My Testimony for the Glory of God

My name is Christian Irle,

I was born on June 6, 1975, in Düsseldorf/Hilden, Germany, and today I would like to share my testimony with my brothers and sisters in faith in Jesus Christ and be baptized in the name of the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I will try to keep this brief, though I don’t always succeed, so please have patience with me.

Over the past few days, as part of my daily Bible reading, I’ve been reading the Book of Lamentations, and in the third chapter I came across a few verses that reminded me of something:

Lamentations 3:2: “He has driven me into darkness and made me walk in the dark”

Verse 5: “He has shut me in (…)”

Verse 7: “He has walled me in so that I cannot escape; he has put me in chains.”

I know this is about the prophet Jeremiah, who pours out his heart to God, but let me tell you my story:

I know this is about the prophet Jeremiah, who pours out his heart to God, but let me tell you my story:

I’ve come here today from the prison in Celle to be baptized in this congregation. I am a serious criminal, and I have been convicted of just one of my capital crimes—please don’t misunderstand that “just.” It certainly has nothing to do with my childhood that I ended up in prison. The God in heaven took me from my biological family as a toddler and placed me, at the age of about three, in a family—an adoptive family—who knew the living God. I remember two grandmothers who were believers and served the Lord; I remember an adoptive mother who, even though she often didn’t know what to do with me, took me to Sunday school at her church in Kassel. We lived back then in the beautiful Fuldatal Knickhagen. I remember a cousin and her husband who, praise God, are sitting here today to celebrate this joyous day with me. The two of them have certainly prayed for me for more than 30 years and experienced many setbacks. But I also remember that I didn’t want to know anything about prayers, the Bible, or Christian rock music.
Children’s church, youth group, camps—it was all great! But I don’t remember ever realizing that I needed a Savior; I don’t remember my conscience ever convicting me of sin when I stole something, broke something, or tormented the neighbor’s chickens. It just annoyed me when any of that got found out. You could say I was certainly not an easy child, nor an easy teenager, although…under the stricter guidance of the foster parents into whose care my father placed me when I was about 11 years old—perhaps because he thought they could set me on a straighter path—I managed to complete a fairly solid school education with a mediocre high school diploma, which would have opened the doors to college for me. But by the end of high school, I had already decided not to go to college, but to learn the profession my heart was set on: nursing. I managed that without any major difficulties, too. A few weeks ago, I wrote a letter to the elders of this wonderfully welcoming congregation, whose facilities we are privileged to use today, and in it I wrote about the deep feeling of being uprooted.
There was a tree with many branches and a massive trunk, but no leaves. I saw the roots, and they didn’t reach the water—there was no water at all. One branch, however, had fresh, green, delicate, fine leaves. It was nourished by a very fine drizzle that had begun to fall. The branch had something like a small basin resting on it, with which it caught the drizzle. I immediately recognized this drizzle as God’s love for me. I countered the feeling of being uprooted by trying to have many “friends,” and from a very young age I also tried to attract the attention of girls and young women, which, from today’s perspective, I unfortunately succeeded in doing all too well. I tried to drown my deep loneliness in alcohol and sexual debauchery. There were few steady relationships, and not too many close friendships either… and certainly no friend who knew what was going on inside me. After all, at times I didn’t even know myself what was going on inside me.

There was something else that also got better and better as I got older. A strong tendency to run away from problems, in the truest sense of the word… it started when I was 3½ years old, when I wasn’t allowed to go to the tennis court with my father because I hadn’t managed to tie my shoes by the time he wanted to leave, and it escalated from running away by bike to Kassel for a night with my foster siblings in Bad Wildungen to weeks or months of escaping the reality of everyday life into a fantasy world—though that only worked as long as the money lasted. I think the fact that I’m not cut out for life on the streets is what kept bringing me back, and I say this quite deliberately: Thank God. I was always taken in again, never had to suffer any major consequences, neither with friends nor with employers. After one of these escapes, I ended up in Hanover because I simply didn’t want to be in Marburg anymore, where I had lived and worked for many years; I also didn’t want to face the people there, face to face. Hanover gave me a new job, new friends; I suddenly started going to soccer games at the stadium, which had never particularly interested me before… but that was my new identity to fit in with my new acquaintances and so-called friends.
I found myself getting more and more caught up in a cycle of drinking—which I seemed to have relatively well under control, though—and trying to “pick up” women (please excuse me for just calling it like it is; there’s no other word that could describe it so aptly), but I never told my close circle of friends about it, because it would have been embarrassing for me if all my affairs and escapades had been exposed in front of the people I hung out with—a loss of face.

I don’t want to go into detail about the murder I committed; that would take us too far off track here. But in 2017, I had hit rock bottom in my life—I was no longer good for myself, and I was getting on my own nerves because I realized that what I was doing—drinking and sleeping around—was draining me, eating me up, and destroying me. I didn’t care about anything, and I had no one I could confide in. Don’t get me wrong—there were people there; I’d just like to mention my dear friend Lukas, who was surely just waiting for me to open up to him. No, there was no one to whom I dared reveal myself. That had less to do with pride; it was pure fear of having to let my mask slip. And so it came to pass that, seemingly out of nowhere to everyone, I didn’t shy away from murder in order to… well, to do what, exactly?

I’ll jump forward a bit so as not to overstay our welcome with the time we have today, and to finally get around to talking about my new best friend.

Surprisingly, I managed quite well in prison at first, but even though I knew the murder I had committed was premeditated, questions began to arise within me. I, who had previously been known for keeping the peace and standing up for others… I was a cold-blooded murderer… The question arose in my mind (or rather, let’s say: the question was posed to me internally): WHAT is wrong with you? I brooded, forgot, suppressed my thoughts, went to church with my fellow inmates, understood nothing, tried to read the Bible and found it yawn-inducingly boring—I understood nothing. But it was clear to me that I had to change something; I wanted to become a better person. Today I smile at the thought. I remembered that in my youth I had once claimed to be a Buddhist because I found some of the ideas of that faith quite appealing. And since I had plenty of time in prison, I decided to explore Buddhism. I got some books, found people to talk to, meditated, did breathing exercises, recited mantras, meditated some more, and did more breathing exercises, immersing myself in healing and deep meditations.
Oh, I must have read at least 30 books on Buddhism in a year, and I even had the feeling that a higher power was guiding me—and I wasn’t entirely wrong about that. Today I say that God, our loving Father, let me take winding paths so that it could prove all the more real in the end. He let me read about love, patience, humility, care, self-sacrifice, tolerance, generosity, and so on and so forth.

Here I would like to return once more to the second verse of Lamentations: “He has driven me into darkness; he has made me walk in the dark…”

One day, HE—God—showed me, as I was desperately trying to immerse myself in a well during meditation, that behind the nothingness I was seeking there was still something—well, at that moment, “something,” because there was a light at the bottom of the well. He let me walk without light and showed me, right at the bottom, His light; it was just shimmering…

That was the day I stopped meditating and reading Buddhist books; that was also the day I left the Protestant regional church, which I couldn’t relate to anyway. It took months, it took more confusion and empty hours before Jesus Christ came into my life, but at least I was now engaging with him. I read what various mystics wrote about the Cross of Golgotha, and I didn’t understand a thing; I read about some “spaces of the heart” and “storms of love,” and I didn’t understand a thing. Then, in August 2020, I was allowed to become a sexton at the prison chapel. It was during the pandemic; there was nothing going on in the chapel, but I was able to spend a lot of time alone in the chapel and its facilities.

A situation arose with a fellow inmate at my actual workplace, the kitchen, where I raised my voice and was then physically attacked. Security arrived and took us to the detention cells, where I had to stay for 2 ½ days until it was decided that I wasn’t the one who needed disciplinary action—it was the other guy. But that situation was enough to plunge me into the deepest depression; I was really at rock bottom, feeling misunderstood, rejected, and hated by everyone. That was the first time in my life that I thought about suicide—considering I had just been acquitted. “He shut me in…” (Col 3:5)

I had gotten into the habit of watching the televised church service on ARD or ZDF on Sundays when I was allowed to be at church alone in the morning to bake cakes and prepare for the service. That’s exactly what I did four days after the incident in the kitchen on November 8, 2020. My thoughts were still not entirely at ease—actually, not at all—but putting on a brave face, that I could do! There he stood in a church somewhere near Mainz, a bearded man, a Capuchin monk named Paulus Christen, in a simple robe and barefoot in Birkenstock sandals, smiling and smiling, radiating such warmth. Then he preached about the talents that people used to multiply what had been given to them. He spoke of the widow at the offering box who put in everything she had and was praised by Jesus for it.

And in that moment I realized: I am perfectly fine just as I am; I am exactly as God intended me to be. I had talents too, perhaps different ones and not as pronounced as those of the people around me, but that probably means nothing to God; he only wants to see how we handle what he has given us in our earthly lives.

From one moment to the next, I felt accepted; I felt a sense of freedom welling up inside me as a result of this understanding. That night, I had two dreams. One was the dream about the tree I mentioned earlier. The other was more of an image—just numbers and letters—but I knew immediately that I would find this combination of numbers and letters in the Bible. There, before my eyes, was 1 Cor. 11:1, just as one would write it as a citation. The very next day, when I was back at church, I opened a Bible—since I didn’t have one in my cell at the time—and read that a man named Paul, yet another Paul, said to me: “Follow me, just as I follow Jesus Christ” (New American Standard Bible). That was the starting signal for me; now I thought I knew what I had to do… but what exactly? And so I began reading the Bible every day, just as is always recommended to every newcomer or curious person. I started with the Epistle to the Corinthians in the New Testament; I read that too, and a book called the Revelation of John… that as well, just like all newcomers who are interested in faith in Jesus. The strange thing was… I understood everything! What had happened to me that I could suddenly read the Bible and understand the content?

God really means well for us here at the Celle Correctional Facility! Because we also have the opportunity to listen to Christian radio stations.
Since I had completely lost interest in watching TV after my experiences at church and in my dreams, from then on I listened almost exclusively to Heukelbach Bible Radio and Radio HCJB, and sometimes to Radio Gloria, the Catholic station. One evening, I heard another evangelistic talk on HBR by a man from the “Bruderhand” association, Michael Putzi. He spoke about his messed-up life and how he came to faith in Jesus Christ. He talked about repentance and consciously placing his life in the Savior’s hands. I wanted THAT too, and even though I already knew that Jesus knew all my sins, I prayed, and since I’m a very vivid person, I laid my heart on His altar and told my new Lord that HE now had my heart and should please make the best of it..

In the meantime, over the previous three months, our heavenly Father had already prepared something else: He placed a fellow believer in the cell next to mine, though I didn’t truly notice him until later, when the time was right. He provided me with reading material and a Bible reading plan and prayed with me from time to time.
Little by little, I realized just how far I had actually fallen; all the occult, anti-Christian, and “idolatrous” elements that had crept into my life so unnoticed, and which I had considered completely normal, piled up before me, and I truly spent hours and days and weeks, little by little, in prayer, confessing my sins to God. And even today, after nearly five years, I keep finding things from my old life that I must bring before God.

How can one actually tell if the Holy Spirit is at work within them? The best way, of course, is for others to see it. But I’d also like to share about an afternoon at the prison church, the afternoon of February 12, 2021, when I was able to realize for the first time what it means when the Holy Spirit of the Almighty God works in His temple, and what it truly means when Paul writes: “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

I was reading in the Gospel of Matthew—I don’t remember if it was chapter 9 or the beginning of chapter 10—when it felt as though someone were turning my head to the other side so that I would read there. My eyes fell on the words marked in red in my Luther 21 Bible as the words of Jesus:

“Take good courage, my son; your sins are forgiven.” (Matthew 9:2) WOW!

My sins are forgiven. HALLELUJAH! Praise the Lord! Ever since that day, a big heart has been drawn around that Bible verse in my Bible. Is this how God speaks into our lives? Oh, what can I say? I can only share what I experience with God, with my Lord Jesus, with His Holy Spirit, safe in the Father’s hand… I’ve realized—and realize almost every day—that the path with Jesus isn’t always a walk in the park; to be perfectly honest, my life before Jesus was much easier. Yes, Satan tries his best to confuse the Shepherd’s lambs, but I am glad that I found Jesus, that even the fiercest hostilities in the earthly and spiritual realms cannot separate me from the love of my God, and therefore the question of whether I want Jesus forever never even arises for me—almost never. Yes, I do, and that is what I want to proclaim to you here today, to the angelic realm, and of course to our Lord Jesus Christ Himself:

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my refuge, in whom I trust, my shield and the horn of my salvation, and my stronghold (Psalm 18:3)

I thank God that He has, to paraphrase Lamentations 3:7, walled me in so that I could no longer escape Him, and that He has bound me in chains—which, however, today, praise be to the Lord, have fallen off in public for the first time!

Finally, here are verses 21–23 of the same chapter from Lamentations, where Jeremiah places his hope in the wonderful God even in the midst of all his suffering:

“Yet this I will take to heart; therefore I will hope: The Lord’s mercy never ends! His compassion never ceases; it is new every morning. Great is his faithfulness!

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