Skip to main content

Not holding back

My Bible: reasons to believe in the power of the Bible

‘In 2004 I was a primary school teacher. I decided to do some volunteer work over the summer. I stood at train stations helping people with where they wanted to go. There was a group of teenage girls mucking around. But I started talking to them and found I could do so normally. 

Isaiah 54.2 says, “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains out. Do not hold back. Lengthen your chords. Strengthen your stakes.” I opened the Bible and read these verses. I thought that God wanted me to work with teenagers.

That was scary. So, I worked with Youth For Christ, teaching sexual relationship lessons in secondary school. I loved it. They think they know everything, but they don’t! Fast forward 13 years, and these verses spoke to me again. I was between jobs. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to do something with human trafficking.

I realised that I was meant to set something up, so I set up my organisation, Freedom 2. We work with girls who are at risk of exploitation in East London. It might not be sexual exploitation, it might be drug running. Without these verses I would have thought that I couldn’t do it.

They have given me courage and confidence. The work I do is so rewarding. Now I feel that I am doing something, even though I know I could be doing more. Doing something makes me feel content.’

Do you have a story to share? Email [email protected]


More Stories

My wife and I were told we’d likely never have children

My wife and I were told we’d likely never have children – even if we went through certain procedures. I was born with a “defect”, and after both of us went through some tests, I discovered I had one or two other issues...

I was furious. I had just come back from being interviewed by a college

‘I was furious. I had just come back from being interviewed by a college with a view to being trained to be a Baptist minister. The last thing my minister had said to me before I left was, “The one thing they won’t ask...

I became very ill when I was 20 years old and was hospitalised

I became very ill when I was 20 years old and was hospitalised, nil-by-mouth, on a morphine drip, etc. This illness led to me being in and out of hospital for the next year or so. At that time I wasn’t a Christian but my...

I’m sometimes guilty of thinking I know better than everyone else

I’m sometimes guilty of thinking I know better than everyone else. That mindset often extends to thinking I know what I need better than God. When my wife and I were moving house, I found that I tried too often to force...

I was an executive in a company. A colleague had retired and died very suddenly.

I was an executive in a company. A colleague had retired and died very suddenly. He was a lovely man, and I went to his memorial service. We sang, “Do not be afraid for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name...

I keep coming back to John 6.67–68

I keep coming back to John 6.67–68 where Jesus has been teaching and people are finding it hard to understand and lots of his peripheral followers are falling away.

Want to share how the Bible has impacted your life? Email [email protected]

Read the Bible icon Read the Bible
Open the full Bible