CHAPTER TWO
My New Year’s Prayer
“Father God,
I come to you in Jesus’ Name, and I ask you to use me for your glory and honor,
and to make me to be a source of blessing and encouragement for people who are troubled, lonely, confused
and hurting.
“Lord, I
have tried many times in the past to keep some kind of spiritual journal, and I
failed to have the discipline to do it.
Please help me to be more disciplined and to be more faithful in doing
this. I pray that whatever I write will
be anointed and approved by You.
“I know
that you have always loved me and never rejected me. You have showered me with Your abundant grace and mercy,
and You have spared my life
from Satan and from my own self-destructiveness time and time again. I thank You for this!
“Lord, I thank You, too, for
choosing me even before
I was in my mother’s womb, to one day be able to know and serve You. I pray that my life will
no longer be a source of pain and hurt to others like
it was in the past. That as a new
creation, as I am today in Christ Jesus, I can continue to
be a light in the midst of the spiritual darkness that is in this world. And I pray You will keep me as
the salt of this earth.
That I will be Your sweet fragrance as I live among the prisoners and guards in
this place.
“Father God,
please continue to use me as an instrument of hope, healing, and
encouragement. I ask You, God of Israel, that your divine
forgiveness through Your Son Jesus,
will always be fully manifested in my life for all to see. May they see that You are a forgiveing
God, full of compassion and mercy.
“Lord,
there is so much more I want and need to pray for and about. But this shall suffice for now. Amen!”
January 1, 2000
This
Journal
I thank God
for the opportunity to write this personal journal, to make it available to as
many people as possible, so that others might be encouraged to place their faith
and hope in the Lord.
I also
thank God for this chance to share what is happening in my life today, not to
impress people, for a greater majority of them are neither going to care or
believe me anyhow.
Oh, well,
Jesus had the same problem. Multitudes
of people saw all the miracles He did, yet they refused to believe in Him.
Yet in any
event, here is my life today with all its struggles and victories, regrets and
hopes, the daily challenges I must face as well as the blessings God grants me. My faith is in Him. And
I believe
that my best days are yet to come.
Likewise,
my prayer is that the Lord would allow whatever I write to be something that
will bring clarity and hope. May the
Lord Jesus use whatever I say to encourage someone else. Amen!
January 3,
2000
No
Glamour
There is
absolutely no glamour to committing a crime and coming to prison.
If teenagers and adults knew what awaited them in places like this, they
would think twice before breaking the law.
Prisons are
places of chaos and misery. One may
get the impression that the guards do a
good job of controlling the prisons
because there are few riots. Well thank
God that riots do not happen very
often. But the reality is that
internally prisons are almost always out of control because so many men are
restless.
Inside
these walls there is so much tension, so much nonsense going on with oftentimes
endless hours of wild screaming and crazy behavior. There is all kinds of wheeling and
dealing. To put it simply, prisons are a
hell on earth. I know that if not for the grace of God in my
life, I would have lost my mind long ago.
January 6, 2000
Go
Higher
Jesus
Christ wants to inspire His people to go higher, to look beyond the faults of others, even
beyond our own faults. I believe that
He wants to teach us to have self-respect.
Yes, we will see ourselves as “sinners” who have fallen short. But also as human beings whom God wants to
raise up to be good and useful people, to become men and women of hope in a
world that sometimes seems hopeless.
God’s Word
teaches us that, while we may have messed up in many areas of our lives, God
can fix the parts of our lives that we or someone else may have broken. And He will at the same time
show us how
to do better the next time.
January
9, 2000
Video Success Reports
I have been
encouraged in the past several days because I’ve been getting some nice
responses from the video I did, called
THE CHOICE IS YOURS. It was
released by “Gospel Films” (Gospel Communications, Inc.) in 1997.
The Lord
had His hands on this. The video shows teenagers that there’s no such thing as
a “hopeless” situation. That there
is a way out of their problems, and this is through Jesus Christ.
It warns
teens of the oftentimes hidden dangers that happen when bad choices are made. And at the end,
it simply offers them the chance to make the “best
choice” of all, Jesus Christ.
The video
demonstrates that forgiveness and healing can take place in
what seem to be the darkest of situations.
That drugs, endless partying, and even suicide, are NOT the ways to escape
one’s problems. Neither is joining a
gang of dabbing in the Occult.
One dear
friend of mine obtained sixty copies of the video to distribute to various Teen Callenge Centers throughout the United States.
I am so thankful for this.
January 11, 2000
Good
Word From the Lord
The Lord is
ever faithful to always have a good word for me, even when it feels as if I am
down in the valley, so to speak, and my work seems to be making no progress
towards advancing Christ’s kingdom.
The other
day I received a letter from a minister friend.
He goes into several youth facilities on a regular basis, and here is a
portion of his January 26th letter to me:
“…I’m so
glad that God saved you, because you
nave now had a positive impact on so many people. I shared the video “THE CHOICE
IS YOURS” Last Thursday night at the Culver Youth
Detention Center here in Midland
(Texas), and it was great! It held the attention of everyone in that
place and at here were three salvations!
Praise be to our God Almighty!...
Bro. Joe R.”
Amen!
February 2, 2000
