Ewan Mackenzie

May God be glorified through the testimony of His servant.

My name is Ewan Mackenzie, I’m 22 years old and I was born and brought up in the Isle of Lewis in the north west of Scotland. From a very early age I was taught about The Lord. My dad is a Christian and ensured that we (my brother Ivor, 26, and my sister Iona, 23, and myself) were brought up with Christian values. My mother is not a Christian though she brought us up in the very same way, entirely respectful of my dad’s faith. Every Sunday we would go to church morning and evening, go to Sunday school and I’d spend the rest of the day twiddling my thumbs, desperate for Monday to come. I would not go as far as to say I hated Sundays, but I severely disliked them!

I never understood why we could not just be a normal family, like the ones on TV who could play football, go to the shops, watch TV, play computer games; spend their Sundays the way they spend their Saturdays! I blamed my dad for a lot of my unhappiness on Sundays while I was growing up, though probably more inwardly than actually expressing it to him. Even though I did not enjoy my Sundays, I did not enjoy church and REALLY did not enjoy Sunday School. I always wanted to be a Christian. I always knew Heaven and Hell existed. I once got burnt with a candle as a kid (probably more than once; I am almost certain I was a pyromaniac growing up) and that was hot enough for me. I did not want to spend my eternity burning in a huge lake of fire.

Growing up I would often pray. Pray for new toys. Pray for school to close. Pray for a bazillion pounds, because a 5 year old knows how to spend it wisely! But I had one constant, unfailing prayer every single week. ‘Please Lord! Do not make me have to go to church today! Please Lord!’. More often than not before I could finish my prayer I would hear my mum shouting ‘TIME TO GET UP’. Just as a wee aside, I used to always try to get out of going to church. I would pretend to feel unwell; I would pretend to sleep in. I would do anything not to go. In the end I was the boy who cried wolf.

Then one day, I was feeling fine, did not bother with any excuse, and we went to church as normal, mum, my brother, my sister and myself. When I was that young after the third singing I used to sit on my mothers lap and fall asleep. This time I could not fall asleep because I begun to feel really sick. I told my mum and she was not having any of it. I told her and told her. Zilch. I was actually getting pretty annoyed with her because I was really feeling sick. Then I felt it. I knew I had about 5 seconds left. I said, “Mum I am going to be sick”…Still no response. I was actually thinking in my head, “do not say I did not warn you!” Then it happened…all over my mum. Please note at this time, Ivor and Iona were sitting to the right of us, but there was no one to our left, and I could have easily aimed in that direction, but just because of how much my mum annoyed me by not listening, I decided to paint her shoes a different colour. Let that be a lesson to all parents with sick children in church, we are smarter than we look.

I found church to be such a waste of time. Sitting there for an hour in a really uncomfortable seat listening to this depressed dude dressed in black talking about God. I never understood a word of it. I remember looking around, ‘people watching’, as you do, and thinking that they must all be really boring people if they are enjoying this! The only words I used to love hearing were “Let us pray.”

I often prayed for the right things too. That I would be saved, that my family would be saved, that we would be kept safe from trouble and that I would see them in Heaven. I remember a few times asking my dad, “How do I become a Christian?” to which he would simply respond, “Believe in Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.” This used to really wind me up. I thought, ‘There must be a way I can pay for it or I can say some magic word. There is always a way of getting something if you say the right thing or give the right amount’. I did not accept the fact that there was nothing I could do to get into Heaven.

When I was 11 my dad had a heart attack. Prior to this his back had been giving him problems for many years and this was only to get worse as the years went on. After his heart attack, between recovery and the decline in the strength of his back, he was unable to go to church. This along with the fact that my mother worked most nights as a nurse, meant that we very rarely had to go to church on the Sunday morning. Now I am not saying I was glad of the fact that we did not have to go to church because of my dad’s health, I would have given anything to have him restored to full strength, but I will not deny that I enjoyed an extra hour or so in my bed on Sunday morning!

During Primary School I had great influences on my life. It is only looking back that I see how truly great they were. Mrs Christine Morrison was my Primary School Head Teacher and she was terrifying in school. If we saw her out of school though she was the loveliest person you could ever meet. I always wondered how she could have two so very different personalities. She would always take our assemblies and we would sing hymns and psalms, and she would always say a prayer. One thing I always loved was singing the hymns and psalms.

I also used to attend the local football club down in the village of Back. Our coach was Kenny John Mackenzie, an Elder in Back Free Church. He never let us kick a football without telling us about Christ first. I wish all coaches would be like that. They were wonderful servants of God, shining the light of Christ ever so brightly in their walk.

Going into secondary school I had a bit of difficulty adjusting. I had gone to Tong Primary School (Tong Primary School at that time had a grand total of 56 pupils This was about one third of the amount of pupils that were in 1^st year at the Nicolson Institute Secondary School). There were only 6 of us from Tong Primary going into Secondary School at the same time, and my closest friends went to a different secondary school. So I felt like I was on my own for a short while until I began to make friends. Up until that point I had never heard a real human being swearing before. That was how big an adjustment it was for me. In Tong school it’s just something we never did! Going into secondary it was like learning a whole new language. It was a completely different world.

My friends were good people, but not one of them had ever been to church before, so the fact that I had to spend my Sundays going to church and Sunday school instead of watching TV and playing football was completely alien to them. And the fact that they did not go to church and instead watched TV and played football was completely alien to me. I thought everyone went to church! This made me angry with my parents. I was brought up thinking this is how I had to live, I had no choice in the matter, Sundays had to be boring. Explaining why I had to spend Sundays that way was impossible! Most of my friends thought, because of the way I was forced to spend my Sundays, my parents were really harsh people. It was really difficult to explain that my parents were not actually strict at all, and that it was not difficult to live like that on Sunday. It is the way I was brought up. Although I did not like it, I accepted it.

So the years went by and towards the end of Secondary School my grandmother (my mother’s mum) began to decrease in health fairly rapidly. She became so ill that my mother had to leave her nursing job to care for her full-time. Because of this, church going became fairly scattered. After my grandmother died, my mother had started getting migraines. She had been getting them before but now they were becoming pretty severe, and there was no telling when they would come (which turned out to be fairly often). Because of these circumstances it became our routine of not going to church. By now I was the youngest at 17 with my driver’s license, and my dad clearly decided that he could not do anything to make us go to church anymore and so he left us entirely in the hands of The Lord.

I started working at a local filling station. Working there was an elder from Knock Free Church, situated in Point. The elders name is Donald Macleod, commonly known as ‘Speedy.’ I always enjoyed working with him but anytime he spoke about the Lord I just switched off, nodded my head and smiled. I was always outwardly respectful of the Christian faith, but inwardly I became more and more hostile towards it.

From the time I left school I thought life could not get any better. I felt free. I was getting plenty money and I could watch TV and play computer games on Sunday, FINALLY! (Though I did not want my parents to know so I would always make sure the headphones were plugged in!) I believe now looking back that at this point God was saying to me ‘Look, I have given you plenty of opportunities in the past to listen to Me and to know Me as your Saviour. I am going to show you now just how much you need Me.’ Life after school started off great as I said. But soon after I began to see the emptiness in it. I was never satisfied with anything I did or anything I bought. It was all well and good but it did not make me truly happy.

When I began to realise this, I notice in hindsight that certain people started coming into my life. Christians. I met a girl called Alison MacVicar (now Alison Campbell) who had come to Stornoway from Inverness to do her nursing training. I met her through one of my own friends, Lorraine Macdonald, who was doing nursing and we soon became quite close. From the word go, she mentioned she was a Christian, and every conversation we had contained an element of Christian talk. She was a shining witness to me back then and The Lord used her mightily in my life to reveal Himself to me. I began to enjoy talking to her about God, and after any church service or communion weekend she would always tell me what she learned that night. I loved it. I even started going back to church myself a couple of times, but it did not last.

Every time I stopped going to church it became harder and harder to go back, and I began to dislike the Christian conversations I was having with Alison, to the point where whenever I saw ‘Jesus Christ’ or ‘God’ in a text, I would just delete it. However we remained close for a while and without the Christian conversation, The Lord simply used her life as a witness. I was extremely envious of the peace she had in her life. But again, I wanted to get it my way.

Outwardly I was able to appear happy but on the inside I was finding life to be such a strain. I felt so cold, not caring for anyone or anything.

I was never much of a drinker. I would only drink on special occasions like New Year or my friend’s birthdays. However, when I did drink, I did it in great excess. There were only a handful of nights I ever went out drinking and I only vaguely remember what went on. They were by far the worst nights of my life. I will not go into what I got up to, only to say that they were shameful nights. And each time after, I had become more and more against the thought of drinking. The last time I had gone out was the only time I promised myself I never would again, and I never did.

This was not because of my parents or God or anything like that (at least that is what I believed then), I simply hated it.

I saw more and more Christians coming into my life. A close friend called Andrew Macleod (Mowgli) from Primary School had started working with us at the shop and also Norman Macleod, son of the Rev Kenneth I. Macleod who is the assistant minister of Stornoway Free Church. I got to know the boys and had many common interests with them, but one thing I did not have was Christ, who was so evident in their lives.

One day I was sitting in my room with a Bible open in front of me. I had tried many times to read this book before but it was like a completely different language. This day it was a language I could understand. I began reading, and question upon question came into my mind. So I went down stairs and started firing these questions at my dad. I would run back upstairs read a bit more and run back downstairs and ask him even more questions. This went on for about 45 minutes or more. I was desperate to know more. Every time I went in to work from then on I would ask Mowgli or Speedy or Norman questions about the Bible, the Church, Christianity etc I was desperate to know about Jesus.

I started going back to church and I loved it. I had grown up going to church and Sunday School, but going to church this time felt like I had never ever been in my life. I did not have a clue about anything. I did not know what the true meaning of the Cross was, what faith was, what grace was, not to mention justification, sanctification and adoption; and even if I live to be 969 years old, I do not think I will ever grasp the full meanings of any of them.

I had heard all the stories about Elijah and Moses and David when I was young but I never listened to them. Hearing them now was just the most amazing thing ever! And the greatest part was I was starting to see Jesus Christ in these stories!

One week, Speedy came into work with leaflets saying a preacher called Alistair Begg was coming over from America to preach in Knock Free Church. I was very interested because I had never been to another church other than Stornoway Free Church and The Tong Mission House, and I had certainly never heard any other preacher other than Revs Iver Martin, Kenny I Macleod or Kenny Stewart. So Norman asked me to go with him and we went morning and evening. I was enjoying the services and the fellowship though much of it was a bit over my head. One thing Mr Begg said was a quote from the author C.S. Lewis. The quote was ‘I Believe in Christ as I believe in the rising of the sun, not simply because I can see it, but because by it I can see everything’. I thought wow! That is such a beautiful quote. From then I really felt God was close to me, and I was earnestly praying for assurance of faith.

Two weeks later, Mowgli, Norman and myself went to the Communion Services in a village called Gravir. Speaking there was Rev Dr Iain D. Campbell on coming to Christ. I could not have possibly gone to a better service that night. It was as if God Himself was telling me to leave everything I had behind, and come to Him! Leave my car, leave my money, and leave all my possessions. They are useless! Come to Me and I will give you eternal peace! I felt so close to Him there, but I still had not had assurance of faith. We went to a fellowship meeting where Mowgli was giving his testimony. I related to almost everything he said. It was amazing. I could feel The Spirit with me. Then Mowgli said as he was finishing, “I was listening to a service online the other day and this quote stuck with me. ‘I believe in Christ as I believe in the rising of the sun, not simply because I can see it, but because by it I can see everything.’” From then, all I felt in my heart and soul was peace and joy. I had been telling him to listen to the Alister Begg service because he could not make it that night. To my knowledge we had not spoken about it since, then he came out with the very quote that spoke to me, and from then I had my assurance. I was at such peace with Jesus Christ in my life. He had died for me.

Over the following few days I felt miserable. I knew I was saved. I knew my faith was in the Lord. But I was dwelling on my sins. I could see so clearly my wrong doings and I just could not move past them. This brought me to my knees in a prayer of repentance. As soon as I stood back up I felt like a new man again. Already I was trying to fix my own problems and sort out my own sin. I was not laying it at the foot of the Cross and leaving it with the only One who could deal with it. It gave me a realisation as to how vulnerable Christians are to the attacks of the devil. We are not perfect people. We do not claim to be. We realise that we can do nothing without the help of The Lord.

After being at the Knock Communion Services in October 2010 I knew then God was telling to me to go forward to profess my faith in Jesus Christ publicly at the Communion Services in my own congregation in Stornoway. I was sitting behind the Lords Table in Knock Church aching to be with my brothers and sisters at the Table.

In December 2010, we had the in-house communions in our congregation. The week beforehand I was in spiritual agony. I could almost feel Christ and the devil battling within me. I knew I had to profess my faith in Christ at these services but the devil was doing everything he could to stop me. I could only go forward to meet with the Kirk Session of Elders on the Saturday night and as it turned out I was working that night.

When I tried to get cover for work nobody could do it because anyone who was not working was going out for a Christmas work meal. Even that would not stop me. I was an absolute wreck all that week. But by Gods grace I was working with Norman that night and He was an absolute rock. He made me feel much more at ease by telling me his own experience of ‘going forward’ and telling me what to expect. I had also recently met his sister Marie who I became quite close to. They were the only two people I told about me going forward and they were just incredible for support. Christ spoke to me through them so much, which made it even more special for me, seeing the work of the Lord in a brother and sister.

The church service was to be finished at 7.30 so I waited until 7.45 before I left the shop. I told the boss, ‘I’m ‘going forward’ tonight so I will not be here on my dinner break.’ I left the shop and went to the church. I remember thinking I should not be doing this because I was in my work clothes with no shirt and tie. I actually wondered to myself if I was allowed to ‘go forward’ without a shirt and tie. Despite being a bag of nerves, I answered all the questions put to me and I walked out of the meeting with the Minister and Elders a member of Stornoway Free Church of Scotland. Such was my relief and joy that I almost felt like I had been born again, again! Knowing that I could celebrate the Blood that was spilt for me and Body that was broken for me with my brothers and sisters at the Lord’s Table was an incredible feeling.

Afterwards I messaged Marie and told her and then phoned my dad and told him. Safe to say he was chuffed! Then I went back to work! And I felt like a completely different person walking into the shop at 9.30 than I did to the person who walked in at 3 O’clock earlier that day.

Since then my life has been so rewarding. That is what the Christian life is. I have seen the work of God so much since I came to faith and He has truly blessed my life. It is extremely difficult and there are many trials, but any level of suffering is worth it to live for Christ. He suffered for us now we must suffer for Him. I praise God that I do not have to suffer like many Christians around the world who are imprisoned and threatened with execution for their faith. All I can say to them is my prayers are with you.

Some days I am in the valleys and some days I am on the hilltops. Some days I am close to God, some days I am not. One thing is certain though and that is He is always close to me. He will never leave us nor forsake us. If we are children of God, He is the Faithful Father, ever keeping His promises and continually pouring out grace and mercy to His people.

I am still working at the Filling Station, and by Gods grace I am now able to enjoy everything Speedy has to say about The Lord (and that’s a lot!). I am not sure where the Lord is leading me, but I pray and ask for your prayers that God would reveal His plan for me. My dad used to say to Ivor, Iona and myself every morning when he dropped us off for school, ‘Believe in Jesus’. Now anytime he drops me off somewhere he says, ‘Enjoy your God.’ If you see me, speak to me about Christ. I may not have much input, but I am so willing to listen and learn about Christ.

If you are without Christ can I simply ask you, what is holding you back? What are you afraid of? Is the fear of ETERNAL pain not enough? Hell is not just a horror story. It is a reality! It is far beyond the worst existence you could possibly imagine!

Heaven is greater than anything you can possibly imagine! Accept Jesus Christ. He is there waiting for you with open arms! He is your gateway to Heaven! His death is for you, if you are willing to accept Him as your Lord and your God. Fall on your knees now and beg for forgiveness of your sins. Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you.

‘The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him; my fathers God, and I will exalt Him.’ Exodus 15:2

Believe in Jesus, and Enjoy your God.

Ewan