Greetings’ fellow believers in Jesus Christ (our Lord and Savior and creator of Heaven and Earth).Who through his awesome power we have an Eternal abode in Heaven sitting with our Savior Jesus Christ partaking in communion with our King.
My name is Zachariah D. Riggle and I want to tell you a true life story about how God got my attention in a very powerful way.
All my life I have grown up in a Christian home. I have always been taught from the Bible and good moral values. I have lived a sheltered life by most of the worlds standards being that I was home schooled till I was 17 last year. So I had never really been influenced by the world or even really known how it was . My parents had never wanted me to see what it was really like until I was ready . They had wanted to prepare me for the world so that I wouldn’t be torn down by it once I got out on my own and put under temptation and introduced to the ways and evilness of this world.
Even though I had lived a sheltered life to the World, it has been an exciting one full of adventure and traveling around the world. I was born in ChristChurch New Zealand and I have traveled to many states. So in 97' we sold all our belongings and hit the road in an old converted Air Force bus going to Indian reservations all over the western United States preaching to the Native Americans. This is my Dad’s ministry and calling. So it really has been an exciting life especially since there are 7 people in my family.
Anyway like I had said before I had grown up with a Christian up bringing so I knew all about Jesus, Noah, Adam and Eve and pretty much all the stories in the Bible. But I started to reach an age where I no longer followed this religion that my parents had brought me up with . I slowly lost my desire to pray in church to sing or do anything that had to do with Church . What I was doing was breaking away from it. But don’t get me wrong I still believed that God created the Heavens and Earth (evolution just seemed too stupid to believe in) but it just wasn’t real for me, I had never felt God or I couldn’t remember it if I had.
I started to hate it when my Dad called together the family for our Bible studies. I was just reaching a place where I was starting to make my own decisions and my own beliefs .
Then we moved from Malaga Wa to Omak Wa and this is where I really started to lose my Faith and belief in God . My parents enrolled me in Omak High School last year 05-06 my parents didn’t want to but my mom had been teaching all 5 of her kids till this point I was 16 and she no longer felt she could teach at the High School level .
Furthermore I joined wrestling and loved it I enjoyed 4 good years of OHS wrestling I really loved it and the challenge of not having to rely on your teammates or anyone else was fun for me, the one on one, your skill, drive and stamina versus your opponents. Also wrestling wasn’t the only thing I got involved with. One thing public school really introduced to me was Drugs, mostly weed ( marijuana) something that I had never experienced before and something I had always told my mom I would never do. And my parents had always warned me about that kind of thing. But I was kinda the Black sheep in the family never doing what my parent’s said and always fighting with my Dad all he wanted to do was help and be there for me but I just treated him like crap. So I got involved with Drinking and Smoking (weed) and just into the party scene. Not real hardcore or anything but I was getting there. I really liked Smoking weed especially because I believed it to be all natural non-addictive and it has so many uses. All the stuff I could justify it with. I liked it so much mostly because it made me totally forget all my troubles with school my parents it was my escape from the reality that I didn’t want to face.
Well by the time wrestling season comes around you really have to quit all that stuff if you want to be at top performance. And since this was my last year of OHS wrestling, I definitely didn’t want to smoke out any more or get drunk or anything. My goal was to win state. So a couple months ago during wrestling season, it was 3/4th’s over with. And I had broken my vow of staying away from weed a couple of times and I was laying up in my room and I was praying to God and this time it wasn’t like most of my prayers at night before I go to bed, where usually I just pray a quick little prayer "Lord Jesus please forgive me for my sins protect my family in your name I pray amen." But tonight was different, I wasn’t praying a quick little prayer with no heart. I was seriously calling out to God with all my heart and it was so heart felt that I was actually crying and I was saying Lord Jesus if your real and your God then I want you to be real for me, prove yourself to me Jesus because if there really is a God who created us and loves and wants us to be in Heaven with him I wanted it . So I asked him Lord God . Make your self real to me in a way that would be so powerful that it would totally change my life. So that I when I looked back I could never say well that wasn’t God naw that was something else. Again I asked him to reveal himself in something powerful like a Dream or Vision that would make it so that I believed without doubt. Because if it was real if what my parents had been telling me all my life was real then I wanted it. I had always looked at them and been happy that they had God and all. But he was real for them and not for me he wasn’t in my heart.
Then after I prayed this prayer after I had just with all my heart cried out to Jesus. I felt like right then and there that he answered my prayer and I just felt this peace. And this warmth that went from my head all down through my body. So I went to bed all excited and I was thinking "All right yeah I’m really gonna get this Dream or Vision." It took me awhile to get to sleep that’s how excited I was .
Waking up the next morning and not getting this Vision or Dream I had asked for was pretty disheartening. But I didn’t lose faith I figured it would be the next night. And then God would give it to me. Well the next couple nights and no vision and no dream it got to where I was saying "Well, God am I gonna get that dream tonight or what?"(God does stuff on his own time)
Now Districts, Regionals and State were coming up for wrestling and so I totally forgot about that prayer that I had prayed and I was concentrating on wrestling and the State tournament coming up.
Anyways I made it to State and ended up getting 7th and of course we partied it up like most any other high school kid after a sports accomplishment .
What happened next was about a week after State I was sitting up in my room doing nothing and all of the sudden I was like man I need to go get high. So I proceeded to go over to my friends house who had just got his 18 money. So he had been partying up and buying lots of weed so I thought I would go over and get stoned because my High School wrestling was over forever I was gonna go do all the things I had wanted to do but couldn’t since I wanted to be the best wrestler I could possibly be. I went over there got high and as I was getting high with him and a couple other guys....it was weird it wasn’t right something about it was weird .
So we did everything that every teenager who has tried pot has done. We laughed at nothing, drew in our little notepad, made grand philosophies and just believed all the lies we were being fed.
After our session my friend and I proceeded to walk back towards our homes. My friend and I parted ways at my house and I went inside right as I was walking through the front door the phone rang and of course it was some girl. It was perfect things were falling into place all the things that I had wanted to do. It was all happening I talked to the girls and set things up for the weekend . And slowly went up to my room. I went in and threw off all my smokey clothes and not even caring if my parents knew. Which was bad because I had always been deathly afraid if my parents were to ever find out about me getting high?
But at this point I was so gone in my own little world and caught up in me I didn’t care I thought I was the baddest guy around. I didn’t even try and spray deodorant on my clothes like I would usually do, to hide the smell and that is when I decided to go to bed and so I laid down on my bed with a big grin on my face knowing this is when Zach Riggle is gonna break out and have freedoms I’m 18 now, its time to do all that stuff I had always wanted to. I had always looked at the other kids at school who partied it up and always talked about how much fun they had last weekend. I wanted that and right then I was deciding that is what I’m gonna start doing.. I wanted to be my own person. And live that false happiness that they are all living.
So laying there on my bed I closed my eyes and I thought about that prayer I had prayed and I thought all-right God this is it this is where we part ways. Because you’re not real in my life there is no such thing as God. This is where we part ways. So at this point I have totally denied the existence of God.
I then closed my eyes, and I don’t think they were closed for more than 30 seconds. When all of the sudden my eyes opened and they were opened really wide and I was looking at the ceiling in my room my hands were at my side. Nothing was fuzzy anymore I wasn’t high or anything. And then I heard a voice and it was so loud and powerful I can’t even describe it and it was in my head. This is what it said "YOUR TIME OF RECKONING IS NOW!" Instantly my hands went up as in prayer, it was like I had no control of them and I proceeded to sit up in my bed with my hands still clasped together in prayer and as I am standing up and walking across the room I am starting to cry. So then I open up my door and walked across the hallway to my parent’s bedroom and I knocked on their door . My mom answers and say’s Zach honey whats wrong. And I say "Mom, Dad we need to get our hearts right with God."
Then I fell to my knees at the foot of their bed and I started to cry and it wasn’t just any crying either it was more like a deep deep sobbing it was so deep I thought I was gonna die. I had never cried like this before in my life. And I was sweating and shaking. Even though my body was still cool. My mom felt me and threw a towel over my shoulders because I was sweating so bad. Now I heard a voice and it was saying that you asked for this Zach now do you accept it? And I said yes Lord Jesus I accept show me everything
So at this point I proceed to go into a vision and this vision was showing me my whole life I got the sense that God was taking his finger and dipping in my timeline and just showing me everything in my life, and how I had lived it, all my emotions, all the bad stuff I had done, how I had treated my parent’s, my brothers and sister and just all the stuff I didn’t want to see. While I was in this vision I was still crying and it was so powerful I thought I had been crying for hours. So when I finally calm down and stop crying I’m still on my knees and I look at my dad and say "Dad how old am I?"at this point I didn’t even know what part of my own life I was in. And my dad said "Zach your 18."So I was like wow ok . At this time he didn’t know that I had just had this vision because it had only been 5 minutes when I had thought hours had passed.
So now I sit up on the side of their bed. And they are looking at me wondering what is going on and they were thinking drugs I don’t know how I knew I just knew that is what they were thinking. And I had been high but now I was no longer high. But this is when the demons that were in control of my life and were inside of me start to manifest.
As I’m sitting there, I look over at my dad and I say with a voice that is not my normal voice I said "Is Jesus Christ your King?" At this point my Dad kinda knows what is going on and says to me "Jesus Christ is my Lord."after hearing him say that I jump up on their bed and I say to them "You are both going straight to Hell!" And right after that I was thinking what am I saying? And I said to them, no mom dad, I didn’t mean that but the Demons had clouded my view so much that I thought my parents were demons coming to get me.
So now as this stuff is going on I have another vision and this is Satan’s vision that he is giving to me. Because since God could give me a choice to accept him now Satan got a chance.
And in this vision Satan shows that if right now I give my life up to him and make him my Lord he will do all this for me. And he showed me how if I accepted him he could make me everything I had ever wanted to be I could be anyone I wanted to be, the most popular guy, a Hollywood star, whatever I wanted to be on earth. And I was starting to go along with it. And I was like wow yeah that would be awesome. Until I realized who I was agreeing with. And then I said no I don’t want this! And I kinda broke out of the Vision and I said "Mom Dad I think I’m just going through a test, it’s all-right, Jesus Christ the maker of heaven and Lord of my life, praise you Jesus.
And then I was sucked back into the vision and the devil was like nope it’s to late you can’t be a Christian you are already mine. And that now I was the Anti-Christ and I had to accept it. And he was just coming at me with all this stuff on how I had to accept and that it was to late.
I was so scared and kept calling out to God to help me and that I didn’t want this. And all he kept doing was twisting it and trying to force me to accept him as my Lord and he was showing me how powerful he is and how great his control is over this world.
And I was in awe I was thinking how could we fight this guy he is so powerful compared to us.
And that’s when Jesus out of mercy and grace pulled me out of this evil vision.
Now my parents didn’t know I have just had this vision either, but they now know that something is going on inside of me . The demons still didn’t want to let go of me. So my mom grabs the bible and I feel the demons in me still and they are so scared and they are twisting my mind around and make me think that my mom is bringing to me a Satanic bible. But it was because she was bringing the Holy Bible out. And they were so scared.
She proceeded to read and as she was reading I couldn’t hear the words even though she was reading out loud. It was like the words were coming out garbled and I couldn’t hear the words. And I looked down and said "Speak clearly" with that same sarcastic and evil voice.
But then right after she read that scripture I let out 3 very big and weird burps and that’s when the Demons left.
Praise you Jesus,right after this is when Jesus came into my heart and just revealed everything to me everything. He showed me so much about my life and how much more powerful he is than Satan (I was still scared of Satan because of earlier) and God’s power is eternally greater. There is no comparison! I thank you Jesus. He showed me how all that stuff (Drugs Drinking Sex) that I had thought was fun, compared to what I was feeling now. It was nothing! Having Jesus come into your heart is indescribable. I felt so good and was so in awe of Gods power and his presence that I saw how the ones who have died for there faith in Jesus could do it. I felt so good someone could have come up to me and stuck a gun to my head and I would have laughed. Because I wanted to be with Jesus I wanted to die and go live for eternity with the one who loved us so much that he died for our Sins. I don’t know for sure but I think I had another vision after Jesus came into my heart. Because I don’t remember that I said this but they said I did. I said to my parents you guys have know idea about the place that he is preparing for us it is so amazing . I seem to remember trying to keep something in my remembrance and God slowly took it out of my mind.
After all this I started to cry. My mom was like "Zach why are you crying?" They now totally understood what was going on. And the reason I was crying was because I realized and God showed me the gap that he had to cross to get to me. It hit me hard, he did so much just to save me. He loved me that much. I was just totally understanding how much of a Sinner I actually was and how far short of the glory of God I fell. So I was just in shock I think I even said "Wow." And all that love for not just me, but he loves us all that much so much that he is willing that none should perish. And all we’ve gotta do is accept him as our Lord and Savior.
So, I can now say for the rest of my life that God came to me in such a way. That I now know him to be real and he is real. He answered my prayer and don’t think he won’t answer your prayer God is no respecter of persons. Don’t think that he won’t come to you. Maybe not in the same way but he will come to you if you ask and are sincere. And he will know rather or not you are. I encourage you to do so with all my heart to find out for yourself. Don’t take my word for it you have gotta find out for yourself. You have to have your own personal experience. And he will reveal himself to you and wants to. If you mean business then he will mean business, God don’t mess around!
Now all I am doing in my life is trying to tell people what happened to me and that Jesus Christ is real and he is God and he wants to get to know you. That is all I can do is just tell whoever is interested. And might be wondering if there is more to life than just getting an education and a good job and then retiring and then dying. I don’t know about you but there seems like there should be more than that!
If you wanna contact me my email is
