Thursday of this past week I met with a new inmate. I was bringing some materials up to some of the guys in a cell, and there was this new fellow there. I talked to him for a few moments, and then it became very clear that he wanted to argue and fight about spiritual matters, and that he was not a believer. But I told him:
“Brother, you actually asking really good questions, that I’d love to investigate with you, and see what we can find in the Bible about them.”
I gave him a fist pump as I said that. The conversation stayed peaceful and friendly–Jesus always brings peace. I’ve learned through the years that if I just treat it inmate with the love of Jesus, and always a gentle response (Prov 15:1), everything always is peaceful in conversation and the interactions with the inmates.
But this inmate kept coming at me pretty strong, and I kept having to do the Proverbs 15:1 interaction with him. Some of his talking was like a soft, borderline heckling, and his ideas were getting less and less logical, as if he was reaching for any kind of “evidence“, whether real or not, to try to show me that Christianity was not real.
“We don’t know by science bro, but by experiencing GOD. The Scripture says, we walk by faith, not by sight” (See 2 Cor 5:7), I said to him.
We talked a bit more, and I felt quite good about the energy between us. I prayed with the men and left that cell-block, telling the inmates that I’d be back there the next day, to bring a few more things they needed; that would be Friday of this past week. Plus, the cell also had a fellow who has had the call to ministry–I’ve written about him in our email blast recently–and I wanted to come and see him again, since he’s moving on to prison soon.
So the next day I returned, to bring some reading glasses to the heckler inmate (he asked me to bring them the day before). I talked to him and the men for a few minutes, and then amazingly, the heckler inmate asked if I would pray with him. The same guy who was trying to argue to me that the Bible was not real the day before, now wanted to pray to Jesus with me.
“Ok then!” I thought to myself, looking at Jesus, as if celebrating with GOD in that flash of a moment.
And I simply said,
“OK brother, sounds good, let’s pray…”
I did not make any big deal to him over how amazing his shift was over 24 hours–I just assumed that the fella turned to Jesus over the past 24 hours and then went with it.
“Pray that I get out,” he said. “ that somebody posts my bond.”
So I proceeded to pray: we looked right at Jesus (GOD) and we asked to let this fellow out, that his bond would be imminently taken care of. We finished praying, and then immediately another inmate started talking to me–it was the fellow that has had the to call the ministry. He and I talked for a while, about 15 minutes, about some very specific, fine-tuned theological matters–a very deep conversation. This is an inmate, as I said, who has had a strong call to the Ministry, and this fellow is going to be an absolute titan for the LORD working in the prison system over the next 10 years–he probably will soon become a prison chaplain and preacher. Praise the LORD.
So anyway… About 15 minutes into that conversation with the inmate that had the call to ministry, suddenly the first inmate, the borderline heckler to wanted to pray with me 24 hours later, and whom I just prayed with, hung up the phone hard (apparently he’d been on the phone), and looked over to me and said:
“Chaplain, your prayer got answered! I’m getting out.”
And to be honest, I really expected this. I mean, I did not expect GOD to answer that quickly, but perhaps over the next day, or perhaps two days–but I was expecting it, the LORD gave me the capacity for expectation of His answer to our prayer 15 minutes earlier.
because we were all really feeling it and we are praying 15 minutes earlier: we were feeling the power of the Spirit!
Then this inmate started, saying, very softly to himself, as he walked around his cell a bit, looking at the ground, as if taking it all in:
“Praise Jesus! He is Lord! He’s with us!”
Wow, what a joyous amazing transformation! Going from hopelessness to Hope. From anger and hate to elation in Jesus Christ.
The LORD has done so many miracles in the jail amongst the inmates, especially over the past week. I wish I could write about all of them. One of them that happened early this past week is so powerful, that I don’t even know how to write about it, because I don’t think people would believe it. It’s like something straight out of the Book of Acts. Pastor Jason, my home church, CenterPoint City Church, came to the jail to preach last Sunday, the title of his sermon, was:
“The LORD is still doing miracles.”
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