"It is easy to begin a thing,
but god is looking for finishers!"
--Joyce Meyer
When life is hard, it requires more determination to keep going than when the way is easy. Just ask the men and women coming out of jail or prison. They’ve had little to do for months or years while they were incarcerated. And, then, often without much warning, they are released into a world that is full of demands and requirements.
When our friend Jesse was released after more than 20 years, I took him into a Walmart to get a few things. He stood there—stunned—when he was incarcerated at a very young age, stores weren’t that big. There were no cell phones or flat-screen TVs. The world had changed.
He was both thrilled and frightened. The challenges were almost too much to handle. He had to get a driver’s license—which would require him to re-learn how to drive. He had to find housing and ways to get to meetings with correctional officers, find a job, food, clothing and more. In fact, it’s pretty hard to understand the immense challenges reentrants face upon return. For us, it would be like entering society on another planet.
They can begin this thing called reentry, but finishing in a successful way is another thing entirely. It takes humility, patience, and a belief that they are good enough.
Joyce Meyer grew up being sexually abused by her father until she ran away at 18. She was as damaged as you can imagine. She had a love of God, but her past would not let her go. Like many reentrants, she felt guilty all the time. She has said: “If I didn’t feel bad, I didn’t feel good.” A lot of reentrants who have experienced trauma feel that way too.
One day, while Joyce was making her bed, God spoke to her. He said, “You will have a worldwide ministry that goes North, South, East, and West.” She had graduated from high school but had no divinity degree, certainly nothing special, just an abused nobody from Fenton, Mo. Yet today she supports missions all over the world, is on TV, radio, and online to millions daily in more than 100 languages, and has written 130 some books in 155 languages. Her blockbuster book, Battlefield of the Mind, has sold more than four million copies.
But none of it was easy.
Most of us have never been arrested, much less incarcerated, but we have all dealt with hard life lessons. Nancy and I began a “thing” in 2016 when we felt we were called to start a ministry that would help those in need here in Indiana. It has grown and developed into improving the chances of the 16,000 or so people who are released from incarceration in Indiana each year.
Our website that lists second-chance employers has been visited this year by 294,000 people who have viewed more than 800,000 pages and clicked on specific information 1.8 million times. Meanwhile, grant money that supported our work has dried up, and our services that provide transportation supporting job viability for reentrants are already being cut back. How Far? We don’t know.
So, having done all, we stand. But, if God is looking for finishers, we plan to be in that group.
Jim
