Life was hard being a member
of a poor family living in a small village in Malacca. My mother
worked as a rubber tapper to feed ten children. My father, who worked
only occasionally, was seldom home. Daily, from 4 am to 5 am, I had to
help my mother tap rubber before going to school. After school, I had
to do some farming. This background of hardship shaped my thinking
about money.
Money was the family's primary
concern and soon the idea came that gambling was the quick way to get
rich. I fantasized about striking it rich through gambling and I was
well-known as a gambler even in my teens.
After my graduation, I went to
Singapore to work for my eldest brother who had started a business
there. I fell into a wrong crowd - a mahjong playing group - and I was
soon hooked on the game.
During the eight years I was in
Singapore, I got deeper into gambling and owed people money because of
gambling losses. In 1985, my brother sent me to Hong Kong as part of
his business expansion plans to tap the China market.
My early days in Hong Kong were
without problems. But birds of the same feather flock together and
soon I was associating with a group of friends who were mahjong
`kaki'. My days and nights were consumed by mahjong sessions. At one
time, we gambled non-stop for 36 hours!
I got married in 1989. During the
first few months of marriage, I played the role of a good
husband - avoiding my gambling friends and keeping my wife company.
But it did not last. Before long, I was back to my old ways. And this
time, the gambling habit began to take its toll on my personality.
Gambling had become my master. I
became moody and prone to emotional outbursts. My marriage went
downhill and fast. Eventually, the inevitable happened: divorce.
My gambling habit had destroyed what
I had forgotten to appreciate: my marriage and family (I had a
daughter by then). I thought of suicide during the divorce proceedings
but I was afraid to face death. My life had become a nightmare and I
had no other relatives and real friends in Hong Kong to turn to.
Then I remembered a lady friend from
my hometown who had witnessed to me about Jesus several times. I had
mocked her then, saying that ‘only the weak turn to Jesus'.
When I met her, I poured out my woes
to her. She invited me to join her at her church on a Sunday. I will
not forget the date - 28 March 1993 - when I went to the church. It
was the day Jesus became my Saviour and the Lord of my life!
I experienced no dramatic
transformation at conversion. But I knew I had a new lease of life. I
began to see the ugly side of me – which was something I had been
blind to before. Eventually I gave up gambling and never returned to
the habit. Some years after becoming a Christian, my brother, having
been convinced that I was indeed ‘a new man', gave me a chance to
start a business of my own.
Today, God in His mercy has restored
to me what I had lost through sin. He has not only prospered my
business but also blessed me with a new God-fearing wife and three
children.
The devil came to destroy through
bondage of habits and by whatever means he can to enslave us. Jesus
came to set us free. If, like me, you are bound by habits you cannot
break free from, there is only one person who can set you free from
sin and all the attendant evils that sin brings into our lives. That
one and only Person is Jesus.
