The Good Life

Mar 19–20, 2009

An excerpt from the interview…

Dr. Land:

You say that Watergate was the best thing that ever happened to you….

Chuck Colson:

[Laughs] Yes… I went to prison. I deserved to go to prison. I pled guilty to go to prison. And thank God I did because look what God has done with my life.

It’s been one of the great witnesses I’ve been able to make to people that because I was in prison, because I went through the suffering and the adversity, because I was totally broken, God could then use me. And I mean that’s the Jesus paradox: Seek to save your life you’ll lose it, lose your life for my sake, you’ll find it.

Land:

So the problem, as you see it, rests in us seeking to define our own lives, choosing to live life on our own terms and, in essence, trying to be our own God?

Colson:

It’s a certain prescription for disaster because the minute we try to exalt ourselves, we blind ourselves to the reality of life around us. And most of us are by nature, as you pointed out… basically self-centered. And the thing about the Gospel is that it forces you to be Christ-centered, to see the world through God’s eyes instead or your own. And when you do, it is a totally different place.

If I saw the world through my eyes, which I say when I got to prison and saw those inmates in that prison I would have suddenly, seeing it through my eyes, say, “I don’t want to be with all these criminals and thieves.”

I was reading my Bible in the prison dormitory… and I came upon Hebrews 2, that Christ became lower than the angels for a period of time, so that he would not be ashamed to call us his brothers. And I looked around that prison—the drug dealers and murders and thieves and I realized, “wait a minute, I’m not ashamed to call these men my brothers.” That changes your life, when you see the world though God’s eyes instead of your own.

topic(s): Faith, Bible, Ministry

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