AZ
“I had complex PTSD, multiple suicide attempts, and a top psychiatrist told me I had no options left — then I got baptized and the depression, anxiety, and suicidality were completely gone that night.”
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What they struggled with
What this story reveals about God
Religious background
Main testimony theme
Secondary theme
How they came to faith
God accusation
Content advisory
Before you watch
This testimony contains graphic descriptions of psychiatric hospitalisation, multiple suicide attempts, occult immersion, and a father's death from alcohol. What makes it worth watching is the specificity of AZ's healing — not a gradual improvement but a complete, overnight removal of decades of mental illness at the moment of baptism.
What this story teaches
People who are most spiritually sensitive — who feel the void most acutely — are often the ones who travel furthest into counterfeit spiritual systems before finding the real thing. The hunger itself is not the problem; it is the misdirection of it.
How God moved
God pursued AZ through every false path — in the forest, at his father's deathbed, in a stranger's eyes at a gym — without AZ knowing it was him. He waited through decades of occult practice, psychiatric crisis, and spiritual suicide without withdrawing. When AZ finally turned, God showed up so close it was like breath.
The lie AZ carried
I thought I could transcend the physical realm and escape the suffering of this world — that enlightenment would heal what nothing else could.
What Jesus showed him
AZ carried a lifelong void — the wound of an absent, estranged father that drove every false refuge across his entire life. He dissociated from childhood trauma for decades, and every pursuit was an unconscious attempt to heal what no therapy, mysticism, or achievement could touch. He had to lose his earthly dad to recognise the wound.
He was the footprints in the sand that was carrying me when I couldn't walk, and I didn't even know it. He is the unconditional eternal agape love that I'd been searching for my entire life.
Go Deeper
If you're in a dark place and you feel like you're in that dark tunnel and you can't even see the glimpse of light. If you've lost all hope, Jesus Christ is your hope. If you feel you have no faith, he is your faith. If you are worn out, tired, weary, if you feel you have no love left to give, he is the unconditional eternal agape love that you've been searching your entire life. He's a gentleman. He's patient. He's kind. He sees beauty. He sees his child. And he just wants you to come home wherever you are, whatever you're going through. I want to reiterate, it's not about healing. It's about who he is.
People who are most spiritually sensitive — who feel the void most acutely — are often the ones who travel furthest into counterfeit spiritual systems before finding the real thing. The hunger itself is not the problem; it is the misdirection of it.
What you can take from this
This week, if you have been numbing a void through any practice, substance, or pursuit, name it honestly — not as a moral failure but as a misdirected search. Ask the God of the universe to meet you where you are, as AZ did: awkwardly, directly, with nothing to offer.
For many years I became more and more lost the more I pursued yoga and meditation. I had renounced everything — family, friends, career, relationships — to pursue enlightenment, thinking I could transcend the physical realm and escape the suffering of this world. The further I went into it, the deeper that void became.
As I stopped doing the meditation, I started to get very intense nightmares and night terrors. It got to a point it was so strong, it would be waking me up in utter terror throughout the night.
I had no idea what to do, who I was, why things are the way they are. There was always this kind of void in my spirit that I couldn't articulate in words. I was always a drifter, a wanderer — dissociating quite a lot. I think for most of my life I've been lost and disillusioned.
I had been serving this deity of death, Shiva, this god of destruction, trying to kill myself because I intuitively knew that this vessel, this body is not my own. Even after many times coming so close to the brink with suicide. I was so acquainted with death but not life.
When I look back, I realize that every pursuit, relationship, job, career was seeking the father's love. And it was an attempt to heal the childhood trauma that I had dissociated from my entire life. There were DVOs and trauma and abuse — in our own strength we couldn't have that love throughout our life.
I took this image of Jesus and I put it on top of this shrine, this guru shrine as a declaration in the spirit that I don't want to be in the kingdom of darkness anymore. I don't know what the light is, but I know that I am in the pitch black darkness, and I've been serving it as an attempt to heal this pain, and it's not working.
If you are the true and living God and you've brought me to this moment, I'm going to need an encounter. You've seen everything. You've seen all of the pain, all of the tears, all of the isolation, the loneliness, the suffering. Meet me. Where are you?
I looked at the old man. I said, 'I'm ready. Let's go.' Didn't know what baptism meant. I just knew that whatever it was, I wanted to be there. And I dove head first into the baptism pools. It was like dying into light. Everything just went bright white light.
God, I need a line in the sand. You've made me fresh. You've made me into a new creation. No turning back. No plan B. I want to serve you. I want to follow you, whatever it costs.
I realized that I had to lose my dad to get my father and I had to die in the process as well.
Ephesians 4:10
Quoted by the Holy Spirit in the forest encounter — the one who descended also ascended to fill the entire universe with himself.
Ephesians 1:1
First Bible study after Alpha course — every word was like bread of life, words came off the page like life for the first time.
Revelation 1:1
Read the morning after baptism — confronted by fire, brimstone, dragon, lion after coming out of 'love and light' oneness theology.
Romans 1:1
Read the morning after baptism alongside Revelation, confronting the reality of the God he had just given his life to.
John 15:1–5
Central text at YWAM discipleship intensive — abiding in the vine; apart from him we can do nothing.
Psalms 23:4
Implicit in AZ's description of footprints in the sand carrying him through the valley — shepherd imagery.
Luke 23:34
Quoted in closing prayer — 'Father, forgive them for they did not know what they were doing' — applied to AZ's own ignorance before conversion.
AZ literally dove into baptism waters and experienced dying into white light; his old name ceased to register — a lived death and rebirth.
AZ left family, career, relationships to pursue enlightenment; returned broken and was met by the Father's agape love.
AZ legally changed his name to Azil Agape Faith — a formal, governmental new name marking his new creation identity.
The Holy Spirit spoke to AZ in the forest mid-occult practice, redirecting him from spiritual destruction toward incarnate faith.
AZ was catatonic for weeks, told he had no options left — then breathed into by the Spirit at baptism and raised to new life.
The accusation
God was absentWhat they said
“You've seen all of the pain, all of the tears, all of the isolation, the loneliness, the suffering. Meet me. Where are you?”
How God answered
On the Holy Spirit day of the Alpha course, God showed up so present, so close — nearer than his breath. He was the footprints in the sand carrying AZ when he couldn't walk, there the whole time even when AZ didn't know it.
Resolution
Fully resolved in testimonyAZ's Christian Walk
Eastern mystic seeking transcendence and escape from suffering through occult and yogic practices → incarnate-faith follower of Christ who descends into the world to serve, as Christ descended.
Healed of all mental illness at baptism — depression, anxiety, suicidality all gone that night. Legally changed his name to Azil Agape Faith. Reconnected with siblings around his father's deathbed. Now able to go into the community and serve others where he once could not function.
My family started talking to me in my birth name and it didn't register. As they were saying this name, I was like, 'This person died last night.'
The depression, the anxiety, the suicidality, all of this stuff was gone. I had been serving this deity of death, Shiva, this god of destruction, trying to kill myself. I was healed of all of the mental illness — everything.
After baptism, AZ faced the disorientation of a completely new identity — his birth name no longer registered in his consciousness. He navigated a legal name change, received warnings it would flag him as an infidel and restrict his movement, and continued processing the grief of his father's death.
It's only because his mercy and grace that he stayed and kept knocking.
Street evangelism and digital evangelism in Brisbane's valley district — the epicenter of lust and sin. Completed 11 weeks at a YWAM discipleship intensive in Adelaide. Part of Deliverance Down Under ministry doing healing, deliverance, and discipleship.
Prayer
The power of Prayer — personal trainer at the gym stood in the gap for AZ.
A personal trainer noticed AZ had a photo of Jesus on the back of his phone. Weeks after an initial awkward exchange, she returned and told him she felt God was asking her to invite him to an event on Thursday night. AZ saw the Holy Spirit in her eyes — the same presence he had encountered in the forest — and registered on the spot. The event was an Alpha course.
AZ closes their testimony with a prayer for you.
Whatever you carry right now, you can bring it to Him. You don’t need the right words.
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 10:13
If you don’t know how → Just ask him
Pray for anyone trapped in New Age or eastern spiritual practices who senses the void is still there — that God would meet them as he met AZ, in the very place they are searching, and show them the difference between transcendence and incarnation.
Is today your day?
Absolutely, He will.
You don't have to figure everything out right now.
You don't need to have all the answers.
If something stirred in your heart while you were watching or reading — that's not nothing.
That is the Holy Spirit gently knocking on the door of your heart.
Stay right here. There's no rush. The Spirit doesn't pressure or hurry.
Watch another video. Read a little more. Take your time.
When you're ready — even if “ready” just means a little curious — Jesus is ready to meet you.
You don't have to clean up your life first.
You don't have to pass any test.
You only need to say a simple “yes” to Him.
He will take care of the rest.
“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Luke 11:9
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