I'm Not Who I Was

A number of years ago I was given the opportunity to regularly visit a man who was serving a life sentence for committing first-degree murder here in the province of Ontario. During the mid 1990s I would, from time to time, drive from Belleville to Warkworth Prison to spend the afternoon visiting with a man whose background and upbringing was very different from my own. And yet somehow we became friends, even though it seemed as if we had very little in common – except for one thing. You see, my friend had become a Christian while in prison, and so part of my reason for going to Warkworth was to encourage his faith and to spend time together in the Scriptures. I will never forget those afternoons when I arrived at the prison gates. Slowly the gates would rattle open and I would walk up to the receiving area where I was met by a whole group of anxious people waiting to see husbands, fathers, sons, uncles and friends – men who for various reasons were now living behind bars.

Once I got through the security checks, I then passed through a series of sliding metal doors that led me out onto “a concrete street” that ran through the middle of the prison. From “the street” you had access to all the various parts of the prison, which for me meant going to the chaplaincy area where my friend and I could have our visit. On one particular occasion, I remember my friend mentioning how he was having a difficult time dealing with what he had done. He had been having nightmares, and wondered whether he would ever be able to get beyond the awful weight of having committed such a terrible crime. Did the Scriptures have an answer? Could God help him move on with his life? How could he ever face living free again? Question followed question as together we discussed what was obviously heavy on his heart.

While I did not have a whole lot of answers for my friend that afternoon, I promised I would go home and pray about our discussion and believe that God would give an answer. And God did! One day as I was reading through 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the answer I was seeking leapt off the page at me. In verses 9 and 10, the apostle Paul was sharing about the impact of Jesus’ appearance to him on the Damascus Road. He writes, “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect” (1 Cor. 15:9,10, NIV). Here was my answer! What Paul was essentially saying was this: “But by the grace of God I am what I am today – I’m not who I was.” As long as Paul lived in God’s grace for today, he would be free from the weight of his past, which as many of you may know, was pretty terrible. Writing to his young disciple named Timothy, Paul said, “Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy” (1 Tim. 1:13, NIV). Paul even went so far as to say that he was “the worst of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:16, NIV).

The next time I went back to Warkworth Prison I took with me the life-changing words of a man who had probably done far worse than my friend who was serving a life sentence. Now I had an answer for him, and for myself – for all of us need to know that the grace of God can keep us protected from the tyranny of past mistakes. As we sat at the chaplaincy tables, I took my friend to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and shared with him the words that had so gripped my heart. In the face of his horrendous past and re-occurring nightmares, I was able to turn him to the living words of the apostle Paul – words inspired by the Holy Spirit. “But by the grace of God I am what I am today – I’m not what I was!” What a celebration we had that afternoon! Suddenly a feeling of inward freedom rang out from the place where we were meeting. How those words made a difference: “I am what I am today – I’m not who I was!” “I am what I am today – I’m not who I was!” Truly, I knew that Jesus had come “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk. 4:18,19, italics added, NIV). Praise God, “I’m not who I was!”