How Ian Christiensen found Jesus

Jonathan: Then you had this insomnia problem so you couldn't sleep?

Ian: Yeah. It became chronic as time went on. My mind was on a railway track all night going 100 miles an hour and not being able to relax and not being able to sleep. It was no fun going to bed at night and then I stopped dreaming. It was as though my brain had gone dead in that area and so I would wake up in the morning just exhausted. I really didn't know what to do. I went to see doctors; I even went for a 10 mile walk. I knocked on the doors of ministers of churches. I'm talking about 1973/74. I couldn't find the answers I was looking for and I didn't get some very good answers from the guys I went to. I was in absolute despair.

Jonathan: What happened from there?

Ian: I had a Christian background, a nominal Christian background and Christian core values that I had grown up with. I had a Mum that prayed for me. I think that made a difference, because I started a search. You know, as I was going along one day these words popped into my mind. They were words that I had learned as a boy. They were the words of Jesus, 'seek and you will find.' They popped into my mind and I thought, well I've got to look; I have to find the answer. The last place I expected to find it was Christianity, because I grew up in the bells and smells and to me Christianity was dead and meaningless. I didn't get a lot out of the Christianity that I was involved in.

I started to search. I read books on different faiths. It was a time when the Beatles were going to the Maharishi. I thought that he has a smile on his face so I thought, 'let's try this guy'. I tried Transcendental Meditation and yoga. I read books and I visited different religious groups.

Jonathan: You really were seeking then!

Ian: Yeah, the words drove me and I had an experience that was quite unusual. One day when I was living in Harrow, Middlesex, in my room I was sort of crying out to the God that I hoped actually existed. It's like a presence came into the room and it was over the other side of the room. Instinctively I knew that it was the presence of God. I can't explain it. I cried out to Him and I said, 'please help me Lord because I've got nothing to live for.' I was so miserable, I felt like banging my head against a wall, exploding it, because I couldn't even think straight. That was a moment that I got a revelation God was real, that he was there and that he had something to say to me, which he didn't actually say at the time. That intensified my search and I kept looking and I kept searching in different avenues.

Jonathan: How realistic is it for anybody to be able to discover that God and have that sort of experience in their life?

Ian: I think that in my search I wasn't really sure if there was a God and these words came to my mind which I knew were the words of Jesus Christ, 'Seek and you will find'. I was on a search and I think if God is real and he appears to you, you just know it. It's something that you just know. I sensed that this awesome presence that came into the room, which I'd never experienced before, was God. From that point it's almost like someone had infused me with hope and I kept looking and I kept searching.

I went down to the local Transcendental Meditation classes. When I went down there they gave me a word that I was to repeat. Well, having grown up in India, because I was born in India of mixed parents, I knew what that word meant. I went into the other room and I used that word and I felt very tense and nervous and uneasy. I just decided to use the word Jesus instead of the word they gave me.

Jonathan: Let me catch up, why did that word make you uncomfortable?

Ian: I knew it was the word of a Deity that I didn't actually believe in. When I just decided on the spot to use the name Jesus, it's like a peace came upon me, like a quilt covered me. When I went back to my teacher and told him, is it alright to use the word Jesus, he said, 'No, no' and that put me off. I wasn't sure what to do after that. I kept on the search and I kept looking into different religious groups, going into the library reading. I couldn't read for long because my depression was so intense that if I read for half an hour, my eyes would burn. I kept looking though and I bumped into some guys who really gave me what I was looking for.

Jonathan: Were these people you just met?

Ian: I walked from Harrow to Hayes and I knocked on the door of a Catholic church and a Catholic priest came out. He was very compassionate. He counselled me and I liked him because he was sympathetic and compassionate.