and pray for our community and for people. One morning a friend of mine prayed over me and then told me to be very careful on my way to work. He prayed God to protect me. It was quite bizarre. He never prayed for me like that. On that day, there was a deviation on my usual route to work. So I decided to follow an alternative road. When I was about to reach the curve, I lost control and hit another car driving in the opposite side. My car made an unexpected U-turn, while the other vehicle overturned several times onto its roof and ended up in the open field. All my airbags blasted. I saw smoke around me and I cried: Lord Jesus! I don’t remember anything else. I had just my lip broken, but no other injuries. I got out of my car through the passenger door. I saw the overturned car in the field and a man walking around it. I thought – thanks God nothing happened – and I walked towards his car. I noticed there was a woman lying behind the car. She was conscious but she did not move. Her husband told me to call an ambulance. I ran back to my car, took my mobile phone, and called an ambulance. It looked like eternity – actually it was 24 minutes. The man was standing in front of me and waiting for the arrival of the ambulance – he was continuously repeating that he will kill me and that I am a dead man. I understood he was under shock and feared for the destiny of his wife. I was not surprised and I couldn’t really reproach him anything. I noticed his wife was pregnant and he said she was in her 6^th month of gravidity. She kept telling me that she didn’t feel her legs and she cannot move them. It was a terrible situation. I strongly sensed I had to be close to her, pray for her, and declare the life of the child in her womb and recovery of function of her lower limbs. I did not ask that man anything. Before the ambulance arrived, I knelt before the woman and put my hands on her belly. I prayed and I declared the victory of life, Then police came. They wrote down their accident protocol. The ambulance brought the woman to hospital and her husband went with her. Eventually, I got home as well. I met my parents. I told them about the accident and they were happy I was alive. Then, I just needed to be alone.

I locked myself in my room and I was overwhelmed by fear. I had two kinds of fear – i) for the woman and the baby at risk; ii) my internal fear of myself. I was afraid that I would not be able to forgive myself...

I was sitting on my bed. I was nervous and overwhelmed by the whole situation. And I fell asleep. I woke up a couple of hours later and I was more and more scared. Sleeping was a sort of relief for me, so I lied down and fell asleep. I slept almost 20 hours. Then, I realised I could no longer sleep and I had to do something. I had to start dealing with my psychological matters. I always had problems with forgiving myself; but I could kneel before God and ask Him for help. I didn’t feel like I wanted to do that. But I have learnt that if I sometimes begin with my body, then I end with my spirit. I did one simple thing – I knelt (even though I didn’t feel like I wanted to kneel) and I played a worship song named “Overcome”. I ended up with my face on the ground... I cried and invoked God. I don’t how long I lay there, but I remember I saw this image:

I saw that woman holding a baby boy in her hands. I was standing before the gate of a house and I was holding in my hands a cake made of nappies. It was an image. In the moment when I got up from the ground, I heard the coda of the song (lyrics: We will triumph in it with the blood of the Lamb and the Word of witness that we have. As soon as the song began to play, I started to jump for joy and I was overwhelmed by it.

I thought I got completely mad. It was something I was not able to understand through my intellect, but I jumped for joy and I felt a great relief and peace. Exactly as it is written: And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Since that moment, this Word became a reality in my life. From that precise moment I felt an intense sensation of calm and I had no doubts at at all that that woman would be back in good health conditions. On the next day, one of my colleagues brought me to work at 5 am. I didn’t have a valid driving licence anymore… He was surprised when he noticed I was happy and smiling. I had absolute certainty in my heart: that woman shall be OK; but according to her actual conditions, it looked like the reverse was true. And I really had no doubts about it.

The wounded woman was transported to the city of Galanta, and then to a bigger hospital in the city of Nové Zámky, where she underwent a surgical operation. When she woke up after operation she didn’t feel her legs. No changes at all. That’s what they told me the next day. A few days later she also had an embolic complication and her conditions were quite serious. They brought her to Bratislava by helicopter. The situation looked hopeless. My parents were strongly concerned. Paradoxically, I was a lot calmer than them and I was reassuring them that everything will be ok... I always had in my mind that picture and I felt the immense peace God gave me that night. I knew that, I know, I know… that that woman shall be all right, although we were receiving no good news at all.

After two months the first good news arrived. That woman moved her toes. The baby was still in her womb and in perfect conditions – with no harms during the whole pregnancy period. Later on, I apprehended she started to move her feet and then also her legs up to her knees. That woman was really a fighter. Today, when I think about it, I see that during the first two months there was no change at all in the health condition of that woman (she did not move). It is hard to imagine that I kept calm and control. Only God can do such wonders. In the meanwhile, I contacted that woman via FB and we started our written correspondence. She kept me informed about her news.

Later on, we also met. She said she remembered I did something close to her soon after the accident. She remembered I put my hand on her belly and she felt calm... Of course she had something to reproach, but we had a long talk and I asked her to forgive me. She did. Indeed, I had long prayed for this before – I asked God to give her the strength and courage to forgive me.

Several weeks later, she gave birth to a healthy and cute baby – a boy. Unfortunately, she was still unable to walk. She underwent a second surgical operation and then started to walk. According to doctors it was a miracle. Indeed, she had her first vertebra broken in the lower part of the backbone. They also made a TV report because her case was unrealistic from the point of view of doctors; and the physicians said in front of the cameras it was a real miracle. Then I brought her even that nappy cake I saw in my picture. I saw she was keeping the hand of a boy. I didn’t tell anybody about it. I am always quite prudent when thinking of prophesising the gender of a newborn baby. I usually don’t do that. I did not tell them about anything, although I saw everything very clearly in my vision. And when their baby was born, I asked them if it was a boy or a girl – and they said it was a boy.

God works for the good of those who believe in Him. It may sound weird. How can this event look good? But I realised how deep and truthful is God’s promise for us. Words coming out from God’s mouth are really truthful. God’s Word is living, mighty, and effective. It is true today and it was true in the past in the same way. And I also realised how it is wonderful when we receive God’s word in our real life situations – and we can ask Him for His word. It is written that His “word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path” – the Word that incarnated in me; I felt heavenly calm and I had received a picture that was exactly the reverse of reality. But it was a picture from God. It was like a picture on the wall. I looked at it everyday and I knew where I was going.

I didn’t have it yet. I didn’t see it yet. But I believed that it shall be fulfilled and that it shall become reality, because it is the promise of God Who never lies and is always faithful. When He sends His word, it is never in vain. He always accomplishes the action with regard to which He had sent His word.

I learned something very important for my life. Regardless of the type of matters I am dealing with, I must always have faith in God and courage to ask Him for His Word and His point of view: His solution. His point of view is often different than our point of view. But God works, He acts… Maybe we could wish all those things would happen more rapidly. But during that period God taught me what faith and patience mean. It was not so hard for me, because He gave me all means to resist (promise, picture, calm).