Nicholas Prodromou – NewLife Oran Park
I was born into a Greek Orthodox family and christened as an infant.
In terms of involvement with the church, we would go to midnight service at Easter. My godmother would buy me a candle each year to hold while we listened to a priest I couldn’t understand. We would normally arrive late, and we would wait for him to say “Christos anesti”, (Christ is risen), in Greek. Then we would go back to a family member’s house to eat a special lamb soup and, after staying until about 3am, we’d go home.
The next day, we would have our Easter celebration. We would greet each other saying, “Christos anesti”, and the appropriate response was “Alethos anesti” (He has risen indeed).
We went to many christenings; I heard the Bible being read and chanted in Greek and English. My years of Orthodox Scripture taught me how to make the sign of the cross and helped me to memorise the Lord’s Prayer.
Radical scepticism
In high school, a close friend of mine lost his faith. He went from being strongly convicted to completely rejecting it altogether. I ended up having a whole group of friends reject the faith. I no longer had any positive Christian role models. My connection to my childhood faith wasn’t strong enough. Life became about music, girls and fitting in. It wasn’t cool to be a Christian, so I rejected it.
After high school, I was aimless. I barely scraped by in the HSC and didn’t have any clue what to do. I threw myself deeper and deeper into the hardcore punk subculture. I just wanted to go to gigs, play in bands, get drunk and smoke. It was in this scene that I found a home and new friends.
My view of Christianity and church was very negative at this point. I got heavily into conspiracy theories. Any traces of a Christian faith went out the window and were slowly replaced with radical scepticism and a mishmash of new-age beliefs. I watched documentaries that aimed to disprove Christianity as I sought to dismantle every aspect of my old identity and forge a new one. I was hopeless, and believed the world was hopeless, too.
I didn’t know they were praying
I met Sam, who would one day become my wife. At first, we had a very immature relationship. She was also clinging to a superficial faith, though Jesus and the Bible had been more prominent in her upbringing. Her faith was an obstacle for my selfish agenda, though I didn’t see it that way at the time.
She reformed me to a point and encouraged me to study, which led to a proper job and the ability to support us. Though we were immature, we were loyal to one another, and it wasn’t long before we were moving out together, and eventually got engaged.
At this time, Sam grew increasingly concerned that we were living in sin. Her faith was still important to her, and she wanted to learn to live as a Christian. Eventually, she reached out to her local Anglican church, looking to be baptised. We did a short course and started attending the evening service.
Sam moved back in with her parents for the remainder of our engagement. We attended church regularly and joined a Bible study. Little did I know that my soon-to-be wife and the pastors of the church were praying for my conversion!
In our first year of marriage, I was still very much unconverted. Christianity was merely a subject of study for me, but I would still go to church with Sam and happily sing the songs. Whenever she would ask me about my personal faith, I would shut down and get angry. I could defend Christianity as the truth intellectually, but it hadn’t yet changed my heart. It wasn’t until the next big leap in responsibility that things began to change.
From scepticism to surrender
When I held Zoe as a newborn I saw how precious life was; it was time to get serious. God worked on me at that time as I read the Bible. I would listen to sermons instead of apologetics videos. I started to see the danger I was in. The danger of spending an eternity in hell with no second chances. I was consumed by the subject of hell and would listen to sermon after sermon on the way to work.
At the time, I still had some contact with old friends, who were into doing challenges like meditating for 30 days. So, I posed a challenge – to read the Bible as if it’s God’s inspired word, to pray daily, and to seek to live for God in all they do. This was a turning point for me as I considered the hypocrisy of telling my non-Christian friends to do what I myself, who claimed to be a Christian, wasn’t doing.
Soon afterwards, I read the account of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. As he prayed, “Not my will, but your will be done”, I considered the love of Jesus, facing the unimaginable horror of the cross for me, and it was clear that, in that moment, I could no longer live as if this didn’t matter. I understood that the cup Jesus was praying would be removed from him was the punishment I deserved for my sin. I was the one who deserved hell. God changed my heart that night.
Following this, I was completely broken about the ways I had treated people from my past and sent a bunch of apology messages.
Almost five years later, I am full of purpose. I no longer see everything as hopeless. Jesus is the Lord of my life, and I trust him with all of my heart. I seek to glorify God in all I do. In my household, we seek to serve God in all that we do. I long to give Zoe the upbringing I didn’t know I wanted before Jesus saved me.
I still struggle with selfishness, but fight it by remembering what Paul said about Jesus in 2 Corinthians 5:15: “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again”.
First Appeared in Sydney Anglicans