Patrick Higgins is an Amazon bestseller and multi-award winning author of several books, including the end times prophetic series, Chaos In The Blink Of An Eye. The first award he received for the series was the Radiqx Press Spirit-Filled Fiction Award of Excellence. His latest recognition for the CHAOS series was winning the 2024 International Impact Book Award (Best Fiction – Christian Fiction). Each of the first nine installments of the CHAOS series, have achieved Best Seller status, praise God!
Further, while most awards groups don’t allow a book series to be entered into their contests, until it has first been completed, the CHAOS series has nevertheless won several book awards. The latest recognition was winning the 2024 International Impact Book Award (Best Fiction – Christian Fiction). With the series nearly completed, we anticipate more book awards to come. Lord willing…
Higgins also won several meritorious awards for his book, I Never Knew You. Among them were the 2021 Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal in Christian fiction, 2021 Independent Author Network (IAN) book of the year winner in Christian fiction, 2022 American Best Book Awards finalist in Christian fiction, and 2021 International Book Awards finalist in Christian Fiction.
And his book, The Unannounced Christmas Visitor, won the 2016 International Publishers Awards (IPA) and the 2018 Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal Awards in Christian fiction.
Higgins also wrote “The Pelican Trees”, and “Coffee In Manila”.
While the stories he writes all have different themes and take place in different settings, the one thread that links them all together is his heart for Jesus and for the lost. With that in mind, it is his wish that the Gospel message his stories convey will greatly challenge you not only to contemplate life this side of the grave, but on the other side as well.
Higgins is currently writing many other books, both fiction and non-fiction, including a sequel to “Coffee in Manila”, which will shine a bright, sobering spotlight on the diabolical human trafficking industry. Enjoy reading…
What started me down the road to Redemption…
I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, but I have lived in Florida since 2008. I also lived in California in the mid-80s, with my twin brother and two other friends. We moved out there hoping to become rock stars, of all things! The reason you never listened to our records is that we never made any! This forced me to once again contemplate my future. I assure you that being a writer, especially a Christian writer, was never a consideration. I wasn’t even saved back then! In fact, had I made a list of the top 100 future professions, it would have never even made the list!
This is just further proof of how God works in mysterious ways…
Whenever I look back on my childhood in Pennsylvania, my mind becomes flooded with fond memories. Life was so much simpler back then, not easier, but definitely simpler. I was raised in a tightknit Irish-Catholic family, with my four brothers and one sister. We were blessed with two wonderful parents, who did a remarkable job in providing for us. They were strict, and they never hesitated to discipline us whenever we needed it. In short, they ran a tight household. But they loved us unconditionally. I wish more kids in our world today could be exposed to this sort of structured environment. It would do them all a lot of good. Those were the days…
Growing up in the Catholic Church, I had all the “religion” I could handle. Like most Catholics in the neighborhood, I was baptized as an infant into the Church. I attended Mass and Catechism (CCD) classes on most Sundays. I confessed my sins to priests, on several occasions. I recited countless “Our Father’s” and “Hail Mary’s”, performed many “good works”, was encouraged to pray to Mary, not to mention the many other saints that countless Catholics prayed to on any given day. I was even an altar boy with my twin brother, Michael.
Despite all that, I never felt a sustained closeness to the One who made me, only occasional spurts here and there. If anything, doing those things kept pushing me farther away from God, even if I didn’t know it at the time. Even more telling, in all my years in the Catholic Church, no one ever encouraged me to read the Word of God for myself. This would explain the lack of intimacy I felt back then with my Maker.
Everything changed early one evening, back in 1991, while I was out for a walk. At some point along the way, I stumbled upon a Catholic Church. To say I was in a bad place at that time would be an understatement. And since I was living in constant rebellion toward God, I felt a million miles away from Him, a billion miles even!
Strangely enough, I remember feeling this overwhelming stirring in my spirit. Was God trying to communicate something to me? One way to find out, I remember thinking to myself. Instead of venturing inside the church to pray, I stood there in the empty parking lot and looked skyward. “I know You’re up there, God. Even with the many religions out there, I still believe You are who You say You are. I also believe that Jesus is Your Son, and that the virgin Mary gave birth to Him.”
With tears in my eyes, I asked the One who knit me together in my mother’s womb, “So, why do I feel so far away from You? Why do I sometimes feel all alone in the universe? Do you even know who I am? Do you even care about me?” I took a moment to pull myself together, then ended our one-way conversation by saying, “I want to know You better. Please reveal Yourself to me. If you do, I’m all yours…”
At that, without hearing any thunder roaring, seeing lightning flashing in the night sky, or without hearing a faint inner voice, I started for home, feeling that God didn’t want to communicate with me after all. Or so I thought… (Guess you could say I was having a Shelby McKinney moment! HAHA! Only those who have read The Pelican Trees will understand this).
The Bible tells us that those who seek Him with all their hearts and minds WILL find Him. He didn’t say “we might find Him” or “there’s an outside chance”. He was emphatic that those who sincerely seek Him “will” find Him!
That’s precisely what I was doing that night; despite that I was living in constant sin. But since I was genuinely seeking Him, God remained true to His promise, by lovingly replacing my heart of stone with a heart of flesh. It was the beginning of a total life transformation for me…
The first change I noticed in myself was that I started hungering and thirsting for the Word of God. Believe me when I say, up until that time, I wanted nothing to do with the Bible. To me, it was a dull and boring Book that was chock full of condemning laws that would never agree with my sinful lifestyle, which was full of sex, booze, and rock and roll. Thankfully, I never did drugs. Other than that, I had failed God in every other way. But my curiosity kept gnawing away at me, until I finally got hold of a Bible. I started in Matthew.
Try as I might, I couldn’t stop reading it. It was truly remarkable! Each time I was confronted with my hopeless sin condition, it stung me in the deepest chambers of my soul. But I also felt Christ’s love speaking to me through those Divinely inspired pages. It washed over me like a tidal wave. Up until that time, had anyone asked if Jesus was my Lord and Savior, I’m sure I would have said, “Absolutely!”
But it wasn’t until I genuinely repented of my numerous sins, before a just and Holy God that night, and received Jesus as my Lord and Savior, that the Spirit of the Most High God took up residence in my heart. Hallelujah!
By far, it was the greatest day of my life.
With my sins forgiven, and my eternal future secure, I yearned to draw even closer to my Lord. One day, I was in the checkout line at the local supermarket. Hidden in the racks proudly displaying all those gossip magazines, was a small book of quotes.
Curious, I opened it up to no particular page, and I read a quote from Charles Spurgeon. At that time, I had no idea who that man was, or that he was widely known as the prince of preachers. All I knew was that his quote in that tiny book had forever altered my life.
That quote was, “A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.” BAM! That quickly became my goal in life. I can honestly say that I read the covers off my first two Bibles. They were falling apart, but I certainly wasn’t!
But I must say, the more I kept reading my Bible, the more I noticed the vast discrepancies between what God’s Word taught, and what I learned in the Catholic Church. These discrepancies were so vast that I ultimately decided to leave the Church.
I have always admired the strong faith and total dedication that so many Catholics display. It’s commendable how some can be seen in church on their knees in fervent prayer, for hours on end. Some will do this several times a week. But what they fail to understand is that “their dedication to the church”, “performing various works” or praying to Mary, and the many other saints, can do nothing to save their souls.
Now, am I suggesting that Catholics won’t go to Heaven? By no means! But what I can say beyond a certainty is, for all who will end up in Glory when their time on earth comes to an end, being a Catholic will have absolutely nothing to do with it. Then again, the same can be said for Baptists, Presbyterians, Evangelicals, and on and on.
It can’t be stated enough: The only way anyone can have God’s eternal assurance, is by trusting in Christ, and Him alone. Only then will God forgive their sins. Personal works and one’s denomination have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Ephesians 2:8-9 states: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” There you have it. As the passage unequivocally declares, God’s salvation has nothing to do with performing good deeds, church attendance, baptism, feeding the homeless, or your preferred church denomination. We’re saved by {God’s} grace alone, through faith.
While we certainly aren’t saved by works, for those who are truly saved by God’s “unmerited” grace, we are saved unto them. In other words, those who are truly born again won’t have to be told to do good works, they will do them naturally.
So, whether you are a Catholic, a Baptist, or if you come from any other denomination, the simple truth is if you have God’s eternal assurance, being a Catholic or a Baptist isn’t the reason for it. It all comes down to God’s grace through Christ Jesus, nothing more. In short: YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN! There is no other way!
This is why, as a Christian writer, one of my greatest longings is to reach out to Catholics and lost sinners everywhere, and share the true Gospel with them, so they too can have the very same eternal assurance I have in Christ Jesus, and in Him alone!
If you have an issue with this, your problem isn’t with me. Your problem is with the Creator of the universe. So, take it up with Him. Yahweh’s grace and peace be with you…
*** This is an excerpt from Patrick Higgins’ upcoming autobiographical book. It will be available in the near future.
To contact author for book signings or speaking engagements: patrick12272003@gmail.com.