| 'Hello David, I'm God' |
 What took a messed-up 20 year old petty criminal on an un expected journey into the supernatural? And how was his everyday life transformed? The story of David Shadbolt’s life has been a roller-coaster. The past 25 years since he committed his life to following Jesus Christ haven’t all been easy. But God has guided David, encouraged him and brought people into his life to help and support him. In his honest and compelling autobiography ‘Hello David, I’m God’ David tells why he is so grateful for the love of his heavenly Father and shares some of the lessons he has learnt. What took a messed-up 20 year old petty criminal on an un expected journey into the supernatural? And how was his everyday life transformed? The story of David Shadbolt’s life has been a roller-coaster. The past 25 years since he committed his life to following Jesus Christ haven’t all been easy. But God has guided David, encouraged him and brought people into his life to help and support him. In his honest and compelling autobiography ‘Hello David, I’m God’ David tells why he is so grateful for the love of his heavenly Father and shares some of the lessons he has learnt. Now a successful business man, married with a small child, David is still learning lessons from God today. But things could have been so very different. Brought up in a supportive and loving family, David had ‘no excuse for getting caught up with the wrong kind of people’. Glandular fever before his ‘A’ levels led to disappointing results. David went to college to retake his exams but found himself drawn into money-making schemes and soon dropped out. It wasn’t long before he met people who had less scrupulous ways of making a living. Money and fun were the order of the day for David and his partner in crime. They did a brisk and lucrative trade in counterfeit tapes. A caution from the law brought David up short. ‘My parents had done a very good job of making me understand the importance of authority figures and the fact that I was on the wrong side of the law scared me.’ David soon bounced back. When a credit card scam went wrong David found himself sat in a police cell, contemplating his future. ‘Someone please help me, I’m wasting my life,’ he cried. He looks back now on that night as ‘a fight for my life and my soul.’ At the time David described himself as a ‘serious unbeliever’ and was only too happy to go along to a girlfriend’s church in order to pick holes in the preacher’s message. ‘By the end of the sermon, I was convinced he was just selling religion. He looked directly at me and asked: “Well, what do you believe in?” ‘I thought about it and started to tell him about my mix of beliefs and said I reckoned that God must be somewhere behind it all. “You’re deceived. The devil is lying to you.” he said.’ The preacher told David to go home and ask God to show him what was right.  David got angry but did indeed seek guidance from God. He got no reply. At the next service, David was ready to challenge the preacher again. As the words of a worship song came onto the screen, David saw only a bright light and experienced the presence of God. ‘I was crying uncontrollable because of the beauty and the overwhelming power of love that I felt,’ he recalls. ‘I just kept saying through my tears, “But I am so dirty, how can you love me?” I felt the most amazing cleansing from within. All that was bad was taken away and I felt so full of light.’ ‘I had met Jesus,’ David says. ‘He had taken away my sin, everything I had ever done wrong in my life… Jesus loves me. I belong to Him now.’ The church supported and prayed for David and he grew in his understanding of the Bible, prayer and worship. Over the years, God has given David special talents to help, encourage and teach the church and individuals. David had has to learn to trust God and be obedient. His book tells of his journey. Like all Christians, David is still learning from and still listening to God. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
