And I began planting these seeds in people’s front gardens. I thought it would be really funny to see hundreds of marijuana plants start growing all over town. As took these walks I began to notice that there seemed to be a lot of police cars around the streets at that time of night. I noticed that I was the only person walking around at midnight, and I started to feel very conspicuous. The bag of seeds in my pocket began to make me nervous as the police cars seemed to slow down near me.  I decided that this wasn’t such a good idea after all. After I stopped though, I missed it, because it seemed like such a good joke, to plant all these seeds. I resolved to do it again, only this time… with sunflowers.

I went to the pet shop, and bought two large bags of sunflower seeds. I calculated that I must have had about twenty thousand seeds. Every night for the next few weeks I went out with pockets full of these seeds. I sprinkled them around the roadsides, planted them in people’s front gardens, dispersed them around parks, on roundabouts, everywhere that I could think of. In one public playground where I scattered some seeds I noticed that the fence of the park bordered the house of some friends of our family. They were the only people in the whole town that I knew were born again Christians. I thought I would scatter some seeds in their back garden, over the fence of the playground. For some reason though, I took only one seed, and flicked it over the fence.

Some six weeks later I imagined by now that they must be gloriously shooting up all over the town, so took some daytime walks retracing my steps, to look for them. I went everywhere, and was mightily disappointed to find that not one had grown! Not one. The whole lot had been infertile. What a waste of time!

Some three months later we were invited around to these friends’ house (the Christians) for a barbeque. We didn’t see them very often, because we couldn’t relate to the fact that they really believed in Jesus Christ.  When I went in to their back yard I was startled to see one enormous sunflower. It must have been seven feet tall, and the flower itself was well over a foot wide! As I stood staring up at it in shock Barry said to me. “It just grew by itself. When it first started to grow, we thought it was a marijuana plant.”

I was stunned. The initial reference to a marijuana plant got my attention ‘cause that was what it was originally going to be). Then I thought to myself “Out of twenty thousand seeds this is the only one that grew! It didn’t just survive, it’s massive! And these are the only people who are Christians… But that can’t mean what is seems to mean. It just can’t.” At that moment, I suppose there was a faint breeze. The large head of the sunflower began to nod at me. I was thinking “No. It can’t be. It can’t…” It just kept nodding.

For a few days that really got to me. The odds against those things stacking up like that were huge. It must mean something mustn’t it? If it did, I would have to start searching, trying to find out what I could about this God of the Christians. But I didn’t want to. I asked my Mum “Don’t you think that’s incredible that the house with the only seed to grow out of those twenty thousand dead seeds was the house of the Christians?” She said “No.”

“Phew!” I thought. That was a relief. So I forgot about it. When God speaks gently and we turn away, we will lose what he gave us. My life went much further away from God.

Some ten years later, straight after the events on the home page happened, it came back to me.

Once, when I was in art college we were discussing a student’s painting.

The teacher was suggesting a certain modification to it, when the student whose painting it was protested that this particular thing was not really there in the real thing from which the painting was drawn.

“Oh!” exclaimed the teacher. “You should never let the truth get in the way of a good picture!”

You’ll hear that often in discussions regarding any of the various arts. To insist upon trying to make a picture as real and literal as a photograph taken on a given occasion can actually get in the way of your attempt to tell the truth about the kind of place it is, or the kind of emotional scene it depicts, or the particular pathos of a certain event and so on. You’re trying to tell about essence of the thing, the kind of thing that always tends to happen, the thing that people with different backgrounds and experience can nevertheless relate to because it is the kind of thing that always tends to happen. The piece of wastepaper that blows momentarily across the scene, the fly that hovers around a meal for a second, the patch of grass deformed by a recently moved cricket bat or whatever may be actually true, but tend to distract from rather than enhance the essential truth that you are trying to convey about the subject at hand.

This dictum is however, a double edged sword. To carry it to a literal conclusion is to substitute art for propaganda, mere advertising or kitsch. So it seems to me at any rate. I have always had a creeping horror of the sort of person who cares nothing for truth itself. The scientist who would fake the results of his experiments so as to either enhance his reputation or preserve his worldview. The journalist who hides some facts while exposes others in order to manipulate the audience. The lawyer who for money will help his criminal client escape justice because of some trivial technical loophole. The person who believes that their worldview or religion is true and right merely because they were born into it and their family and culture tells them it is.

Strange, since I have just listed a number of types of people that I think we can agree are not all that rare, strange then that I should have tended to think as if most other people share my treasuring of truth gained even at the expense of comfort. For many years I behaved as if most of the people who heard me tell of the experiences related on this website would thank me for sharing with them something of value. That they would be very glad of knowing something about what is really going on in the universe. That they would be pleased to have something to hang on to, or at least a place to start looking, or at the very least a signpost to take notice of in their own journey towards truth.

Well, you may laugh at my naivety. Some do perhaps value truth for its own sake, but I now consider these to be very much the minority of people. Many people have no intention of finding truth, and would rather have comfort any day. In the long run, I think this website will tend to separate the one kind from the other. For the few who remain, I intend to show how the somewhat confusing although surprising things that have happened to me will connect logically with certain pathways that go on to prove to any honest soul that Jesus Christ is who he always said he was, and that he is active in the world today, and that he will bring everything to the conclusion that he promised.

The Bible says “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” To put it another way, if anything on these pages, or anywhere else in your life is causing you to feel a little glimmer of belief then don’t squash it, but nurture it.

To the person who will put their trust in Jesus he will reveal himself. Then that person too will see that only in the Truth is there any real comfort. Can it ever happen to you? Well ask yourself: Do you love the truth, wherever it will lead you?

The way it started was this…

One night some years ago I was overcome with a desire to do something for God. So I said to Him “Lord I want to do something for you. Is there anything I can do for you?”  To my surprise I felt that he said to me “Go and sit in the car and pray.” I thought this was a bit strange, but went outside into the street where the car was parked. This was on a stretch of road that was one way traffic, but was a busy three lane street in the inner west of Sydney.

So I got into the car and prayed. I prayed for some of the people I could think of. I prayed for our neighbours. I heard a few raised voices come from the house that was next door to us. This was not all that unusual, so it didn’t bother me much. This made me all the more surprised then, when  I distinctly thought that God prompted me to pray “against a spirit of murder.” This had never happened before, but I did so. Not long after I prayed against murder, three guys came noisily bursting out of the front gate of that property. This gate was about ten metres down the road, so behind me as I sat in the driver’s seat of my car. They were having an aggressive argument about something. I turned round in my seat to watch.

The first one out was a big guy, whom I had never seen before. Following him was a man who was smaller than him of medium build, whom I recognised as one of those who lived in that house. Following him was a skinny young guy who lived there too. The two smaller guys were telling the big guy that he owed them money. They aggressively moved towards him. He backed up along the pavement towards my car. He said he didn’t have any money. The medium sized guy said to him “OK, well give me your jacket then,” stretching his hand out towards the thick black leather jacket the big guy was wearing. There was a struggle as he tried to take the jacket of the man, who resisted aggressively. They began to wrestle violently over it shouting at each other as they did so. The melee was now right alongside my car, and as they fought each other one threw another against the side of my car, which rocked with the energy of it. I was by now thoroughly scared, wondering why they didn’t seem to have seen me sitting in the front seat of the car, and what would happen if they did.

The big guy saw an empty bottle sitting in a recycling crate by the side of the road. He grabbed the neck of it and smashed the body against a telegraph pole. Now he had a weapon. He thrust it menacingly towards the two other men. They backed off a little. He shouted at them in rage. They shouted back, but then quickly ran back inside their house. I couldn’t tell whether the big guy followed them inside or went around the side of the house. At any rate they all disappeared for a few moments.

As it went quiet my wife Jennifer partially opened our front gate and peered out. She was only a few metres from me. She looked into my car. I waved at her to show her that I was alright. I was sure she must have seen me, because she was so close, and I was actually in the light of a streetlight above me.  Nevertheless, she didn’t acknowledge me. She looked around upon the street, and shut the gate. I found out afterwards that at this point she was very concerned because she had heard the fight, but looking out could not see me.

I hadn’t yet felt that it was safe for me to get out of the car and go indoors, so I stayed where I was and prayed for the situation as best as I could. The big guy came back, and stood outside the house yelling taunts at the two inside. Then they came out, having got what they went in for: their flick-knives. When the big guy saw that he stopped jeering at them and again backed up along the footpath towards my car. The two from the house held their knives out towards the big guy with the leather jacket. The younger of the two was shaking with the energy of the scene, and nervously darted glances towards his leader. The leader leered towards his intended victim and Hacked by r3vanbastard. The large framed guy backed away from them, towards me. As they came to within only two metres of me I could clearly see the faces of the two attackers in the streetlight. I looked at the leader of the two. He didn’t appear concerned that the man didn’t want to surrender the jacket. He was enjoying himself.

As I looked at him I was shocked to see the look on his face, and to recognize the spirit in his eyes at this moment. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t anger. It was lust. Lust to stab this man with his knife. The closest thing I’ve ever experienced to what could be called a spirit of murder. It was lust. Lust for blood.

At this moment the big guy turned and fled around the front of my car and was pursued across the road by the other two. They cared nothing for the cars that were in their way, moving at perhaps only thirty km/h at this point. As they reached the other side of the road they caught him and laid him in the gutter, both knives glinting in the darkness, thrust up against his throat. At least fifty cars must have cruised by this scene, none stopping. I couldn’t hear what they said to him, but I could hear the big guy pleading for his life. “No! Please! Alright! OK, you can have it!” They hauled him to his feet and as they held their knives towards him he stripped off the precious jacket and gave it to them.

Having obtained his goal the leader of the two menaced him some more with the knife and cursed the other. The big guy was heard to answer “Yes! OK! Sorry!” Then they let him go, and ran back across the road to their house. The one who was now minus his coveted jacket ran up a side street. Seeing that the coast was clear now, I got out of my car and got back inside my house. I was incredulous not only at what I had just seen, but that they appeared not to have seen me at all.

When I got inside my house Jennifer told me that she had called the police. Then she said “Where were you?”

“Didn’t you see me?” I asked. “I was waving at you when you came out of the gate.”

“Ian, you weren’t there” she said. She told me that she had seen was the fabric of the seat I was sitting in illuminated by the streetlight. She could see the empty seat clearly. Yet I was sitting in it all the while.

Now I know that this is such an incredible tale that you probably don’t believe me. I can hardly believe it myself. But neither can I understand how they could have such an intense fight all around my car and not notice me at all. Also, I have never before or since felt prompted by God to pray against murder. But I’m glad that on that night I did.

Christians should learn from scripture rather than experience because experience is subjective whilst scripture is absolute and pure. Nevertheless we can draw lessons from our experience if they are in accord with what the Bible teaches. In those days I learned a number of things that way. The lessons that I drew from this experience were first of all, how evil is the sin that dwells within us and which but for God’s grace we are all capable of. Second, that anywhere God puts me is a place that He will keep me safe. Third, that God cares for the life of even the most wretched and wicked among us. Fourth, obedience to God’s promptings results in life and blessing.

Who knows but that one of those men who were involved in that scene may even yet live to surrender to Jesus, and thus do what they were born for. Will you do what you were born for?