Testimony: Making God The Centerpoint Of Our Lives

Andrew blake Oakes's testimony "Making God The Centerpoint Of Our Lives" on 6/25/2013, 1:55pm...

MY TESTIMONY

Childhood: Playing one against the other
My name is Andrew Blake Oakes, I was born on august 7th 1992. By the time I was 2 my mom and dad had split up due to having me at such a young age. Fortunately, I was loved and cared for unconditionally by both sides of my family. I had an amazing child hood. When I was around 8 or 9 I figured out how I could get what I wanted, I could play my mom and dad against each other. I started bouncing back and forth from elementary school all the way through high school, playing my mother and father against each other just to get what I wanted. If I didn’t get what I wanted here, I would go to the others house and make it sound way worse than my situation actually was. So my parents began to blame each other, when I was the actual problem. I went to church here and there as a kid, but I don’t know if I could say I was a follower of Christ. More or less I thought God was real and if I believed that I wouldn’t go to Hell.

Move to Cleveland: Payton and “acting” for God
When I went to high school I moved to Cleveland Tennessee to wrestle for Cleveland high school. They had a great program, so me and my dad moved to Cleveland and got an apartment. I met a girl named Payton at that time and she was absolutely amazing. Godly, lived right, an amazing Athlete. Just the whole package. She lived for God. And I could tell. She got me going to church. Believing in God. But the whole time I wasn’t really getting to know God for myself, I knew if I got to know God she would like me more. So I read about God, but never focused him as my center point of my life. We dated for a little while and eventually she broke up with me, it completely broke me down. I blamed God for it. Why would he take something from me that made me read the bible and go to church and act like I was living the right way? I think the key word there is act, I acted like I knew God when all I really wanted was Payton.



My way and with no God: Girls, Drugs, Partying, Popularity
At that time I stopped reading and going to church of course. And went back to trying to control everything in my life. My centerpoint from then on was girls, drugs, partying, popularity, the list can go on and on! I would do anything to make sure I got these things. Through out my life God has given me countless signs that in my opinion he focused on Reaching his hand out saying he was the one I wanted. But I had it all figured out, and made excuses every time something happened to me as to why they would happen. Until about two and a half months ago I focused on girls, drugs, and partying. Before my eyes each one of these center points of my life were taken from me one by one.

Tullahoma: The new love: Zoe. The other new love: MONEY
My senior year of high school I moved back to Tullahoma, and met another girl named Zoe. This girl was also an amazing woman. Cared for people, great athlete, and we fell in love. She was not a follower in Christ but a very strong good woman and I pray one day she will accept Christ in her life as I have. I met something else my senior year, and that was making money. Having money made me smile more than anything other than Zoe at this time. As time p***ed, Zoe realized that I wasn’t going very far and all I wanted to do is sell drugs the rest of my life. I had no plan. So eventually, she broke up with me.

The Break Up. The Heart Ache. Filling the Hole: More Money
This was twice as hard as the first girl I had a real relationship with because I couldn’t blame God this time, I couldn’t blame anyone but myself. I was the reason we broke up. So now I had this huge hole in my heart. The biggest centerpoint in my life was just taken from me. So what in the world do I do to feel that hole? Sell more drugs to make more money and pick up partying even more than I already was. This lasted about 4 or 5 months after Zoe and I broke up and God gave me another sign that I chose to let my ignorance and proudness cover up.


The Break In: Everything Stolen at Grandmother’s House.
On march 5th of this year ironically enough, while I was out partying in Nashville. Someone broke into my Grandmother’s house and stole every dime I had and then some. I got back to my Grandmother’s house at about 3 in the morning and my grandmother slept through the whole entire thing. Didn’t wake up once. Now that I look back on it, that was a sign from God. She could have easily had a heart attack if she was up during the time this took place.

Lost. Have Nothing. What Now? More of the same & then some
So now, I have no money, no girl to focus on, and no parents that I can play against each other to get what I want. What on earth do I do now to feel this huge whole in my life? I decided to party more and go to more music festivals to sell more drugs to make more money to help me feel this huge hole in my heart that I had. Sounds CRAZY! It’s unbelievable how my mind works. I thought that was a good idea somehow. So now this lasted for about a month and half at the most.

The Arrest: The End and The Beginning…
On April 17th of this year my whole entire life would change forever and I will never forget it. I walked into my hallway to go to the kitchen to grab a gl*** of milk and who did I see storming through my house? About 20 cops. They served me with a search warrant and that was all she wrote. I won’t say what all they caught me with but let’s just sum it up with plenty of DRUGS. Enough of the right drug to make my bond 150,000 dollars. So in order for me just to get out of jail, it would cost me roughly 15,000 dollars. That was unfathomable for me. I was going to jail and there was not one thing any of my family could do about it.

New Life Lodge: The Beginning of Change
While I was in jail I sat there, trying to figure out what on earth did I do wrong. What could I have done better? I could not come up with an answer. I picked the bible up once maybe the first two weeks trying to make some sense out of it being away from it for so long but I was quick to close it. I was blessed by the Lord when I got accepted to New Life Lodge Rehabilitation center in Burns, Tennessee. I left jail on a Furlow to go to this rehab center for 28 days. The rehab came and picked me up from jail and took me into their custody for the 28 days. When I got to this rehab center on May 5th, a Sunday, they asked me if I wanted to do the Faith based program, or the traditional program. Without even thinking twice I said faith based.

Meeting Randall at New Life Lodge
That might have been the biggest decision I made in my life at that time because little did I know it was going to change my life forever. There was a faith based technician at this rehab, his name was Randall. And when I met him for the first time I knew something was different about him. He just glowed to me. He walked and people followed. He talked and people listened. When he introduced himself to me, he said “Hey, the name’s Randall. I’m an Alcoholic.” WOW, this dude that everyone wanted to get to know and you could just tell that he was walking with God was a recovering alcoholic. I wasn’t sure what this recovering Alcoholic had that I so desperately wanted but I was going to find out.

Third Section God
It didn’t take him long to figure out I was searching for something desperately, so one day we are sitting in a group session at the rehab and he told all of us to take a sheet of paper out. And to draw two lines down it making three columns in the paper. He told us in the first column, write down what you thought God was as a child. Me personally, as a child, I thought God was this guy that kinda sat on top of the clouds and held this lightning bolt in his hand, waiting for you to mess up so he could smite you or something of that nature! In the second column he told us to write down what we thought God was now. I had no Earthly clue what I thought God was. Or if I even believed there was a God. So all I put in my middle column was a question mark. In the third column, he told us if we could make our God, what would we want him to be. What characteristics would our God have? Me personally, I wanted first of all: A loving God, then I wanted a forgiving, caring and a God that was always there for me. He told us to start praying every single day to this “third column God.” So I went to bed that night and started praying not to Jesus or to any God based on any religion. But this “third section God” that was loving, forgiving, caring, and always there for me.

Good Morning and Fired Up: An Answer to a Simple Prayer
I would say it was my 5th night of prayer to this third section God, and I remember exactly what I prayed. I said, “loving, forgiving, caring, and always there for me God, help me wake up tomorrow morning in a fired up mood and learn something tomorrow”. The wake up time at the rehab was 5:30 and I was not a happy camper the mornings previous to this prayer. Well, the next morning after that prayer, I woke up at 5:00 and when I opened my eyes, I could not even think about shutting them! I had more energy then I have ever felt before. I literally shot straight out of bed and screamed at the top of my lungs, “LETS GET FIRED UP THIS MORNING BOYS”! Woke up every single person in my cabin 15 minutes before we had to. This kinda made a few people angry but I honestly couldn’t help it, Irritated would probably be a better word. Ironically enough, the third day of me waking up fired up in the mornings, everyone in my cabin were having competitions as to who could wake up and get everyone else fired up first! Not only did God answer my simple prayer, he used me to help everyone else wake up in a fired up mood and start the day with smiles on their faces. Isn’t that just amazing!

God is Love: “Third Section God” is the Real God!
Well, all I knew was this third section God I prayed to worked. And I wanted more. So I ran back to Randall so interested and wanting more information he could give me about this God. He asked me what my third section God characteristics were so I told him my God was first of all Loving, then forgiving, caring, and always there for me. He opened his bible and asked me, “you said your God is love right”? I replied with a big head nod and he turned to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Paul is pretty much talking about love! It defines what love is. Love is patient, it’s not conceited, not boastful, not selfish, and so on. Randall then told me that if my God was love. Replace love with my God in this chapter. So now my God was not only loving, caring, forgiving, and always there! He was also not boastful, not selfish, not conceited, he didn’t act improperly, he didn’t weep a record of wrongs, and so forth! This absolutely blew my mind. I dove into the bible head first! As well as Christian books, really anything that I could get more of this God I really have never known for myself. Every single one of my characteristics of my third section God I made up was in the bible. This god was loving, caring, forgiving, and always there for me!

Heaven is For Real: The Break Down. The Holy Spirit.
The Re-Birth.
I was reading a book that is called Heaven is For Real, and it’s about this 3 and a half year old kid who has a supernatural experience during an appendectomy surgery and he goes to heaven. If you have not read this book I would suggest it to anyone! This book broke me completely down. I remember reading the very last page, my knees trembling, my whole face in tears and at that very moment. I dropped to my knees and I didn’t ask God, I begged him to be my savior, I begged him to take over my life I was done living for me. And at that very moment. I literally felt the Holy Spirit enter my body and put a smile on my face that I couldn’t wipe away. My jaws literally cramped afterwards. I have never cried and smiled at the same time so hard. It was unbelievable! I was finally done living for me. I gave myself to the Lord. And from then on I was a servant of Jesus Christ. The more I read and prayed the more I felt this indescribable presence of the Holy Spirit.

Leaving New Life Lodge. Back to Jail. New bunkie. God is there
From then on I focused only on one thing as the center point of my life, Jesus Christ! In psalm 8 David says, what is mankind what you are mindful of them, that you care for them! I’m a corrupted partying, sinful, friend of this earth. And you care about me? This hit me home. I wanted to do everything I had to to make this relationship with Jesus even stronger. As time had p***ed at rehab I was a new man by the end of it. On the 28th day of rehab I went to church in the morning then they took me back to jail on the 2nd of June. I was super nervous about going back to jail because it’s not a very godly place and I was young in my faith and didn’t want to take any steps backwards. But I did know one thing, God was with me. When I was put back into my pod at Coffee county jail, there was only one bed open, and surely enough, my bunkie was a mini-nite. Similar beliefs to the Amish. I didn’t really know what that meant, and still don’t really but all I know is he constantly read the bible and did not ***ociate with anyone else in the pod.

Night Bible Study
This was just huge for me, I prayed the next few nights for God to give me the strength to talk to this guy because he was pretty intimidating. He literally didn’t talk to one person all he did was read his bible and pray. Well one day I was talking to people about rehab and how God has changed my life drastically, he popped out of his bed and asked me if I would like to have a bible study that night. I almost couldn’t even say yes I was so shocked. Eventually after an awkward silence from my part I said please that would be awesome! From then on we studied at night and prayed and he shown me so much in the bible. This guy was so godly and knew so much I couldn’t believe this guy was in jail! He got out a night before I did and I wont go into what his chargers were just know that he was a good man for coming and serving his time. He didn’t have to. His charges were from years ago when he was a young kid and he wanted to come back to Tennessee to make it right.

Out of Jail. God is in Control. God is Our Strength.
God is Always There.
I got out of jail Wednesday, June 19th and by the grace of God I’m a new man. I now know what my center point of my life is suppose to be. And the best thing about it is. It can’t be taken from me! No one can take my God from me. He is a friend of mine forever now. No girl, no drug, not any amount of money can replace my God. It took a whole lot for me to realize that I’m not in control of my life. It took more than it should. But as human beings I believe we focus so much on these earthly things and why they happen that we miss signs from God constantly. Sometimes we need to stop and listen. God will never lead you wrong or into something you can’t handle. And if you believe you can’t handle it, know that God is with you. He will make sure you can. If God is for me and you, then who on this earth can stand against us? GOD BLESS!

 

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