How Many More Times?

I found myself at the county jail yesterday to visit someone who had contacted me that they had placed me on their visitation list.
I was standing in the waiting room when the deputy in charge began to call out the names of the men who were were receiving visits this day. Of the 5 names that were called of inmates to receive visits, I recognized 4 of them from time they had spent at Rapha. As I mulled over in my mind these 4 names, I remembered the time I had spent with each one.
Some expressed a desire to change from their old lifestyle. Some even went as far as telling me they wanted to be saved. Some were baptized. Here on this day, each one of these men were in jail because they had not changed but had retained the mentality and behavior of their old lifestyle, a lifestyle of sin and of following the dictates of their own heart rather than listen to the voice of God.

I know that these men had heard the truth during their stay at Rapha. Teacher after teacher had spoken over them the power and ability that God gives each who come to Him in repentance and surrender of their own will.
Step #1 of the 12 steps: I admit that I am powerless over my addiction---my desire for drugs and/or alcohol----that my life has become unmanageable.
Unmanageable---the ability to make sound decisions. The ability to decide what is best for me. The ability to take personal responsibility and action for my own well being. Step #1 says that we have lost this ability to conduct our own personal business.

I hear so many men who say these things. The words fall from their lips like the memorized words of a nursery rhyme spoken by a small child. "I know I have a problem." "I know that if I don't change I'm going to die or go to jail." NO!!! You don't know, because if you did the truth would have hit you between the eyes and you would crumble into a heap much like the destruction left in your path because of your addiction. The truth strikes deep in the heart. It undoes every argument erected to defend bad behavior and sinful living. No manner of justification will every knock down the truth of God.

The man I spoke with yesterday seemed to be broken and contrite. He wept when he first came into the room where we spoke. He said he was embarrassed and ashamed to see me but that he needed to talk of what he had done. I assured him that what was done was in the past and that the main concern now was to repent and find God's will and that this will may not include freedom. He did not like that part but was able to acknowledge that everything was out of his hands and in the hands of God. It was an uncomfortable conversation as I listened to him explain and try to reason why he'd done what he had done. I told him that there was only one reason for his actions........sin. He had made the conscious decision to cast aside the leading of God's Holy Spirit to follow the path of his own doing. This path took him away from God's protection and peace and led him to this jail where the man now sits.

If you can, pray for this man today. Pray that God's mercy would be extended to him and to the sentence the judge will pronounce over him. Pray that whatever the outcome, this man would continue to grow in God and move on with his life. Please pray for this man's family that God would grant them peace in this entire episode.
God on you.....
mb