Watch: Sam’s testimony

Sam is a man whom God has blessed with the spiritual gift of craftsmanship. Due to circumstances at home, he ended up cultivating this gift with demonic arts instead of allowing God to show him the purpose of this spiritual gift. During prayer ministry, the Holy Spirit gently renewed his mind and freed him from a spirit of slumber as he repented and turned away from sorcery for good. Praise God!

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Video transcript

Playing these games really clouded my mind and I wasn’t able to hear from God which was something that I had always felt was lacking in my spiritual life.

Hi, my name is Sam and I’m 38 years old. I grew up in Canada and I’m currently a teacher.

So, it was almost three years ago when I was first introduced to prayer ministry. I remember being interested and intrigued after I saw how it changed my then-fiancée, and now wife, how it changed her life.

I had always thought that my spiritual life and relationship with God was lacking. I felt that there was something holding me back, something that was blocking me from fully experiencing God. I was nervous and excited about what would be revealed to me.

But I had no idea about the spiritual realm and battlefield that had been a part of my whole life.

Growing up in an Asian family, I was always told that studying is more important than playing or pursuing impractical interests, and that I needed to get good grades to get into a good school, to get a good job, and to have a good life.

Sometimes, I’d be compared to my sister or my friends around my age, and how well they were doing. And I just wanted to show them that I was just as smart or, if not smarter, than those that I was compared to. To be a good son and to please my parents as well, I would often agree to things like piano lessons, Chinese school, and other academic extracurricular programmes, over the arts and sports or leisure courses that I was more passionate about and would rather have done.

As with most Asian parents, my parents wanted the best for me and to equip me to be successful. But to a certain extent, it felt like I was being put inside a certain bubble of expectation of what to achieve and what not to do. However, it felt like I couldn’t experience some of those things that my friends and peers got to do.

So, during my first prayer ministry, I found out that I had a spiritual gift of craftsmanship, but that it had been corrupted.

learned that the enemy has used my own gifts against me.

I was drawn early on in my life to games and movies and shows that were highly creative, but they were based on magic, occult, and violence. Games and shows such as Magic: The Gathering, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lord of the Rings, Final Fantasy, Dragonball, Harry Potter, Pokemon, Beyblades…and stylised arts and graphics really caught my eye and imagination and since I felt that I was denied an outlet for my creative side, such as arts and sports, I turned to these games to fill my creative void inside and as a form of escape.

In particular, I was drawn into Magic: the Gathering, which is a card game that glorifies magic. It has summoning of demons and monsters, spirits, and unnatural beings. And it had the player being in a spiritual realm or plain, where I would be in control of these beings.

Being raised in a Christian family though, my parents had an inkling that, you know, these games weren’t really good for me.

In the beginning, they would discourage me a lot from playing these games because they knew it had a lot of violence and magic involved. I will try to tell them though that it wasn’t too violent, it wasn’t too bad. And often, I’ll be kind of tricky and just show them little parts and pieces of the game, where it had the least amount of violence or magic. And with my persistence over time, they would eventually give in. And I just found myself going down a rabbit hole and diving deeper and deeper into these games as my creative outlet and escape.

I became obsessed with these games and characters.

Think that I connected with their identities and their struggles, controlling them in the games and living through their actions and stories. I often stayed up late into the night playing these games or even sneaking in gaming sessions until early in the morning and neglecting sleep. These games gave me an outlet and perception that I was in control of these characters and beings, really at a point in my life where I felt that I was not in control of what I wanted to do.

I would find myself becoming involved in the occult, like listening to or reciting incantations, practicing sorcery, reciting spells and rituals in the games. And it just really opened up myself to a world of dark magic and demons, all under pretense that it was a fun game or a creative outlet. Even characters that were masked, or you thought were good guys in the games, they really were demonic in disguise and based on occult or magic.

It was packaged so nicely and innocently but it really drew me into that world of sin and I had no idea.

Playing these games really clouded my mind and I wasn’t able to hear from God, which was something that I had always felt was lacking in my spiritual life.

I had a spirit of slumber over me and it affected me a lot. It made me tired, sleepy, and lethargic every time I try to read the Bible, listen to a sermon, or study God’s Word.

To be honest, it was not easy repenting for playing these games and being involved in the occult and letting go of these games and characters, since it had been such a huge part of my life for such a long time.

But once I prayed, repented, and demanded these spirits to leave me in Jesus’ name, I really felt an air of clarity and relief.

I felt the spirit of slumber lift away from me. I wasn’t as sleepy, tired, or lethargic anymore at church or while I was reading the Bible. And I felt more awakened and being able to concentrate on God’s Word. I wasn’t chained or bound to the spirits any longer that had taken over my life.

And I know this is still an ongoing journey of revelation and renewal for me. There are times that I find myself tempted and having the urge to play these games and find out, you know, what’s new in the world of gaming, what’s going on.

And I’m still really learning a lot about myself and how I can just lift these temptations and burdens up to God and rely on Him and how to fight and break free from the enemy and protect myself from the enemy.

During my prayer session, I had the revelation that I no longer needed to align myself and find my identity in games and characters.

One of the prayer counselors saw a vision of me, that I have been called to be God’s general, to walk and lead brothers and build His Kingdom, to share His Word, and to be a strong child and courageous child of God.

I was able to see that God had always been with me throughout my life. I could see how God led me to the prayer ministry and showed me how He loved and cared for me. Even through some of the times that I thought was difficult and that I had been alone and not been able to do what I loved, He showed me that He had always been there for me. If I zoomed out and looked that carefully, I could see that He was always walking with me and He always had His arms around my shoulder and showed me how much He loved me.

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