Firefighter's Faith from Ashes

Teresa Neumann : Jan 8, 2013
Don Graham – Baptist Press News

Firefighter shares how God to spoke to him in the midst of a fire he was trapped in, and how God's faithfulness—and miracles—has defined his family's life since then.

(Central Asia)—Firefighter Christopher Ryan will never forget the conversation he had with God that changed his life. It happened after he realized he was trapped while fighting a raging fire on the second floor of a house.

A Baptist Press report quotes Ryan as saying at that moment time stood still for him. "I had [what seemed] like an hour-long conversation right there with God," he said. "He pretty much affirmed that I wasn't saved and that if He were to allow me to die right then in that fire, I would be burning in Hell that instant." (Photo: BP News)

Ryan subsequently escaped the fire, and though God healed his body from injuries sustained in the blaze, the report says his spirit was broken. Broken, that is, until one day when Ryan was sitting obediently in the back row of church.

According to the report, "Ryan suddenly felt the Holy Spirit pushing him to truly surrender his life to Jesus."

"The experience immediately drained me," explained Ryan. "I felt like all that sin just washed away from me right then. I could barely stand up . . . God changed so much in me that day—my language, my desires, my behavior—everything changed."

Today Ryan and his wife Tabitha—who has experienced miracles of her own by bearing two babies after doctors told her she could never have children—are missionaries in Central Asia.

Of their work there, Ryan is thrilled with what God is doing, citing the example of a man he calls "Omar Khan" who was an atheist before Jesus came to him in a dream.

"Every local Believer I've met," Ryan said, "has had dreams and visions regarding God and Christ."