"The Raw Edge": Steve Schiller's Journey of Transformation - Life Bursts Episode 57

In this powerful episode of Life Bursts with Matt and Sarah, we dive deep into the remarkable story of Steve Schiller, a man whose life journey took him from rebellious youth to transformed Christian and biker ministry leader.

Steve's story begins in the small town of Mount Torrens in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia. Growing up in a Lutheran family, Steve struggled to connect with faith and found himself constantly in trouble at school and beyond. His rebellious nature and need for attention led him down a path of substance abuse, reckless behaviour, and deep depression.

The turning point in Steve's life came on a dark night on a dirt road, where a desperate prayer led to a profound encounter with God. This moment of transformation set Steve on a new path, though not without its challenges. He struggled to integrate his new faith with his old life and faced periods of backsliding and despair.

However, through persistent faith and the support of newfound Christian community, Steve found his way. His powerful testimony now serves as an inspiration to others, particularly in biker communities where he ministers.

Key Moments of the Interview:

1. Childhood Rebellion: 
"I was just the naughtiest kid in the school, so probably the most distracted and the most unengaging."

2. Moment of Transformation:
"I felt this transforming love and power just come from wherever I don't know where, you know. And it just went so deep that it changed me."

3. Struggle with New Faith:
"I tried telling people about this relationship with God, and they thought I was a nut. There was people that said, we liked you better when you was on substance."

4. Revelation of Grace:
"Do you mean to tell me that when Jesus died on the cross that he paid for my sin for the past and also for right now and for the entire future to the day that I die?"

FAQ:

Question: What led to Steve's initial transformation?
Answer: Steve's transformation began with a desperate prayer on a dirt road, where he experienced a profound encounter with God's love and power.

Question: How did Steve struggle after his initial conversion?
Answer: Steve struggled to integrate his new faith with his old life, faced rejection from old friends, and had periods of personal emotional difficulty.

Question: How does Steve now use his experiences to help others?
Answer: Steve uses his testimony to minister to others, particularly in biker communities. He shares his story of transformation to show that no one is beyond God's reach and that true change is possible.

Steve's journey from brokenness to redemption serves as a powerful reminder of the transformative power of faith. His story challenges us to consider that no one is beyond hope and that even the most troubled lives can be turned around. As Steve himself says, "If you would dare have the guts to open your heart to Jesus Christ, He will turn up. He will not ignore you." You can find Steve online at https://thejesustent.com.au/

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Episode Transcript:

**Sarah Freeman:**

Welcome to Life Bursts. I'm Sarah.
**Matthew Carratt:**

And I'm Matt. And today, from brokenness to bikie. Stick around.
**Sarah Freeman:**

Yes, welcome to Life Burst with Matt and Sarah and today we are chatting with Steve. So thank you Steve for joining us today. And we're going to start with the first question that we ask all of our guests is where did life start out for you?
**Steve Schiller:**

How you going? I'm an Adelaide Hills boy, so I was born in a little country town called Mount Torrens. Had a few hundred people and not the most exciting place on earth, but it was there and this is the community that we grew up in and, and I actually started out life in a family which had a level of commitment to church. It was a Lutheran church. I went along to the primary school there as well. And my, my entire take on what was happening was not entirely engaging for me. I guess I tried to. I don't know what that really means. So as a little kid I, I went to the primary school and I remember the teacher taking us all through the, the book of, or parts of the Bible. It was definitely Exodus, probably a children's Bible, you know, and it was really what it was doing was stirring something in me. So she was talking about Moses and the, the way God spoke to him out of a burning bush, the, the plagues that came on Egypt, all the different stuff. And, and something in me was like, if God is real, if God is like that, I really would like to know him. I'd like to, you know, like if he's personal, if he's real. But it was, it was a difficult thing for me because nothing appeared to work like that for me or nothing appeared to work like that around. It was just like religion and sort of some sort of stories about God and a lot of rules and 10 Commandments and I just couldn't engage any of them very well at all.
**Sarah Freeman:**

So how was in your family?
**Steve Schiller:**

Well, obviously I got two parents, Mum and dad of an older sister, Margie. Christine's an older sister and in between them was David. I was born a lot younger. Rest I sort of came along about seven years after Christine. Those three were within four years of each other, I think. So I remember later in life I'd talk about people and they were so surprised that I knew nothing about. Maybe they just thought that I absorbed everything as a little kid when I didn't, you know. So I sort of was quite. In some ways I felt really dislocated from the family or really, you know, not, not really engaging. So the whole thing of Family, God, everything like that didn't really engage for me very well at all.
**Matthew Carratt:**

So, what. What kind of a child were you then, growing up in that environment? I imagine you were quite the little angel.
**Steve Schiller:**

I was always distracted, right? Continually distracted in the school, in the classroom, I found myself unable to concentrate. Reading was one of my pet hates, so I couldn't handle it. I invented a vowel that I used when I wrote, which represented all five of them. I wrote really messed. And this, even. This sort of didn't even surface until I was in the Philippines in 1996 setting up a crusade. And I had a laptop and I'm trying to put in all these information and fax it all back into Malaysia. And I suddenly I realised I can't spell, I'm going to use a keyboard and I can't do anything with it. So you're.
**Matthew Carratt:**

You're inventive. You may do.
**Steve Schiller:**

Yeah. So, basically, myself and my teachers, yeah, we had an understanding of each other, that we just hated each other, you know? Yep, yep. I had a big huntsman spider in my desk and it was those old desks where they had the. The oil in Cole, you know, like the ink hole in the top and the hinge lid that you put all your books in there. Now, obviously, I'm a lot younger than that, but the discs were that old. And so I kept this huntsman spider in there and I put something over the inkwell holder, hide him in there. And when I pulled it off, he'd come bursting out of the hole and it. And there'd be girls running and screaming, you know, oh, it was great, you know. And then the teacher murdered my spider, which was horrific. I was just, you know, I had to deal with that as a little kid. Yeah.
**Matthew Carratt:**

Wow.
**Steve Schiller:**

So it was only a small primary school. There's about 26 kids. When I started, it's actually wound up and it's finished now. There's no school there at all. And I was just the naughtiest kid in the school, so probably the most distracted and the most unengaging. So then I get through to high school over at Birdwood and I found myself being in the trouble as well, continually. So it wasn't just a small group, it was the larger picture as well. That trouble sort of followed with. So it was an interesting environment. I was always looking for attention. I thrived on negative attention. That seemed to be what I got the most. So in the community, I found that if someone did something, if any of my mates did something, I had to take it to A further level and somehow push the boundaries to just be able to get the biggest laugh or the biggest under, you know, whatever it was that came out of it. So there'd be a lot of people.
**Matthew Carratt:**

In those schools and communities that still remember your name for all the wrong reasons.
**Steve Schiller:**

Well, yeah, yeah, I. I have a friend of mine who's lives in Tasmania. Zohosy. But for a while she was in Queensland as a. On staff, as a teacher in a. In a school at Springfield, a private school. And they were looking for people to come in and teach kids different skills. And she suggested me on the mechanical stuff and she mentioned my name to the principal and he said, I hope it's not the same Steve Schiller that I know. And he was actually my primary school principal at one stage. And Zoe's recollection is the blood drained out of his face. And he said, I never called any of my kids Stephen.
**Sarah Freeman:**

Wow. Okay. So where did this rebellion come from, do you think, Steve?
**Steve Schiller:**

I got no idea. I don't know if it was rebellion or just mischief. I don't know. I didn't seem to engage well with my dad. Dad was a lot older than me. He was 45, 54 when I was born. And he was worn out and tired all the time. And I guess in some ways I was a bit jealous of other people's dads, you know, because they would do stuff like kick a footy or do things and. And that sort of thing just never happened around me with my dad, I don't really understand it fully, but as a kid, when he walked in the room, I'd walk out of the room. I don't know why that happened. Pretty sad for him, really, in many ways. Not just, you know, I'm not just looking at myself, but, you know, the way it would have affected him, I'm sure would have been pretty awkward. And that father role is your primary role on how you relate to God. So I guess as a young fella, it was almost like, you know, having heard about God in the book of Exodus at primary school, it's like now he's got too old to have any fun anymore. I somehow related that in. And if God does exist, he doesn't do anything anymore like he used to. So to me, the whole, the whole package was very dismissible in. Of faith and of Christianity. Although I had this little spark of hunger as a kid. I was told that Easter Bunny and Santa Claus and, and God were, were all real. And then over time, I threw the. The entire Trinity out You know, which was Easter Bunny? Santa Claus.
**Sarah Freeman:**

Yeah. Well, where you will come back and hear more of Steve's story straight after this on Life Bursts with Matt and Sarah.
**Matthew Carratt:**

This is Life Bursts with Sarah and Matt. We are chatting to Steve and Steve has spoken of his childhood and he finished high school. Steve, what, what were your hopes? What did you feel like you'd fall into as as your future?
**Steve Schiller:**

Oh wow. Okay. I loved anything I could throw a spanner at. I, I hated school, I hated homework. But we, I used to go to the rubbish dump in Mount Torrens and the old boy used to keep all the old motorcycles and lawn mowers and everything there and I would just hang around and he'd collect them all up for me and mum would come down several hours later and with the Ute and we'd load her up and I'd take him home and fiddle around and get things going and I'd be always had something for sale. So the bod Tom was 16. I bought an 8 year old car with cash which was amazing. I'd sort of earned all this money, learned how to do this and I had a brother in law that was a mechanic and so I had someone to bounce everything off of and you know, pick everything up from. So I loved that. So I always, I just wanted to be a mechanic. So I did work experience at a couple of places and I got offered two apprenticeships within four hours which was pretty incredible. Yeah. And I had to make a choice between Hissy Motors over at Birdwood and Jarrett Nissen up at Bridgewater and I ended up at Bridgewater. So I got into that. But I still just gravitated to all the nonsense with the wrong people all the time and was always causing trouble and in trouble and drinking too much and driving too fast and swearing too much and just, you know, everything was always issue after issue. Now growing up my mum used to say that it wasn't really me, it was just the company I kept because mothers are beautiful protecting their chicks. You know they, they gather their little chicks under their wings and they, and they think nothing rough of them but mum would just say that and, and I got myself in quite a bit of trouble and, and I made this decision, this idea, this thought that if I hung around better people it would fix everything up. So I went along to the Lutheran Youth group in Spring Head which is the church that I'd sort of grown up going to thinking if I just get rid of all my bad influence mates and hang around these better people everything will come Right. The problem was I took all the trouble to the youth group. They were not, it wasn't, it wasn't going well and they were organising a camp, they were doing this camp somewhere, I don't know where and I paid to go. Then I turned up with a boot load of beer. And you can imagine having someone like that in your youth group if you're a youth leader and you're trying to sort them out and get rid of them. And I was just being rebellious and stupid and standing me ground and causing as much strife as I could, pulling down anyone I could into all the mischief that I got up to. And they had this guy come and share his story. So his name was Barry Good and he was, I believe, a Baptist minister. And he'd spent a lot of time in Yatala prison in South Australia. And he, he claimed that God had leaded his life in the prison. And then everything changed. He told his story and I was caught somewhere between this little child inside of me that was responding to what the school teacher was talking about with God being real and, and this guy being a complete idiot, you know, like there's something mentally wrong with him. Like how can you believe that? If you ask, you believe that. Don't, you know, make a big deal of it, like give it to yourself. So I was really uncomfortable and I, I just absolutely hated being in that big room with all these people. I was sitting right at the back inside. I'm sweating and freaking out. I'm just like not handling what I'm hearing. And after he was finished, he left and he went and all that stuff. And it was almost like I was able to re engage normality again. But prior to that I was just a wreck. So he said something in all the stuff that he said. He said, if you find Jesus Christ, you'll know God. Now he was putting this out to a very traditional faith based youth group which had the understanding that if you were sprinkled with water as a baby or christened that you were a Christian and everything about that was done. So there was no decisions to make, there was no accountability, there was no, I don't know what there was. I guess there's accountability because we have the ten Commandments. I really didn't engage God or religion whatsoever. But suddenly I'm confronted with somebody who talks about it like it's real and he dumps those words on me. If you find Jesus Christ, you'll know God. Well. The next three to four months, life spiralled out of control. I found that Every person who I thought was a friend was only an acquaintance. I was living in a car, I was, you know, couch surfing from place to place trying to survive. I was just a complete wreck and I got mixed up with some people that were really using me and I, I just didn't want to live. I didn't. I just. Absolute depression was kicking in like you wouldn't believe. And always had a bit of trouble with depression. At primary school my parents took me to see some sort of psychologist or something. They put me on some sort of medication and said that I had an overactive thyroid or something going on. I don't know what it was. No, I was too young to understand all the details but the. It just spiralled way out of control. So I'm driving my car between Strath Alban and Mount Barker and I had my foot on the throttle and I am boy, absolutely honking and I take my hands off the wheel and I take my time to roll a cigarette deliberately waiting for the end of everything, you know, and I'm just taking my time rolling away and I lit the smoke, put it in my mouth and the car's still on the road. It was not a perfectly straight bit of road and you can't do that on a perfectly straight bit of road either. You're gonna, you're going to run off.
**Sarah Freeman:**

It is quite deliberate.
**Steve Schiller:**

What's that?
**Sarah Freeman:**

Sorry, it's quite a windy road.
**Steve Schiller:**

It is a windy road, you know that bit of road. So if you want to go a step further, you go between Wistow, Mount Barker. That's a windy road. So it was another night. I was heading back that way because I was working up at Bridgewater but I was heading back from Strathalbyn and I'm coming into the corners, I'm absolutely exhausted and I would be nodding off, hitting the corners and coming into the corners. I'd hear the gravel and it would wake me up in a shock and, and I'd pull the steering wheel back onto the road and I was just absolutely, you know, and. And then I made this decision that I don't want to go any further. I'm going to keep my eyes shut. I'm gonna just. That's it. I'm gonna die. So that's what I did. And then I woke up feeling cold. Several hours had gone by. The car was on the side of the road and it was, it was parked with the handbrake on and the headlights turned off. And you know, in my mind I'm going, I must have done that. But deep inside of me there was absolutely no recollection of having done it. And I knew that, but I was in total denial. I was in denial. I must have done that. I must have pulled over and done that. Was the only account that I could put to it. And then following that, another week later, I actually smashed the car. I. I come up over a hill in Spring Head, Mount Torrens area, ran up the back of another car, wrecked the front of it. Spent the whole night just putting other panels on. I had a few of these things that I'd collected for a few hundred bucks here and there and. And got it going again. I went a whole night, no sleep. And then I went down to Strathalbyn to hang out with some acquaintances that I just determined I'd never go back to. But I did. I went back, hung out with them. It was Penny Farthing Day, 1986, and when everything was wound up, we, we just got in the car and we drove off down this dirt road somewhere between Strath and Victor Harbour. And we were just. They were just really crazy. They're on substance. A lot of alcohol involved, drugs involved, different things. I, I didn't. I'd sort of hit the wall inside of myself where everything is wrong and I can't go any further with any of this stuff. It's like I'm looking for truth, I'm looking for real. I don't know where it is. I'm completely lost and completely damaged by everything I'm doing to myself and other people and. And. And I. We're listening to this music. It was. It was AC dc, Steve.
**Matthew Carratt:**

That's a great place to pause because things don't sound good, but.
**Sarah Freeman:**

No, they certainly don't. And if something like it's bringing something up for you in your mind right now or in your life, Lifeline are always there. 13 11 14 to give a call as well. So we'll be back with more Life Bursts straight after this. Welcome back to Life Bursts with Matt and Sarah. Now, just before we went to the break, I did interrupt to give the Lifeline number, which is 13 11 14. If you need someone to chat to about anything that we're talking about today with Steve because he is talking about some pretty heavy stuff that's happened in his life. He's being really honest. So thank you, Steve, for being so honest and sharing your life story with us and how it really was. Thank you.
**Steve Schiller:**

Yeah, you're welcome.
**Matthew Carratt:**

Steve, you got to this moment, you were with some mates, you were in the car, you had some AC DC going. So, yeah, continue the story. Where did. Where did things go from there?
**Steve Schiller:**

Well, we were miles away from any houses. We was out on some sort of a dirt road surrounded by paddocks. And we had that music cranking that much that the speakers were just about bouncing off the parcel shelf into the back window. And something in me is just absolutely despising everything that I do and everything that we do. So these mates, acquaintances and really, really not mates, but they were just gone crazy. They'd gone crazy. They're starting to actually rip the. The hood lining out of the car. They're starting to damage things. It was almost like the music had somehow possessed their behaviour, you know, and it was. It was just gone. And I couldn't put my finger and I couldn't understand it. And I grabbed the cassette and I ripped it out of the player and I threw it. I just held it out in the middle of the paddock and it was instant silence, you know, for less than a second until the explosion of reaction from everyone else in the car. They just went off at me like I was. Like I'd committed some sort of a crime that was unable to be resolved. And I grabbed hold of another tape which was just in the car. It was money for nothing. It was the. Was a song I put in and I just put it in. It starts to build up this. This guitar riff and it really takes off. I just sort of put in the car into the tape and I started to walk away from the car and I probably only travelled maybe 100 or so metres, 200 metres, I don't know. And I'm. I just, like. I'm disconnecting from everyone around me and I don't know why, but I'm just standing there. And while I'm standing there, a decision. I don't even know if it was a decision from my mind, but I'd come to a place where enough is enough. I've got to turn. I've got to turn from where I am to where I need to go. And I didn't. I really didn't believe in God. My mind could not accept him. I've been raised in a Christian school, but I embraced, you know, evolution. I embraced everything that my mates are into. And the. The whole concept of God not being real was actually very safe in one sense for me. Because if God's real, I'm accountable because that's what I was taught that, you know, with. With church and stuff. But here I am standing there and I pray and I Had no idea that I was going to do that. I. I was. I was. I must have been as surprised as God when I prayed. I mean, I don't know. It didn't come from my mind. It certainly didn't come from my emotions. My emotions were such a wreck. I had no tears. I hadn't. Hadn't had any tears for quite a period of time. It was like I'd become so hardened emotionally. But it was deep inside of me. And the Bible actually says that deep calls out to deep. And I guess that's what was happening. It was deeper than my emotions and deeper than my thoughts and my mind. And I don't even really know what I prayed. I really don't. But I know that deep inside I was going, God, if you're real, and I know that this Barry Good Guy knows you, so I need to know you too. And I don't. I don't even know what I prayed. But it was as I'm doing this. There's another guy that was in the car and he got out and he had walked up next to me. His name was Gordon. We used to call him Buddha because he had a bit of a belt on him, something which I've got these days. And he stood next to me and he prayed out loud. Something very, very similar. And I never opened my mouth, but I felt this transforming love and power just come from wherever I don't know where, you know. And it just went so deep that it changed me now. It was a dark night. It was not right, but it probably was, but it was cloud covered in, and it was very bright with moonlight above it. But it was like the air movement moved everything open. And the two of us are standing there and I'm experiencing light that I never knew was available. It was like it wasn't physically able to be seen with my eyes, but it just flooded through me. And the same thing is happening to Gordo. The two of us are experiencing this encounter with God that we didn't know would have happened, could have happened, should have happened. We were just completely lost. And then all of a sudden, it's like, we're found. We didn't know how. I didn't have an understanding really of the Bible. I felt washed and forgiven. I'd never, ever felt forgiveness or I'd never felt clean. And it was. It was such a transformation. And we went back to the car and there's two young ladies there that we were doing all the wrong things with and hanging out with. And they exploded. Really volatile. They Were just so angry and there was a bit of witchcraft involved. There's a bit of stuff, you know, they're messing around with the occult. And there was things going on. So I guess it was a complete clash of two kingdoms. The kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. And I never. I never knew that these things existed. And all of a sudden I'm full on confronted with it. And these two girls that think that we're just lost and gone crazy. So everything I thought about Barry, good, suddenly someone else is thinking about me. You know, I'd change camps. I didn't even know that the camp, the other camp was there, and I'd change camps. I was flooded with love. I never. I drove away from that roadside experience and I'm throwing alcohol out the window of the car and drugs and pornography and. And all sorts of things. I came to a packet of cigarettes. I grabbed them, I put them in my top pocket. I said, you're not getting them. You know, God is good. And he. He was able to weed my garden when it needed weeding. Now, I deliberately went separate directions from Gordon because I thought, if he tells me this isn't real, I got nothing. I needed this so much. But it was another 18 months later I met him again in the Mount Barker Uniting Church. They were doing a Life in the Spirit course. And there he was and there I was. And we were just so blown away by finding each other again after this wilderness, crazy roadside adventure, Miles away from any churches, any Christians, anything. And it was like, I don't know. We just open our hearts to him. I want to say that if you open your heart to God, he will not ignore you. It is just so, so real. Yeah.
**Matthew Carratt:**

Wow. So that was a defining moment. Something shifted in you, in your experience, your understanding. What shifted in the way that you lived life from that day on.
**Sarah Freeman:**

That's a good question.
**Steve Schiller:**

It was a couple of weeks after this experience. One of the guys in the workplace, he's in spare parts and he said to me, he said, what's happened to you? You're so different. What has happened? And I didn't know what to tell him. I just said, I met God. And the guy just laughed his guts out and he walked away. And I felt like a complete idiot. I didn't know what to. But I said, what do you mean I'm different? He said, well, the mongrel Steve is gone. You're like a different person. And I don't know, I felt like I was floating. I didn't understand any of it. The difficulty that was coming was I had no understanding of the Gospel, I had no understanding of the Bible. So I tried reading it. I thought, well, I'm a Christian now, I've got to read the Bible. I open, open it up and. And it probably said something about putting blood on the side. The old. It must have been bang on in Leviticus somewhere, you know. And I shut it again and goes, that's not for me. And. And so I. I wanted to go to church, but I was terrified because of all the stuff I'd got up to and. And I was told that if I ever showed up, I'd be, you know, grilled and whatever.
**Sarah Freeman:**

So there was a lot of fear there, Steve. A lot of fear had of going as well. So we'll hear more about that and the rest of Steve's story straight after this on Life Bursts with Matt and Sarah. Welcome back to Life Bursts with Matt and Sarah. Today we're chatting with Steve. Now, Steve, you've got up to the part of your story where you're a bit fearful of going into church because of the things that you'd done and the fear of being judged by other people. Is that what happened when you went to church?
**Steve Schiller:**

All right, well, I didn't. I had no idea what I was doing. I. I decided that I'd try. The only church that I ever knew of was Springhead Lutheran Church. I didn't even know. I mean, I'd seen a building in the town that I think might have been Anglican or something. And as a little kid, I might have said, hey, Mum, there's a different church. And I think she said, oh, they don't believe what we believe, or something like that. So I just naturally thought, well, I've got to go to this Lutheran Church. And I was so terrified that I waited till everyone was in. I sat on the doorstep and I rolled a cigarette and I just sat there. I'm wearing all my black clothes and my Rossy Ripple souls and just whatever. And the minister, he preached for 10 minutes every week, every Sunday, 10 minutes. And in that 10 minutes, he nailed exactly what was going on in my life. I don't know how he knew. It was like, how can that happen? But I also found that I'd turn the radio on and I didn't know there was such a thing as Christian music, but I'd hear secular songs that I'd heard a thousand times, and whatever I was praying about, whatever I was talking to God about would burst out of these lyrics. And it would hit me exactly what I needed to hear. Suddenly, God was real. He was everywhere I was. Everything that I was thinking he would. He would deal with, I didn't know what to make of it. So I tried telling people about this relationship with God, and they thought I was a nut. There was people that said, we liked you better when you was on substance. You know, like, not that long ago, I had lunch with one of my aunties, and she said, when all that happened, you know, your other two aunties said, well, he's really lost it now. You know, like, he's really lost it. And I just tried to navigate what was happening, and I didn't understand it. I couldn't engage anyone with it. It actually took me on a journey that went on about four months later where I was. I tried to go to another youth camp. I thought, maybe I'll try that. And it was in Loxton in South Australia. They had a lot of youth groups there. It was a Lutheran thing. And every camp, every church group, youth group had to put on some sort of a ski tour or something. And the Mount. I think it was a Mount Barker Lutheran youth group, they put one on and they had this massive silhouette scene on a stage and all these people drinking and just not. Not even engaging each other. Really messed up. And there's a lot of. There's like a drug party sort of thing. And. And guess what? They were playing that song, Money For Nothing from Dire Straits. And they're playing this and. And this. And this build up in this riff in the music comes up to a real plateau thing, which was, for whatever reason, the time that I prayed and opened my heart to God and it invaded my life. So they're playing this, right?
**Sarah Freeman:**

Yeah.
**Steve Schiller:**

And they've got the silhouette of all these people in drunkenness and darkness and whatever. And it gets that same riff in the music. And then they had this massive floodlight come on from the side of the stage, and everyone turned around and just stood there in the light. And I'm standing in the middle of this group of people. They were Lutheran, and they didn't really show religious emotion or anything like that. And I'm standing there wearing all me black clothes, me ripple souls, and, you know, whatever I am, I'm just Bogan as Bogan. And the tears are just flooding out of me. They're just hitting all over the floor. I just can't contain it any longer. You know, God is just doing something that I can't understand. This young lady come over, she said, are you okay? I said, better than I've ever been in my life. I just got to talk to someone about this. I can't keep it in. And we sat around this bonfire until daylight. And she finally said, I think you've been born again. Someone told me, this is the sort of thing that happens when you're born again. And I thought these are the only words that can possibly describe in reality. It was like one life had finished and gone and a new one had come, and I couldn't go with it anywhere else. But I. I didn't. I didn't engage people. I tried to. People would just laugh at me and tell me that I was crazy. I didn't really have around me people that understood what had happened. And as a result, the rejection, the pain, the stuff in my life put me on a really bad journey again. I found myself messing around with substance and a lot, with alcohol and a lot of the things that are really taken a hold of my life revisited. And I ended up living in a changa. And there was a workshop there that's opposite the pub. And I'm standing in that workshop with one foot each side of this pit, and I've just had enough, and I'm gonna. I've got a gantry train around my neck, and I just want to end it all, because I felt like God gave me a second chance and I blew it. And I didn't understand that. I didn't understand the gospel. I thought that somehow God had given me a second chance and it was all over now. I had no future in my own mind. I was just completely ruined. And I'm about to do something that I should never do. And I hope no one listening to this would ever attempt to do that. There's always Lifeline, Please, you know. And while I'm standing there with this chain around my neck, I hear words. And they weren't my words, and they weren't audible, but they were very, very loud. They burst through into my person. And these words were, you can't do this because you know me. And it was God speaking. And that. That was, in all honesty, the first time I really heard the voice of God. Not just the right lyrics on the radio or the. It was like he just spoke. And I took the chain off and I dropped myself into the bottom of the pit. I was angry, I was upset, and I. And I thought, well, God doesn't want me, but he won't let me die. I couldn't understand what was happening. I was so wrecked by it all. Well, about a week later, as this Young guy comes to me, wants me to look at a radiator for him, and he starts talking about Jesus. And I'm thinking, this guy knows what I know. Nobody else wants to know what I know, but this guy knows what I know. His name was Glenn Pitchford and he was going to the Echunga Uniting Church. And he told me about the church and he said, be good if you come. And I'm thinking, be good if I don't, you know. But it got the better of me because I thought God didn't want me. But if God doesn't want me, why would he send someone in there to talk to me? It didn't make sense. And I thought, well, I've got to do something. So I prayed and I said, God, even though you don't want me, I want you. So I'm going to go to church. And so I wandered in that building and I sat myself on the. On the backseat after everyone had started, and I thought, no one will see me here. And I took off before they finished and got away with it for maybe three weeks. And then someone blocked the doorway and started a conversation with me. And I was terrified. I couldn't put a sentence together without the bad language hijacking my words, you know, And I thought. And I got through it anyhow. And someone invited me along to a Bible study group. And I couldn't read. I couldn't understand how. I couldn't understand the Bible, I couldn't understand words. I was dyslexic, so I could read a sentence. I get the full stop. I didn't know what happened. And these people, they knew every book and every chapter and every verse and they could quote where they found it. And I felt like an inch tall amongst a forest of giants. And I didn't understand what was going on. But somewhere somebody said a few things that sort of made some sort of sense to me, and it caused me to ask a question. And I said, do you mean to tell me that when Jesus died on the cross that he paid for my sin for the past and also for right now and for the entire future to the day that I die? And they said, yes. And I was confronted with the best news that any person could ever hear. This is the best news ever. There's a guy that wrote out a cheque big enough to pay for anything, and he signed it in his own blood. And if you were dead in it will transform everything for you. It will.
**Sarah Freeman:**

Absolutely. Your story so far is so powerful, and I think we're only up to when you're quite young. It's been very powerful so far from where you've come to where you are now in the story with us. So we'll be back with more of Steve's story straight after this on Life Bursts with Matt and Sarah. Welcome back to Life Bursts with Matt and Sarah. Today we're chatting with Steve and he's taken us on a roller coaster of a ride of different emotions and different things that have happened in his life that's only happened to him. But we're really aware that, you know, people listening and watching to this, wherever you are, might be going through similar things to do with suicide or depression, anxiety, fear, drugs or alcohol or abuse. And so, Steve, in the last few minutes of our show, I'd really love for you to share some type of practical advice for those people that are listening and watching from your experience. And what helped, like, what helped you get through all of that?
**Steve Schiller:**

Wow, this is going to be a bit of a marathon, but we'll, we'll have a bit of fun with it.
**Sarah Freeman:**

Yeah.
**Steve Schiller:**

So, hey, look, I've, I've been walking this walk for 37ish years and I've seen the faithfulness of God so many times. I just want to share with you one story about a guy called Hoppy. So I've written a book and this is it here. It's called the Raw Edge of the Christian Experience. And Hoppy is, he features in one of the chapters where Aussie men can't cry, but Jesus men can. So, so Hoppy's. I met him at Goodner in Brisbane or outside of Brisbane. I go into a Repco store and I'm picking up parts. And as I'm leaving, he makes him presence known to me. Gets up the side window of my car and he's, he tells me there's a problem with his vehicle. And we get talking about it and he, you know, I told him I think it was the fuel pump and gave him a basic price. And then he, he goes, he goes, we talk motorcycles. He's Odin's warriors member. He's got a vest on. I'm a member of Road Riders for Jesus. I'm in the van. I'm not in the leaves that day. But he spots what's something on the back of my van as he had approached. And it's the, the, the face of Jesus and two big hands that are stretched out with nails stuck through him through the centre of the other hands. And it says the mechanic can fix most things, but he can Fix it all. I had a sign, right, to put it on there. So Hoppy had seen that we're talking motorcycles, we're talking all sorts of stuff. And he goes, what, you Christian or something? And I'm thinking, are you seen it? And I said, yeah, mate, what about you? And he exploded. He go, I got too much, you know, blankety, blankety blank for that sort of crap, you know. And I said, well, I'll give you some advice, mate. Get yourself a white shirt and a tie. Go to as many church meetings as you can. Give all your money away to some preacher somewhere and read the Bible 50 hours a month and pray 50 hours a month and see if you can pay off a billion dollar moral debt with 2 cents worth of hard trying. You're screwed, man. I'm screwed. Religion does nothing. But that bloke on the back of my van, he wrote out a cheque that's big enough to pay for anything and he signed it in his own blood and if you'd have the guts to cash it in, it will change everything. And he just looked at me and he goes, you put that straight. You put a lot of colourful language into saying that as well. But, but listen, he got it. Two hours later, I'm at his house, he's trying to wave me off the property. He's having a big argument with the woman. They're, they're going, going for it like a couple of cats caught in a washing machine on a spin cycle. And he doesn't, you know, and I just knew I had to be there a bit longer. So I called him out of the house, I said, mate, you know, let's look at the car while I'm here. He said, we're not going to fix it, we don't have the money. I said, mate, I don't care, let's look at it. Let's get things underway. If you want it done later, we'll sort it out. Dined up at the backyard with him and he's so wound up and so mad and the dogs are going crazy and he gets out of the house and he's grabbed hold of the quarter panel on the back of the car and he drops on his. On his knees. He only had one leg, actually, one prosthetic leg he'd lost in a motorcycle accident and he's howling his head off and he says, every time I look at you, you're frighten the hell out of me. What is happening? And I said, mate, it's not me, it's Jesus. He's not here to hurt you, he's here to fix you. And he's just freaking out. I talked to him about the violence. He said, I'm glad you're here, I would have killed her. And he was talking about the lady in the house and he was determined that she wanted to die and that he should go to jail for it. So he thought that she was pushing her buttons to actually make everything go really far south. And they'd had a very violent relationship and it was out of control. And I said, mate, I said, you're not in charge, are you? The violence is in charge of you. And he told me that his parents had been really violent people. His grandfather had murdered someone. His great grandfather had been murdered in a ship in Port Adelaide. There we go, Adelaide, Brisbane again. I don't know how that works, but. And, and I said, well, these things can go three or four generations. And he goes with that, you know, I'm if and cursed, you know, he just completely lost it. I said, it's a rock, mate. Jesus fixes this stuff. It's only a formality. And he's bawling his eyes out. He says, I can't even look at you. What the hell is going on? And I said, mate, Aussie men can't cry, but Jesus men can. And you're changing camps. This guy just stopped. I saw him open his heart to the Lord. I don't know what happened, but I laid hands on him and I commanded the spirit of violence to come out of him. He saw a big black thing come up and leave his body. I just saw his countenance change. And then he got up and he said, I've got to get upstairs and get the weapons out of the house. I said, well, that sounds like fun. Can I come with you? Darn site. More exciting than fixing cars, I can tell you right now. Yeah, he pulls out this three seater lounge and, and he's filling up two plastic buckets with hand weapons. And, and on the way up there, I said, can I talk to you, Mrs. Can I talk to your lady? Her name was Lisa. He told me her name and he, it was the first time he looked kind of nervous when he mentioned her name. And, and I got in the house and I yelled out, hey, Lisa love, can you come out? I need to talk to you. And she come out and she just looks at me and she looks straight past me and she sees Hoppy. They called him Hoppy because of his one, one leg. And, and they, she's just staring at him. Can't keep her eyes off him. And he looked like a different man, but she is seeing a transformed human being. And. And I said, Lisa, love, I said, he's just taken Jesus Christ into his life. This stuff works. You need it. Are you in or out? And she goes, I'm in. And I thought, well, that was simple. So I wanted to pray with her. I just thought. I put my hand on her shoulder and I said, can I pray with you? And I started to pray and her eyes rolled back into her head and all I could see was the whites of her eyes. The rest had sort of disappeared. She starts to fall backwards. And I held her up and I said, hey, Hoppy, get over here and hold onto her. She's going to topple. And he comes, he drops his buckets of weapons, he comes flogging his way across the room and he gets his arm around her and the two of them are there just boiling tears all over the floor, just soaking into the old floorboards of the old Queenslander house. And God is all over him like a fat kid on a cupcake, I'm telling you. And I didn't know what to do with him. And I get this one word marriage now. It just popped into my heart. And over a period of time, I guess I've come to really know when God's saying something. But in a circumstance like that, that's not the word you have, that's not the word you say. But things are just rolling along so fast, all I can do is just sprout it out of my mouth. And I said, are you two married? And. And they just shake their heads. I said, no. And I thought, oh, well, I didn't expect you would be. I don't know what I'm gonna do now. And so I thought, well, this is awkward. I'll go downstairs and work on the car. And I said, I said, listen, Hoppy, I'll go and work on the car and you work out how you're going to propose to this Lovely lady. And 10 minutes later, he comes down the stairs, grabs me by on my biceps, he's shaking the daylight out of me, saying. She said, yes, you know, it was going to, it was a dead set deal and God intervened. And this has been the stories that I have seen so many times with people right through, from drug addiction and outlaw bikers and people that are absolutely locked. But God. But God comes and. And if anyone. I want to tell you, the advice that I would give any listener here today is if you would dare have the guts to open your heart to Jesus Christ. He will turn up. He will not ignore you. He will not ignore you. When he was on the cross with his hands stretched out, nails through his hands, he was not ignoring you. He was thinking of you. Listening to this interview right now, listening to this Life Bursts right now, he was thinking of you.
**Matthew Carratt:**

Beautiful.
**Sarah Freeman:**

Yeah.
**Matthew Carratt:**

Thank you, Steve. Thanks so much for sharing your story, your past, and to offer how you found a future. So we really appreciate that.
**Sarah Freeman:**

Yeah, that's. That's right. And yeah, of course, lifeline 13 11 14 is always there, as Steve mentioned as well during the interview. And it's Steve's story. So thank you, Steve, for sharing it with us today. And you can catch up with more of life best episodes on wherever you get your podcasts from, from community radio, television and online through Facebook and YouTube. This is Life Bursts. I'm Sarah.
**Matthew Carratt:**

And I'm Matt. Thank you for joining us today.
**Voice-Over:**

Life Bursts is hosted by Matthew Carratt and Sarah Freeman with production by Rhys Jarrett and Keykhosrow Azadegan. For more episodes of Life Bursts, go to https://rawcut.au, this is a RawCut Production.