As we walked into the prison and sat down, I begin to look
around at the many faces that I saw. Both the men’s and women’s prison had
something in common…..empty eyes. I saw a look of hopelessness, failure, and inadequacy which
filled their eyes. This made my heart sad. As we begin to preach, you could
tell that some of them were thinking about their past, or where their kids
were, or what they were doing….all had a very distant look.
As we continued to preach….you could see their eyes begin to
have a little hint of a spark as they began to make a connection with what we
were saying. They begin to sit forward in their seats and look more engaged. As
I looked around the room again, I begin to feel the Holy Spirit working in the
lives of these prisoners. Aren’t we all a little bit like prisoners? Prisoners
to our flesh? Prisoners to our sinful nature? They really are no different than
us; they are just behind bars. We are all behind bars without Christ. We all
are prisoners. The great thing is that Christ paid the price for our sins.
Jesus went to prison so we didn’t have to. I also thought about it and can
relate to being preoccupied with life and having empty eyes…..daydreaming about
the future or things that happened in the past. Similar to the prisoners, there
have been many times that I have sometimes lost hope or felt inadequate.
It was amazing to see the empty eyes began to fill up, not
because any of us are amazing speakers, but instead because the Holy Spirit was
moving. By the end, we asked if anyone wanted prayer and around 70 people came
up for prayer. About 10 people gave their lives to Christ for the first time. Their
eyes were no longer empty but instead full of life and hope. This is what
Christ can do for you. He gives us hope, and a purpose to live for. I pray that
none of you would have empty eyes but instead eyes that glow bright with the Holy
Spirit. Every person has a God given purpose…. Do you know what that is?
