NELSON-LIKE on his fifty-foot rocky pillar in the Syrian desert, Simeon Stylites was the celebrity saint of the fifth century, The pillar was his home for thirty-six years without roof or shelter: the crowds flocked to hear him speak, emperors climbed the ladder to seek his advice, and - most mind-boggling of all - other seekers joined him, on their own stony pillars.

In his childhood-fantasy world, Jake dreamed of becoming a famous mystic or orator like Simeon. Or a famous politician. Then again, perhaps a writer - or a footballer? Whatever - he was going to make his mark on the world.

But in fact, Jake was an insecure child. After having lived with his bohemian parents in Spain in his very early years, he arrived at respectable Hertfordshire and the respectable school of a respectable village. The alternative young "hippy" was considered to be "out of control". This, combined with his asthma and eczema, alienated Jake. Behind the walls of his imaginary world, he "showed them all", but reality was bleak.

His teens brought bravado: Jake "reinvented himself' and began to be seen as the leader he ached to be. Politics became the big thing. Seeing a poor man in Portugal wash himself in a muddy puddle and other experiences had made a deep impression on him. His anger at the world, combined with his desire to make his mark on it, forged in him dreams of becoming a Marxist hero. And he began to drink. At thirteen.

By sixteen, the "reinvention" was well underway. "My first year at tertiary college in Harlow was a good year in all the wrong ways", Jake now says. "Parties and raves, acid, dope and drink. And women became a feature. I was the leader of the pack, but I began to have these strange feelings about it all: I began to despise my friends as the very kind of people who had rejected me in my childhood".

More than this, Jake had begun to despise himself "for being shallow and for using people, especially girls". As Jake's gang became increasingly submerged in drink, drugs and violence, his life became a tangle of lies. In the chaos, Jake started to wonder who he really was.

Still, a talent for exams got him good enough A levels to go to Cambridge. "I used to enjoy giving everything up three weeks before an exam and totally focusing myself Jake recalls. (Something of Simeon Stylites lingered under the drink and drugs.) The successful image preserved, Jake moved on. But the Harlow street-fighter didn't really fit in with the independent-school types who strolled around the college backs. Jake left Cambridge, three years later, with depression, a barely-contained drink-drug habit, and a degree in History.

Jake and his Harlow crew had put on a huge party in the summer of 1991, "the legendary rave summer". Jake was in his element, "a god among gods"; but all night he kept thinking of a song he'd sung at school. "Who is the Lord of the Dance?" he kept asking his mates. They thought he was losing his mind. And he was - but he was also beginning to perceive Someone calling, through the cloud of confusion.

Aged 21, Jake set off for India, the land of mystics and seekers. Not that he saw himself as a "seeker". Ironically, the first thing he found in India was the Western drugs scene. Nevertheless, a brush with death in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi -Jake, high on drugs, fell off a tall building - and an encounter with an Indian Christian who, as he remembers, "looked into my eyes and just seemed to know me" began to reach through to him.

He had no money and was "living on blag". In Manali, in the Himalayas, Jake found himself hanging out with some of the most dubious characters on earth (or at least, in Manali). One day, he felt an asthma attack coming on and realised that if he passed out his dodgy companions could hardly be relied upon to look after him. Beginning to panic, he glanced out of the window at the majestic mountains and a thought hit him - there was no way that such beauty could have happened by chance. There had to be a God. At the precise moment of this revelation, Jake's lungs cleared. From this time on, Jake knew that God was real and started to look for other signs of His reality.

Back in the UK, however, life began to unravel fast as the years of pandemonium took their toll. He ended up in psychiatric hospital, having reached the brink of suicide. "I'm not allowed to tell you this", whispered the ward sister, "but it was Jesus who brought you here!" Jake was getting the message loud and clear.

Once discharged, Jake went along to a local Anglican church. "I can tell he's just proud and stuffy", he thought about the vicar. A moment later, the vicar's mouth fell open, he gasped and staggered backwards in his pulpit. The sermon quickly ended, but the next week, the same vicar explained how he'd met God as he'd been preaching - and that God had told him that he was proud and stuffy. "I know that the reality of God has begun to change me", announced the vicar, who then invited people forward to receive prayer. Jake pressed forward and burst into tears as all the pain of his childhood came back to him. "Let Me touch this", God seemed to say, and Jake experienced an incredible sensation of healing. It was his conversion moment.

After the initial euphoria, Jake realised with horror that he had to be a Christian now: "What do you actually do as a Christian?" But when a rehab worker took Jake to Living Faith, the Jesus Army's community house in Oxford, Jake immediately found the answer to his question and the destination of the journey he'd been on. It was November 1994 and Jake was 23.

Three months later, Jake was baptised and moved into Living Faith; two and a half years later, he made a vow of celibacy. "One of the ways that celibacy really inspired me is the way it proclaims Jesus", says Jake.

"I can say: you may think you know about Jesus, but he's captivated me. I'm married to Him: He's truly the Son of God." And Christian community? "It's spiritual family. And it shows that the heart of God towards people is central to our faith: unless you discover how to lay down your life for others you haven't understood Christianity". Jake describes his explorations of celibacy and community as a journey from a (Simeon- like) "solitary mystic" ideal to a new vision: a big-hearted lover of people; a "father" who lays his life down in love.