how i found the lord

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ.
~ Romans 3:23-24

My dad was an alcoholic, and as he put it, I was his little drinking buddy. This was because I would not bug him to leave the bar and go home like my older brother would. When I was 14, I was into pool, music, food, and drink. At the age of 16, I started to drink at the bars with Dad. This was against the law, but as long as the bartender knew all the people there, it was okay with him. I also missed a lot of school -- or should I say the school asked me to stay home, mostly for fighting on the grounds. Dad drank himself to death in 1969, and I went into the Army.

After boot camp came jump school and then Vietnam for me. This was my type of place -- good drinking, good drugs. I did a 30 day leave home and returned to Nam. This time it was not the same as before -- the fighting was heavier and closer to home base. I got off drugs around 1976 when my good friend Gary died from an overdose.

Then in 1993 I went to prison. In prison you have two sets of laws. The first and foremost is inmate law, and the second is Department of Corrections law. An inmate must never break the first. If he does, he will suffer. I worked my way up in the inmate system by working for the big boys. I was in charge of collections. That’s just what it sounds like -- if you owed money for drugs, alcohol, or other things and did not pay on time, I would get it from you. My collection points were the chow hall and the chapel. There were two reasons for me going to chapel -- the first was that there was no DOC officer standing there over me, and the second reason you already know.

Well, at this point you may think I hated God, but I did not. I felt that He would not do a thing for me. How could he forgive a person like me, that had walked all over the Ten Commandments all my life? By this time I had read the Bible two or three times -- I even completed Bible studies. Then around 1999, I started to change. I started to really read the Bible for the very first time and take to heart what it was saying to me.

It was like a door opened for me. First came Richard, who I started to work for in the first part of 2002. We had long talks about the Lord and all He could do for a person. Richard told me about his church and all the people there, and one morning he asked if I would like to meet his pastor. I said yes, and about three days later, I met Pastor Jeff. In September I came up for parole. I got a big "No." At the same time I was going through a divorce from my wife. But I could feel that the Lord had me.

I got out of prison on April 6, 2005 and started to put my life back together. The things that God gave me were a job and a place to live with furniture. My life from then on has been like the parable of the Lost Sheep. (Jesus said) "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open field and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." ~ Luke 15:4-7

~ Steve Miller