Pastor Kev was a Special Forces soldier who wanted to control life and death with his hands. But God encountered him unexpectedly.
Special Forces Soldier
Kev had always wanted to join the SAS, ever since he was a young boy. That’s why, in 1996, he joined the army; he was just 16 years old at the time.
“I heard all the stories about the SAS, this elite British special forces unit that carried out top secret missions. They only took the best of the best. And to get in, you had to pass one of, if not the hardest, physical human tests ever created. Only 7% of people who would even try would get through it,” he said.
He could not get rid of the desire to go for selection. And so, in 2005, he started the process. He finished the 12-month-long reserve selection, served further for a year, and served until he was allowed to go for regular SAS selection.
Only to be told he failed.
The Second Attempt
“It was one of those moments I will not forget. I was speechless. I was shocked. And I have pushed myself to the absolute limits, and in the end, it still wasn’t enough,” Kev shared.
He was given the opportunity to try again, but before that, he went out on an operational tour to Afghanistan.
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“It’s always hard; I lost three friends. And I almost got myself killed in an explosion. After failing to reach my goal, my dream, I went again. But I nearly died because of heat exhaustion,” Kev shared about how he failed the second time around to become a Special Forces soldier.
It took him a year to recover.
The third attempt
But on his third attempt, he passed and achieved his dream.
“But even after all that I have achieved, I was completely lost and broken. I was empty inside, incomplete despite achieving one of the greatest human feats anyone can do,” he said.
Then he met Naomi, who invited him to go to church. It was his first time going to church. “It was a very strange experience. And it was like going to the nightclub during the daytime,” he said.
He ended up going back three or four times before he went away on an operational deployment to Iraq. Going there was different. He had so many questions and was looking for something, but he couldn’t point a finger at what it was.
Special Forces Soldier Encounters God
“I had this very deep rage within me. My heart hardens after so many years of learning to shut down my emotions as I viewed them as weakness. I was an atheist most of my career.”
“Then I had an indescribable emotional encounter with God. And then everything changed. He showed me my present and my past with new revelation. He showed me the world as He saw it and told me what my future could look like.
I suffered with PTSD for many years, and I never slept a night without waking up shouting or kicking. The day I met Jesus, it went away without me even asking.”
“The moment of humility broke through no moment of my own personal success. Nothing I crafted with all the strength I could muster and all the determination I could choose couldn’t even come closer to what God could do in a moment of humility. My life changed. Choosing to follow Jesus is above everything else the best thing I’ve ever done,” Kev concluded.
Header image: Special forces soldier [Freedom Church]. YouTube, 26 June 2020, https://youtu.be/Vwn7owk9Pt8