Turned In, Tuned In

I’ve never had an experience in jail quite like the experience I had last night. And having been through such an experience, I hope it won’t be the last time.

Yesterday afternoon, I felt God telling me it would be good for me to go to jail that evening for the Jail Ministry here in Searcy. Up to that point, I had been considering doing something else that I thought might also be worthwhile, but after that, the choice was clear.

Austin Nightengale and I both went (as we had done a few times this spring), and shortly after arriving were assigned to go to “infamous” Pod G…. My one time visiting Pod G had been an experience, to say the least. What did I tell Austin to expect? The roughest, toughest group of guys he had perhaps ever met. Exaggeration? Eh, perhaps a bit. In any case, I expected a harder dynamic to interact with than we were typically used to. As we walked down the cold, white hallway to the pod, I wondered how smoothly the visit would go, given our way of doing things was a chasm’s distance more casual than the first time I had been to Pod G.

As we entered, the first thing I noticed was that none of the guys I had seen on the first visit were still there; the second, that there were also fewer of them and they seemed generally friendlier.

We sang some with the inmates who wanted to participate (mostly their song suggestions), and when it came time for the devotional, I felt God’s Spirit leading me open up the discussion topic for them to choose rather than going with a chapter I had in mind as a possibility. Those of you who have facilitated discussions of this nature before have likely realized this doesn’t always work out very well or very smoothly, but I couldn’t get my mind away from it being the right way at least to transition.

Seconds after this decision was brought to action, Opey (our new friend) dove straight into some really challenging questions about his brother that he’d been wrestling with since his brother died in February. Again, I felt God advising listening and relating over being quick to respond (a better strength of mine anyway). Austin already had three-point response ready by the end of the initial question (a better strength of his). But perhaps God had hinted something to Austin as well, who rather than taking discussion away let me have the first response.

I related that I had struggled through similar questions myself, which is a response tone naturally more easily interrupted than Austin’s tone would have been to. And Opey continued to vent his questions.

Impressive to me during this period were the three the other inmates in fellowship with us – Chad, Austin, and Jimmy – who eventually started contributing thoughts and scriptures to help answer the questions. But loose ends of Opey’s questions remained, not entirely resolved by their answers. At this point, Austin found his turn to give a more in depth response that God had revealed to him. (Austin and I later agreed that his doing so at that point in the discussion was better timed than it would have been at the beginning.)

In the midst of their discussion, I also got to have a shorter conversation with Jimmy who prompted a question of how to hear God speak to him. (Ironic.) I asked him to read Romans 8:22-27 (simply because it was the first seemingly relevant passage to come to mind), and said he felt like he was starting to understand it better.

We also shared and encouraged each other with testimonies together of how God had brought us to where we were, and as discussion wrapped up, Opey voiced he felt a lot better in his soul for having been able to have the discussion.

Last night was Opey’s first Sunday night in jail, and he said he may not be there the next time we’re about to come. For this reason, it might be fair to say that God – knowing the window of time and knowing the timeliness the discussion would have – very purposefully led to that specific pod to for that specific purpose. Needless to say, I’m glad He did.

Tune into God’s voice and listen to where He might be calling you, to go and to do. You never know how much more purposeful and fulfilling your story might be.