When one day Inga told Jason that he had had a dream about him, Jason was amused and also intrigued.  He asked what the dream was about.  "I could see you standing on top of the world.  You had the world at your feet but gradually the world started crumbling beneath your feet."  Jason was amazed. It was uncannily true.

 

The dream stopped him in his tracks.  He knew that he had to get his life sorted out. It was just the jolt that he needed. Jason’s assessment of his life at that stage was…

 

“I was extremely successful at my job.  I was financially secure.  I had everything material that I could want but I had relationship problems.  I did have the world at my feet but surely and certainly it was crumbling. I was having great success on the park but off it my problems were overpowering me.

 

“It got to the stage that I would be out drinking six nights a week.  On the outside everything was great.  I was earning a lot of money, I had a fast car, nice clothes. People wanted to be associated with me. People probably thought, 'I want what he's got', but inside I was empty. I was searching for something.  I was looking for happiness in money, in possessions, in drinking, in relationships.  But none of these could fill the space within me.

 

"Drinking was a vicious circle.  I had problems so I drank, yet the more I drank, the more problems I had, and the more problems I had, the more I drank.  I was getting away with it because on the field I was playing as well as ever."

 

“I was in a relationship where I had a child and the relationship broke up.  Then I started a relationship with a girl called Amanda.  We split up - because of my drinking - but she was pregnant.  This brought things to a head.”

 

"Some time after they had split up, Amanda phoned Jason and really got stuck into him, telling him what she thought of him and how he had messed her up. Jason was not particularly sympathetic.  About a week later Amanda rang again.   “She got stuck into me again and told me things that were true but that I didn't want to hear or accept.  But this time I really got convicted by what she said.   For the first time I saw clearly the mess that I had caused and the hurt I had caused to other people.  I could see myself for exactly what I was.  It was a painful experience.”

 

That night Jason hardly slept.  Throughout the night he wept and wept.  Part of it was self-pity but part of it was that he really did want to change.   For the first time he realised that he could not go on living as he was.  “I knew it wasn't right.  I knew that there must be more to life than working all week then going out drinking every night.  The pleasures were very short-lived. It was just a quick fix.

 

“Next morning I was still in a state.  I rang a friend who was a Christian and said, 'I can't go on like this.  I don't want to live like this.  I need help.' He invited me round to his office and I went immediately.  He asked, 'Do you want to invite Jesus into your heart?'

 

“I just knew that I could not continue what I was doing.  That morning I asked Jesus into my life.  The words from the Bible  ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28), summed up exactly how I was feeling.  At that moment, when I gave my life to the Lord, I felt a burden lifted.  I went out of the office that morning smiling.  That was the last thing I had thought I would be doing for a while.”