I turned 40 on January 19th of this year. It was a Lord’s Day morning. My thoughts were everywhere except my birthday. Actually, 40 is a lot younger than you think once you arrive there. Over breakfast I talked to my family about the glorious return of Christ. I thought that was a fitting topic to muse on during a birthday you don’t want and didn’t ask for.
The Lord would have none of it. It seemed just seconds after I arrived at the chapel and sat down, a brother rose from one of the back pews and said, “May we turn to Psalm 40.” I thought, How strange–the 40th psalm on my 40th birthday. After a few lovely thoughts, the brother sat down. As I reflected on that psalm, I was almost overcome by a wave of gratitude; the great faithfulness of our God overwhelmed me.
I remembered the horrible pit that I was in when the Lord first began to open that psalm to me. I was in the pit of a Federal prison, serving a sentence for distribution of cocaine.
Then I remembered my 30th birthday. Shortly before, I had gone to court, was found guilty, and had been sentenced to 5 years in prison. I turned 30 waiting to go to federal prison. Now I had turned 40 sitting with a small company of the Lord’s people worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ. What a difference a decade can make when God is involved!
The decade between ages 20 and 30 was quite a time of turmoil for me. I don’t have the space or the inclination to review all the details of my life with cocaine, but perhaps we can hit the high points (a very subjective phrase). Something every person needs to know is that I was a “professing believer” the whole time. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). I could recite John 3:16 almost all my life.I still have the Bible I won for reciting Psalm 23 in VBS one year. How could this happen? Could it happen to you?
Perhaps the phrase that pops into my mind is “an empty profession.” There was no reality in my experience with Christ. In the mid 1970’s when I went to high school, it was cool to be a Christian. The most popular kids all went to “Young Life.” The stars in sports participated in Fellowship of Christian Atheletes.
But I should have known something was amiss in my wicked heart: I bought a New American Standard Bible and signed the front inside cover, Henry (Joe Spiritual) Lair. I had been playing a game with God and I was about to lose.
Without a true relationship with God, you can excuse yourself from some of the provisions God has given in His Word. I guess when I read “Don’t be unequally yoked with an unbeliever,” I must have thought it said, “unless you are a strong, upright Christian like Henry Lair.” What a fool! I married outside of God’s will and remained out of His will for the next several years.
Someone has rightly said, “You have the potential to be far worse than you have ever been.” After the inevitable divorce, I felt offended and cheated. I thought I was a fine, moral man that deserved better treatment. Things were just not going according to my own little plan for my life.
It has also been said, “The self-made man has a fool for his creator.” Without a shred of evidence that I was saved, I truly felt I had given God sufficient time to “prove Himself.” Thinking that I had given the “right path” in life an adequate trial, I determined the old morals of my parents and God were a farce and I proceeded to search out other paths. Please keep in mind that when I say I had kept to the “right path” in life, that was simply a figment of my imagination. I was nowhere near to living the Christian life, although I hadn’t completely strayed from it…yet!
My first stop on the highway to hell was quite a step off the path. I discovered cocaine, alcohol, and immoral sex all in one night. I had gone to visit a trusted relative of mine. He took one look at me and said, “Hank, I can make you happy! I hate seeing you like this. I CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY!”
If there is truly pleasure in sinning for a season–and the Bible makes it plain there is–I thought I had really discovered the mother lode of happiness. I was determined to live out the rest of my days sniffing drugs and bar hopping. Quite a life plan for someone who could recite John 3:16 all his life, wasn’t it?
It didn’t take long for the lie of that lifestyle to surface. Within a year, I had lost a business I had built for seven years, my health was beginning to fail, and everything precious to me was gone. But the lifestyle itself provided an insidious way to self-perpetuate. I began to sell cocaine. I never actually made the decision to become a drug dealer. The thought of it sets my teeth on edge. It seemed the last rational decision that I made, the last decision I can truly say I thought about making, was that decision to try cocaine. From that point on, I had neither power nor desire to change the course of my actions.
When had I decided to become a thief? I never decided to be a thief; I hated thieves. But I proceeded to steal from many people in many ways without any guilt or remorse about it whatsoever. When had I decided to become addicted to cocaine? When had I decided to be so addicted to cocaine that after a near-crippling overdose, I continued to use the drug.
I never made that decision, but I was severely addicted. My point is this: one decision to try cocaine, against my better judgment, would set the stage for a near-death experience with the drug and a five-year prison sentence for me.
As I look back, it almost seems I was being driven by a force not my own. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a demon hunter. Far from it! I accept full responsibility for my downward spiral. I would just like to remind you that we do have a ruthless enemy. We are in the war zone, so, beloved, keep your heads!
When the DEA & FBI finally caught me and tossed me into jail, I was terrified and confused, but the real shocker is this–I felt the beginnings of a sense of relief. I looked toward prison with mixed emotions. Can you imagine that a person who had just been manhandled by law enforcement officers, had been strip searched on the side of a busy highway, and was tormented by the good cop-bad cop routine all the way to jail, could actually sense relief? It is true: sin is a baffling enemy of life.
Finally I ended up in prison. I can remember lying on my upper berth crying like a baby. I actually remember saying to myself, “How did a fine Christian lad like you wind up in a joint like this?” Thinking of myself as a fine Christian, when my body had been wracked by drugs, my mind bent by wickedness, and my whole self devoted to sin–I’m very glad I arrived on the scene during this age of grace!
Prison began the work of clearing drugs out of my system. I had begun a complete regime of spiritual, physical, and mental recovery–all in the energy of the flesh. You know that I still floundered around.
Our chaplain was an accommodating man. He began the first sermon I heard him preach with, “Isn’t our God lovely? He has designed many religions so no matter if you are Muslim, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon or any of the rest, we can all get together and worship the same God under many names!”
But the Lord sent Henry Sardina to prison to open the eyes of the blind, of which I was chief. Several things were on the agenda if you were going to be discipled by Henry S. You needed a good KJV Bible, Notes on the Pentateuch by CHM, and you had to enroll in the Set Free Prison Ministry correspondence courses. No time for nonsense!
One night as I was reading the book, Knowing God, by Chuck Colson, this phrase popped out at me, “To know God, you must first be known by God.” I began to lose hope. I felt that if God truly knew my wicked heart, my bent toward sin, and my wayward spirit, there would be no way He could accept me. In desperation, I cried out to God for mercy, and do you know what? He did accept me, in the Beloved. God had so much love stored up in His dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that we can be accepted in Him!
That is not the end of the story. I continued to do the Emmaus courses and grew by His grace. After being released from prison, I was established in a local fellowship (His grace working again through Henry Sardina who risked a parole violation to introduce me at Lake Howell Bible Chapel). I have been at the Lake Howell assembly ever since.
Now a new chapter opens as the Lord has seen fit to bring the very same ministry–Set Free Prison Ministry–that helped me while I was in prison, and has allowed us to take up the work. And by His matchless grace alone He has made me the area director. I can’t help but think of the comments made about Paul in the book of Acts, “He who once set about to destroy Christianity now preaches the very same thing.” God has granted that the very same courses I took in prison, I’m now sending to prisoners! To Him be all the glory.
Henry and his wife, Darla, make their home in Orlando, Florida, where Henry works with his father in a jewellry business. They are involved in the assembly at Lake Howell and Henry does some preaching as the Lord leads.