By Gavin Boyle
After spending 13 years in prison during his teenage and early adult years, minister Johnny Chang revealed what this time taught him about humanity’s relationship to sin.
“I think the first night [in prison] I got into like 10 fights, right? And you had to get them out of the way. You’re living this way and you’re not understanding what’s going on. You go through life, and you’re like, ‘Yeah, there’s no God.’ Homies are dying…And I’m just like, ‘There’s no such thing [as God],’” Chang told comedian Angelah Johnson-Reyes on her podcast.
“I understand now, reflecting [and] going, ‘Wow, God. You put me in prison, which is pretty much hell on earth, in a place where you’re confined by bars and steel and wall.’ But I realized going to all the prisons that I’ve been to, I’ve been on level four yards, level three yards, maximum security. But, I think through it all the most overcrowded prison is the mind.”
Related: How This Social Media Star Found Christ in Prison
“The whole world is locked up, like, that’s what I realized. And so, when I’m preaching to people, that’s how I approach it,” Chang continued. “There’s something that this person is bonded to. Now, it may not be a physical wall in a prison, but it could be a prison of anxiety, the prison of depression, the prison of loneliness. When I see them like that, it just makes me kind of understand them from that perspective too.”
Chang is one of countless people who have found the Lord after serving time. These individuals often understand the depravity of their soul more than those outside of the prison walls and realize just how much they need a savior.
Country singer Jelly Roll is another incredible example of this. He had his “come to Jesus” moment while sitting in a jail cell. He now uses his platform to spread the gospel and to inspire those coming from similar situations.
“I was incarcerated as a juvenile for some horrible decisions and I ended up in kind of that rotating door of the system for like a decade,” Jelly Roll shared during an episode of JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE, explaining the moment he turned his life around. “I had a daughter, and it changed my entire life, man. It was almost like the Damascus Road experience where Saul turned to Paul for me.”
He continued, “I was incarcerated, and they knocked on my door and told me she was born. And I just wept. It’s the first time I’d cried, and I can’t quit crying now. Now I cry if I just see a squirrel in the street. I’m like, ‘The little squirrel!’ Spent 30 years not crying, and now I can’t stop.”
It is amazing to see how the Lord meets those in jail, gives them a way to turn their life around and build their future the only real foundation. Praise God for Chang’s faith and the impact he has on those he touches with his platform.
Read Next: Jelly Roll Credits: I Prioritize My Family, And That’s What Anchors Me Down
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