In order to truly deal with your own mess, in order to truly

deal with your distortions and the things that are going on in

my life, you have to get to a mindset of

taking responsibility, taking ownership,

not playing the victim.

Do you ever wonder if God is really working all things

for your good? You know that scripture we all quote from Romans 8 when things

do not look good in our lives? Today on seek, go create, we

welcome RJ Johnson, a man whose journey is a

testament to this scripture. RJ, the author of God

Doesn't Waste a Thing under the pen name Luke Chants, Cheers the

miracles he's witnessed and experienced during his 7 years in prison that

he served out of a 20 year sentence. Through

his NotMyWill Ministries, RJ is on a mission to deliver hope

to the church behind bars and educate the community about

the ongoing miracles Performed by god. He

challenges us to look beyond the walls of prison and see the hearts

yearning for redemption and love.

RJ, welcome to SeatGoCreate.

My true pleasure to be here, Tim. Thank you for the invite. This

is something I've had on a bucket list since I met you, so let's do

this, bro. Cool. Gonna have fun. I wanna start with my

Question that I ask. I don't know if I ask you this, we met a

little less than a month ago. We were introduced by a good buddy of mine,

Caleb, at a networking event up in Denver, And I

usually will ask what you do. So, if I bump

into you somewhere, I don't know if I asked that or not when we met,

but If somebody asks you what you do, what do you usually tell people?

And I, a mentor of mine often says that in most of our

lives, we have a purpose and a paycheck. And so

what I do for my paycheck right now is I do sales for

an unbelievable IT company called Uncommon Solutions, get to meet a

lot of great people and introduce them to a really great company. The

passion, purpose is what you said in my intro.

I I try to connect hearts out in the community with

hearts and souls inside of a prison. So what do I

do? I try to share Joy, I try to spread love and

hope because I was the recipient of

love, hope, grace, mercy when

I felt alone, isolated, and, like, I didn't deserve any of

those. So I try to align the holy spirit as

often as I can. The reason that's a good answer to the question, you and

I were talking about this a little bit before we hit record. It's sometimes

a very superficial question. What do you do? I'm in sales. And we give

a title. I know where your heart is. You were giving me a

little more of identity type things Right out of

the gate there, which I like. I I like that a lot. Yeah. You and

I connected and connected really well, and one of the things that

we do here at Seek, go create as we love

stories about redefining success

because In our culture, in our society, in our world, there is

this thought, this perception, this idea of success,

and sometimes people Will go through life and maybe they never have

questions about it and all that, but some of us go through these

experiences where We are forced to

redefine or rethink it, and I believe your story

that I've heard, and I haven't heard a lot of them, looking forward to this

conversation, really personifies that. Alright. So when

I start off and I say that somebody spent time in prison,

someone is gonna Immediately wanna know, okay, we need to know

a little bit more about that before we start talking about all the ministry and

stuff that's going on. So Sure. Let's just give a

real quick kind of what happened and how that came

to be, whatever you wanna share there, And then we'll we'll

talk about the all things, scripture from Romans

8 that that we started off with.

That's really funny that you don't know yet how impactful and

how pivotal of a moment in my life, Romans 8/28 was. You'll get a good,

good chuckle out of it if we happen to wander down that road. But

how I landed inside of a prison serving 7

years, thankfully, only 7 out of a 20 year sentence

was in 2012, I made the decision to

sexually assault a high school student of mine, and

that is the catalyst for which coming to know the Lord,

mhmm, going through a whole lot of

transgressions, heartache, tragedy,

isolation, loneliness, like all the verbs,

good, bad, ugly, scary, Death threats.

All of that stuff fell upon me because of my choice.

That I made Circumstances come from

my decisions. And that's what got me

to where, Thankfully, all things work

together for good, even when you don't see it, certainly when you don't believe it

or feel it, he's still working those things out. Alright, RJ, I

want, I'm doing this question for the listener. I've talked to you more, but

for the listener, there are some people that were

extremely repulsed And turned off immediately when they

heard you sexually assaulted a student. I want you to real

quickly tell the listener why they need to keep listening

To this conversation. Yeah, it

is a horrible act. It was an absolutely

The legal assaultive wrong thing. And

all sin is I hope the listener can hang in there and get past some

of their personal views of it. I'm not proud of it. I there's

it's not like I'm standing here today trying to glorify that at all. It

hurt a lot of people. But If you can hang

in, hopefully, you'll get the whole gist of what my mission and

my purpose is now, which is to Share

that God is in the miracle business, and he will show up

in the thing that usually most people

say keeps us held back or keeps us knocked down

or keeps us living in shame or keeps us being afraid. That's the

reason I hope you stay and listen. If you have to walk away, if you

have something too close to it and your the history or someone in your

family's got it's a little too close to home.

I honor that seek some help reach out. My goal here is

not to traumatize or trigger anyone. It's to point

all of this back to Jesus in that There's redemption.

There's grace. There's love and there's always

hope. Yeah. And there there's A book in ministry and all at the

end of this, God doesn't waste a thing. I guess one thing I'd like

to do maybe is to just for a little more Context, and

you can share what you want to about the any

other circumstances That's because one

of the things that I know is that

people listening in myself, others are always at

various levels of mindset. And you mentioned sin and people

are all at various levels of

sin, just, you know, reaching its Tentacles into our lives. And

so I would really like to, again, we're all about the

redefining success here and You were,

had an appearance of success. Had I known you years

ago? I probably would have looked at you and thought

Pretty cool guy, got a lot going on and all that kind of stuff.

And so whatever your and and I know you shared a lot of your story

here. We don't wanna go into a ton of things, but What can you share

about those circumstances so that we can understand the mindset of RJ

then, and now we can certainly get get your mindset now?

I think the simplest way, the biggest difference is my

mindset then, 1, I had no

identity Certainly in the Lord, but my

identity was wrapped up solely in what I believed.

People thought felt and said about me.

And from that bread, a life of entitlement, a life of

manipulation, and a life of massive attention

seeking. Every single thing was about me. How can I benefit? How can

I receive A good

feeling? And it was a very selfish life

now. Lord willing. You can see that you can hear that people

who know me can validate that and say that I

choose now to live 1 for God and 2 for the person in front of

me, giving them attention, giving them the honor and

respect that they deserve and trying to always push into

love even when it's hard. So what was your spiritual life growing

up? Did you have 1? Yeah.

What was it? Nonexistent. But I do think we

We make stuff our idols and our gods, and we have choices

related to that. So maybe the better question is you already mentioned You're self

serving and things like that, but, what was your idols and your

gods growing up?

Popularity, attention,

things I could control. I probably made some sort of an idol. When you

don't really know where to place your eyes, When you don't know what

to set your beliefs on until I firmly plant your feet

into something, you just kind of grasp for things that

make you feel Good and comfortable in the moment.

And I did that a lot with organizing

with trying to be the center of attention with constantly saying yes and

appeasing those people who are around me. I didn't wanna deal with my

own insecurities and my own lack of self worth,

but I was constantly involved in a big group of

friends. And the beauty of hindsight being able to look

back now on that, you wouldn't have looked at my life and thought that's an

unloved kid. I have amazing parents. They're both very loving still to this

day. You wouldn't look and say that guy has

no ability to communicate in public. I was very social.

But deep down, it's what was I seeking? I was seeking

for the next friend, the friend to laugh at my joke, the friend to come

over. I was seeking for something to fill that hole, which

was basically, like, who am I, and what am I supposed to

do? And so If you're constantly around friends and

noise and activities and attention, you don't have

to deal with your own insecurities, your

own truth. The the question that most people ask and

hopefully are listening to here today is, like, what am I called to

do? What is my purpose right now within this

environment? I think what's interesting is a lot

of, My guess is you were because just for meeting you, you seem like

were you an athlete in school and all that? Yep. Athlete, probably a pretty

good athlete. Chunky one. Probably, you could tell me if I'm right

around, probably part of the cool kids growing up and stuff like that. Would

that be right? Yep. Yep. And you used the

word earlier entitled. So I I've noticed this some about

myself. I might have been

included in that group growing up and things like that,

and there there does start to creep in this thought of

That maybe I get to

do things that others don't. I can Get away with

things, different things like that. And I do

notice, and this is a man problem mostly, I guess, women deal with it, but

we're both men, so we're gonna have to talk like men, is that,

when it starts coming into how we deal with

women, primarily the opposite sex and porn and

different things like that, we start thinking

that certain things don't apply to us. And

I'm guessing that that was part of the seed that kind of led to

your transgression and some of the issues. Correct?

Yeah. That's very accurate when you're not in the mindset

to use words like honor and

Support and love you try to find.

Value in anything that's around you at the expense

of who it hurts, what it does to that person,

what it does to that community. And.

Pornography is such a massive problem in society. It's

often preached from the pulpit, but it's very rarely

shared or confessed from out in the seats. Because, like your question

asked earlier, what if someone is listening right now and they immediately got turned off?

It's one of the few crimes that is completely done in

secret. And that's

Not trying to get too philosophical here, but if you can

keep something secret, that means you don't have to truly deal with it and

certainly confess it or speak it to your brothers or sisters.

And that is an issue growing up, and it's

It may start off as what you believe in a scent and,

it's just a little bit of an issue. I learned in treatment that

there's a thing called problem. What problem? Oh, that thing?

Yeah. That's not a problem for me. That's a bad

place to be in. There's a lot of distortions that live out of that and

a lot of unhealthy, dangerous, assaultive decisions that come from

that mindset. And

one of the things, let me go here for the quote, for

A period of time, because I think this is something I've observed in

myself and others and especially leaders that we

see In our culture and society today

is there's a lot of stuff going on in secret. There's a lot

of stuff there. And I think a lot of

people feel like it's okay until

they get caught. And and then,

RJ, we see these kinda odd things go on. Sometimes we have these people

who give these canned speeches of apology,

whatever, and a lot of this is in the political realm and things like that.

But I am sure that there are phases

to That process.

And so here's the question that I have for you. I mean, I think there's,

the I got caught, and then there's the,

oh, there could be repercussions, and then there's the,

What am I gonna do to limit the damage? I'm walking through different things

just to give you some things you could pull from. And then

and I'm not sure that everybody gets to this place. There is what we would

term in our spiritual walk a repentance, an actual

turning away from Something walk

me through again, I told you when we started, I'd like to get into your

mindset here about where you went through

That process, because

when you got caught, when it was found out, were was it like,

Oh, no. I'm repenting, or was there all of a sudden

bars you hear the sound of the bars closing aside

now, or is it Still working through it. What what work through a

little bit of those phases because I think that

entitlement that we talked about earlier, RJ, I think The

way we think about ourselves and things like that. I think it

impacts how quickly we maybe repent. I

don't know. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, it's a super

deep question. When I have not been asked the quick answer.

As I look at the clock to see how quick actually this will be is

didn't know I didn't know the word repentance for a

long time, so that certainly didn't filter into any part of

my vocabulary or my mindset. But I've

learned since then that In order

to truly deal with your own mess, in order to truly deal with

your distortions and the things that are going on in my

life, You have to get to a mindset of taking

responsibility, taking ownership,

not playing the victim, not saying this

happened, but I would like to have nothing but good things

come my way. And so I'm trying to Choose my words to where it's not

so and people who are listening can hear this. It's

I found so often that People wanna be judged off of their

best intentions, but they wanna judge others

by their worst moments. And so

doing that for myself even, like, going through and making a list

of all the things that I did that were good and all the things that

I did that were trying to help others, Like, that's what you should be judging

me off of. Because if we get into the parts

that were really difficult inside of prison for me, A lot of it was when

I was getting people coming at me, judging me,

threatening me, asking me questions. Well, Tim, I

for the 1st 18, 24 months,

if not longer, I wanted

0 things to do with telling the truth

to random people who came across my path. It wasn't

until I ran into a couple of my mentors that said one of the

most powerful things ever to me. And know what, Tim? I didn't even respond to

it how I was supposed to for another 2 years. And

he said, RJ, the power is in the

secret. You keeping this a

secret is feeding into the fear of what will actually happen if

you're honest, if you take responsibility, if you choose

to give this to God And let him work this

out. You're choosing. I

don't trust that. I trust him with all these other things, but I don't trust

him. With sharing my truth, which is feeding right

into to Satan saying, yeah, go ahead. See what happens. Tell the

truth. Watch how these people turn on you. Watch how they

try to kill you again. Watch how every person that you think loves

you runs away. And

so it was a long walk and it wasn't until I

was truly able to sit back. Look at my

decisions, my choices,

my distortions, and start

aligning it with what do I say about

myself versus what does God say about me?

That's when you can start to deal with repentance.

For me, that's when I could start to deal with

Feelings versus truth. And

Chaplain, Matt always does this Feelings

do this. They go back and forth constantly.

The truth, the Bible, what God says is here. It doesn't

change. So you take that feeling and you bring it to truth.

The feeling, if I actually tell Tim today, here

in 2023, What I actually did, he's

gonna turn his podcast off and we're gonna lose a friendship. The truth

is I am loved. I'm covered. And God

has only good things for me. He's gonna bring great things into my path.

That was impactful, but it still wasn't like life's easy. No

more feelings issues. It it's been a walk, man, and it's

taken a lot of great friends to come alongside and be

like, What's that what's that feeling we're living in right now?

What is the truth about your situation? And how

can we deal with that and align that to

God's word? Yeah. The interesting thing is

When you walk through that, that, if I tell Tim what happened,

but yet that's That journey is

what attracted me for us to have this conversation,

and it opened that We're at a networking event about business. And

After 2 questions, we're talking about me sexually assaulting

someone. And I made the decision, like,

year 6a half, 6.75

that I'm going to choose to live focusing on 3

words. Yeah. Being transparent, being vulnerable

and being intentional. Well, that mean gonna have to lay out your truth and

trust that what's gonna happen is gonna happen. Yeah. I I wanna

say something right here because I actually am seeing the video, and I actually

saw myself smiling when you brought

up Sexually assaulting. And I wanna tell people that we are in no

way attempting to be insensitive to

the crime, and we'll call it that. We're attempting

To have conversation about,

the person that initiated the crime and what they can

do to get to a place that's beyond that and

miracles. We're gonna talk about that here shortly. But, RJ, one

other one other Quick thing, and then we'll move along and fast forward and get

you into prison so that we can talk about some things that happened there. And,

again, my please, my sense of humor. People that listen in know I

am in no way making light of the situation. I'm actually

attempting to soften a very sit serious situation, so

please give me a little bit of grace. My my regular

listeners, I think, will will definitely do that. But,

RJ, Elisa, I think Kubler Ross, In going through the stages of

grief, and you may have done this when you went through therapy and things like

that, talks about the different stages, denial, and then

there's Different things like that. My guess is

and, you know, you can kinda say yay or nay. My guess is is

when this initially, came to a

head that you possibly blamed

others, you know, your Your spouse, the

victim, and all that. And then I wanna bring that up here for a specific

reason. So is that was that in the realm when you first

Got caught, I'll say. Is that okay to say?

Yeah. I don't have the words to explain, like,

The amount of fear that was washing over me of what my choices are

gonna actually lead to leads to a ton of wrong,

negative, unhealthy thinking. Anybody other than

myself, I want to point to and try to

act like they had a role to play in it. But the bottom line

is it was me, and that's that's a pretty crappy place to

be when you're scrounging for anything. But the

only thing you can deal with when you're in an 8 by 8 cell and

the 1st time those bars close is, oh,

I'm here because of what I chose to do

nobody else. You don't land there right away. If

someone does that right away, amen. Power to you. You're gonna, You're an

awfully long ways further than I was day 1. So

let's move along here and

Transgression crime occurred. You are caught,

you go to prison and You're in

the you're in the prison system, and there there are a

lot of people listening in. We've actually interviewed about 3 or 4 people that have

In the prison, interviewed one that I'm might even link to this. It's a

fascinating conversation with Kwan Hung that actually shot and

killed someone And went through the prison system and then was released, and

so fascinating story with some

similar themes that's very interesting. But

So you're in the prison system, and, definitely not

a fun thing, I'm sure. So what do you wanna what do you

wanna tell about that that really have no idea what

you're talking about when you talk about being behind bars.

Yeah. It there were some really bad times. Like, I'm, again, not making

light of it. Brutal truths, and there are some terrible evenings.

I often say I I don't wanna spend another night in prison, but I am

always excited to go back in. And one of

the most real moments, themes in

my life was almost

without fail. Anybody I speak to in there, if you ask him, like, what was

your life like before this, you start mentioning or naming

things, items in your life. I had a big house. I had

multiple cars. I made this much money. My wife was there. My

career was this. My friend circle. When you go to prison,

Everybody's put on a level playing field. You get the same

3 in Colorado, green shirts and green pants, a

few white undershirts. You get the same garbage y boots,

the same food, and the same pay until you kinda get further

in your sentence, and you can get different jobs. When everything is level.

That's why they take your name, your number.

Now it's pretty apparent, like, we've gotta do some identity

work. We've got to figure out who are we when there are

no jobs or accolades or rounds of applause or coaching

wins or 6,000 square feet, or

who are you now? And what are you gonna do?

And Tim I've had Hands down the best

times in my life in prison when I was working as

a prison chaplain's assistant for 87¢ a day.

It's quite a ways into the story. It took me a minute to get there.

But my purpose was so clear to me to

love the person who came through the door to not focus on

me to without a doubt focus on.

And I call it in the book, Me 3, God first, the person in

front of me, 2nd, Me 3, I'm 3rd.

That lines up with a lot of joy that lines up

with what God's called us to do.

To be there for your brother's iron sharpens iron, what you're doing right now. It's

what you do every day with your podcast. You help people

seek who they are. Go and find

who your identity is and who says it is about you. Then

create an amazing life for those around you. I love it. I love the idea

of what you do. And so in prison to go there, my

first 3 days. I had a group of

Nazis try to kill me because of what my crime was. They found out, they

said you're not welcome in this room. And my choice was

to deal with option a fight.

All the time until I quit or die

or b go run and tell the cops I can't deal with this. It's called

checking in. Did that within the 1st 3 days,

man. And I got 240 months left.

I get to another prison and I make it 6 months

before my crime comes out once again.

And this time I was pulled out of my cell

and I later learned this under an hour before

An actual murder attempt was going to take place.

And I've done nothing to these guys other than I chose to do what

I did in 2012. And in

prison, there's an ironically weird hierarchy

of, at least I'm better than that guy,

which keeps you from wanting to share your truth when even when

people find out what you've done ish, they wanna kill

you. No. That's not okay. That's not ideal,

but the book's called God Doesn't Waste a Thing. I didn't know God.

I had no idea. I was that selfish person. Like, why are you guys doing

this stuff to me? I didn't do anything to you. Blaming

other people. Being the victim. Will God, even

if you don't ever say the name God, he's still working

and loving and creating an Unbelievable masterpiece

for your life to play itself into. And that was what was

cool was those 2 murder attempts. Not

fun. Terrible for me. Terrible for my family is what

God used to get me to the prison where I met

Mentors of my life gave my life to Lord and found my purpose.

And that's where a lot of these miracles show up where it's,

this is the coolest thing ever, Tim. Not happy

for what I did to get here, but I'm here.

And what can we do to love and share and encourage

those right now in the middle of this Pain in

the middle of this shame, in the middle of this tragedy.

That's the really cool part. I just shared that this morning at a at a

men's group of most people. If we can just fix this one thing about

my life, then I'll be able to do something. God shows

up In that thing.

And begin to see create his masterpiece. God showed up in the prison. It

wasn't When I get out of here, we'll start to paint a beautiful future.

No. No. It was in the darkness where he shows

up. He's in the fire. He's there. Right. RJ, what is

up with the pecking order

for crime, or I'll even go I'll jump out To

church world. What is up with the pecking order for sin?

What, why is it that, and maybe we can contrast

those 2, because it's, It's interesting that came to my mind as when I was

about to ask you, why is it that a group of Nazis that if we

saw their rap sheets and what they were there for, but

yet, And listen, again, we're not making light of any

crime, but Yep. What is up with that pecking order,

And why is it that even as Christians, many people that are in religious

circles, why is it that they will say

that this sin holds a worse

penalty or whatever than other when it's all

sin. What are your thoughts? Maturity

is required to get to what you just said at the end.

You must get to a place where you recognize that he went to that

cross for all sin. Not for some,

all. He died for

the smallest sin to the largest sin. I do not

like the word religion because it does that. It starts to

compare and separate relationship, I say

I'm a Christ follower. To be able to parallel the 2, like,

why is there this weird pecking order in prison? It's

because when you're in a position where the rest of

society has said, you are so awful, you're so dangerous,

disgusting, scary, not wanted unusable

devalued that we're going to throw you into a

compound behind multiple barbed wire fences, some kill

fences. How are you supposed to feel about yourself? That's

why the ministry that I've created is in place is to

let them know inside you have value. You

have a purpose. You are loved and you are

loved. If you don't have that mindset, if you're

still living, dealing every morning with your own shame and your

own guilt and feeling like, Well,

I don't want to deal with my crap because that's just

too scary and too real, and I'll have to come face to face with my

truth, and my identity. So I'm gonna instead at least I'm not

that guy. Church mindset. I may have my secret

sin over here, but at least I'm not coming in here hungover drunk

with 2 different shoes on. At least I'm not that.

In prison, it's that mindset. Murderers, well, at least I

didn't Hurt a child. Thieves. At least I

didn't sell drugs that killed someone. It's

hilariously. Stupid, Bro, we're all in this

together. None of us are walking out of the front door today. They're not giving

us keys, and they're not giving us any access to make a decision

other than what can we do in our circle right now, but yet

they feel I'm above that guy. I'm better than that. Pretty

stupid behind bars. And it's actually pretty Stupid on this side of the bars

also. Totally. People do that, but yet we

see people doing it other time. 1 other 1 other just

maybe Prison question before we get to, a

conversion that occurred. I wanna hear that story a little bit and dig on that.

But, I think when I've talked to people

that have been in situations like like behind bars,

and I also think about our modern culture with I can't point to

them. You know, we're on devices, and we've got all

these things coming at us. To me at

times, it seems as if and you said a little bit of it. You

gave some glimpses of it. There is some degree of

simplicity. You don't have a lot of choices.

You're boxed in literally, figuratively, a lot of ways.

So talk about the comparison between the world,

and I think this is causes challenges for people that come

out of those systems too, is that all of a sudden,

it's like there are choices. We were talking earlier about, you

know, How some men can be on their

phone, and there's so many temptations and all theirs, like,

probably didn't have that when you're behind bars. A little bit about that contrast

between the limited choices and now the unlimited

choices that one faces when they're outside of that environment.

Sure. And I am certainly no expert on eliminating

lust distractions,

sinful opportunity. I am as struggling as the man

beside me. But when it does get broken

down, once I was able to come and give my life to the Lord after

witnessing some of these miracles and truly feeling what

it is that God has earned

yearning for me to walk in. It breaks it

down to, is this, if I make this choice, is this going to be

honoring and uplifting and loving for God

and those around me? Or is this gonna be separating me from

the Lord, my family, My mom, my dad, my

nephew, my brother. And because of

that, like, that decision can still be equated in

society. Every single choice

has a reaction. Every intent

does not align with the impact that it's had.

That changed the way I tried to think about each and every day. And I

fell. I struggled, But it was cool because the more I

learned and walked and witnessed and

tasted and experienced the glory of God and his

It, great mercy and grace.

The more quickly I came out of my own quote unquote prison

cell. Like, I was in a prison, but I would go and

lock myself up because of a feeling I was having or a

reaction. It isn't until you're able to identify those

are not my truths. I'm gonna let myself out and go live in

the freedom, live in the glory, live in the victory. We

are more than conquerors. That's not day 1

of your walk with the Lord. It it's a growth process, For

sure. And so you're behind bars, you're

going through the process, you've got all of these things

occurring. Obviously, now that you look back on it, there were miracles occurring,

but at some point, either your heart was

softened or you interacted with someone or Something occurred is

probably a long process, but tell me about the point

where you now look to as the turning point

that you say that, and it may have been a longer process. It may not

have been a day, minute, second, but what happened

there, and and I think that's gonna lead us into the conversation of now

why you go back in. There was the multiple death threats,

and there were a few circumstances and situations. And

I said I was so blessed and joyful to be able to go to

territorial prison, the 2nd oldest prison in the entire United States. It

was when it was Louisiana Purchase Territorials Prison,

I didn't wanna go there because after the 2nd death threat,

I actually was begging the state of Colorado to put me in protective custody

for 20 years. I was stuck in a hole. They're trying to figure out what

to do with me, how hide me, how to keep me safe, and figure out

where can we possibly put this guy. He's clearly not being successful at these

prisons. During that, I grew a really big beard because they wouldn't give me

a razor. I went to a hearing and asked

them, will you hide me for the next nineteen and a half years? And the

lady who was in charge of this hearing looked

at my beard and says, your beard is a wonderful disguise.

And I notice here that you have a master's degree in education and math.

I'm like, why are we talking about facial hair and mathematics? Like,

people are trying to kill me, lady. Can I go hide? And she's like, I

think with this disguise. In your math

education, you could go to this prison and no one will know who you are

When my name is on my shirt, Tim, and I'm probably gonna

shave and you can go and help people get their

GED. That's the funny part of the title of the book. I

didn't get my way. Thank god. There's so many times in our lives where we're

like, god. This is what we need. This is what I know is best.

I didn't even know God, but at that moment, I'm telling these professionals,

I know what's best. Send me to the whole

until 2032, Tim. I asked to go sit alone until 2032.

It's 2023. I would still be sitting there if I got

what I wanted, but God doesn't waste a woman who made

a decision based off facial hair. So once I got to

territorial, Still don't know the Lord. I wander

into the chapel. I rattle off about an hour's worth of why

God is not real. And if he is, he's Certainly not just, and

he's not kind and probably a lot of really stupid words I can't or

wouldn't wanna repeat. And this chaplain had me turn to Job.

And this was the 1st time chapter

38, where basically God's like, you done talking job.

Let me have the microphone for a bit. Where were you when I

did? And he just explains his almighty

power. The way that he speaks things, I know existence and

something kind of clicked like, oh, it's not

about me. And that led to an introduction at Chaplain

Matt, who this shouldn't be glanced over.

Matt was a volunteer for 18, 19 years to go

into prisons and share the gospel. But more than that,

he was the 1st guy since being locked up that I sat down

with, told him the truth of what I've done.

He didn't judge. He didn't make me feel

worse. He didn't give me a 1,000 things I need

to do. He did nothing but listen,

ask great questions, listen again, And then he came back the next

day and the next day.

What would make a man do that, Tim? It's living

how God is calling us to live, love those in

prison. Love those despite their worst.

Behaviors love those in the middle of their

chaos. And so I'm witnessing the holy

spirit. I'm hearing the truth. I'm seeing the fruits of it. And

as I'm talking about this and taking responsibility for my

crime, finding freedom and the difference of shame

of, I am such a terrible person. To

guilt. I did such a terrible thing different.

I still have value. Being able to learn that

and experience that and have that mind shift of I went from

not even knowing the name God and wanting to be there. But thankfully,

a beard got me there to now I have a whole new purpose

for my life. I'm making 87¢ a day, like I

said earlier, And I'm super happy. I'm

excited every day to run down to the chapel to see what God is going

to bring to me and who is gonna walk in And how can I just

show up for them? But then I started watching these miracles happen

around me, Tim. Every Friday in the chapel,

the Muslims would have their service. I was responsible for setting up services for the

entire prison. So that's why it's funny when people in the community are like, I

don't go to that church because they don't believe in this thing.

In prison, Muslims, Asatru's, pagans,

Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, Mormons,

the list goes on and on. All have to worship in the same

chapel. So their request was on Friday afternoons

that the Christians leave and we cover the cross.

Hard for me to do. I just understood what the

cross means. Like, it is it's It's very important to me, and I'm like, I

don't wanna cover this. But I had begun praying, and I could hear

the holy spirit say, I'm not on that cross.

And you can cover it all you want. I'm still in this building.

So what I was called to do was to love those around me. And for

me, that meant I'm not supposed to convince these Muslims to worship

my god and to worship my way. I'm supposed to create the most loving,

Comfortable and relaxing environment for them

to worship how they believe they should.

Which was a cool dichotomy from everything was supposed to be about

me. But here's the 1st real cool miracle. We would go down

every Friday to give them their privacy, and we'd go sing to the men who

are serving their prison sentences in the dementia pod, men who have

Alzheimer's, early onset dementia. And there was a man down

there named mister Green. He

was one of the most brilliant lawyers in the state of Colorado,

And he was one of the most brilliant prison lawyers when he was locked up,

but he had all but forgotten every single thing in

his life, but two things, How to rub his stomach and pat his

head. That's all he did all day. Tim for

3 years. This man never spoke a

word, nothing. And I would

go down there every Friday and I'd lean in. I'd be like, Hey Mister Green,

we're gonna sing again. Just wanna let you know I love you. Next

week. Same thing. Next week. Same thing. 1 of these weeks,

I leaned down and say the exact same thing. Mister Green, I love you, my

man. And the nurse goes, why do you do that? I go, why do I

do what? She goes, why do you talk to him? He doesn't know what you're

saying. He doesn't know his name, and he's certainly not gonna talk back to you.

There's nothing on up there. I said, I guess I just love him,

and we went and started singing. Tim in the middle of us

singing as we normally do, couple of chaplains, me and another guy who's serving his

life sentence, We start singing Amazing Grace

and out of the corner of my eye I see tears coming down mister Green's

face And he is singing out loud

every word to amazing grace.

Tim, I've been a Christian for less than 4 or 5 months.

I'm balling. He's balling. All of us are like,

this guy doesn't even talk. You said he doesn't

even know his name, but now he can recite every word to Amazing Grace.

And the coolest part of this, that nurse came up and was just

standing there watching with mouth wide open. And

afterwards, he never spoke again, went right

back to patting his head and rubbing his stomach and she looked at us and

said what was that. And I'm just a smart Alec I go

yeah what was it. Did you give him different carrots. Did you give him different

medicine? Is it just a lucky day? And she goes, no. Seriously,

what was that? And chaplain Matt goes, what do you think it is?

And she said, was that God? And he goes and this is the most

brilliant question ever, Tim. You can take it from him. He'll be honored. He looked

at her and said, yes. But the more important piece of that is,

what are you going to do with it? Tim, you can't

witness that miracle and then be like, well, that was a good day for mister

Green. You make a decision. Tim,

she accepted the Lord into her heart and life that day.

So why is the book called God Doesn't Waste A Thing? He didn't waste a

beard to get me there because that's what brought me to come to know the

Lord. He didn't waste over 3 years of silence for his first

words to change her eternal future.

And I have stories upon stories and I know we have not much time

of God showing up In these mighty miracles.

And that's my passion is people in the community, chalk it

up to good doctors and he's lucky and

he's rich. When you have, like I said,

the same clothes, the same outfit, the same food,

you can point right where it's supposed to be given praise to, and that's to

god. That's a I love the story of that because

I saw something Similar with my dad who

little less than a year ago passed away with dementia that he you know,

mentally, there were not things there, but yet Some music and

song and, some church things we're able to pierce through. And

the thing that I wanna ask here, RJ, is that

Sounds like within a few months, you went

from not knowing the lord

to knowing the lord and then serving

the lord. I think a lot of people move into the knowing the lord

and they never move into the lord. Or maybe they do in their own way,

and we can't see it. I'm not judging that, but a lot of people,

it's still about them, and they all of a sudden they don't really turn and

focus on others. Was that something that pastor or

chaplain Matt encouraged you to do? Did you do it automatically?

Was it just something snapped and you did it, Or you didn't have

anything else to do? You're in prison? Why not just set up chairs for the

Muslim servant? What was the catalyst that moved you

from not knowing the lord, knowing the Lord

and then doing work for them.

Teed up an opportunity for me to talk about one of the heroes in my

life. His name was Mike Freeman. He did 27 years

straight in prison. Used to be one of those hardcore white

boy Nazi problematic, hateful,

especially towards sex offenders. He became one of my best friends before he passed away

inside. And after about 2 years of me walking

and talking and learning and loving the Bible

and God and Jesus and understand the holy spirit.

So I wanna give chaplain Matt and chaplain Troy and chaplain Abner, all people who

are addressing the book, a lot of credit. Yeah. They encouraged me to love others,

But there was a specific night where Mike Freeman comes

and he goes, RJ, Who

do you say Jesus is?

And I'm like, oh, I got this because keep in mind

about 18 months to 2 years before, I didn't even know there was a new

and old testament. Like, I was not aware. So I'm like,

I got this answer. I go, easy. Jesus is my

savior. Boom. Mic drop. And he looked at me. He goes,

that's true. Is that all he is? And I was like,

I miss. What where'd I miss? I go, what do you talk about? He goes,

have you made Jesus your lord yet? Have you

made a Lordship decision? I go, what does that mean? He goes,

here's the simplest way I can explain it. He was,

when you claim and say

that Jesus is your savior, You

are going home. You are going to heaven. That impacts 1

person. You are saved. But when you choose

to identify him as your Lord, now you're choosing

to follow him, to listen to him, to love those

around you as if you were him. I'm not saying I'm

Jesus. I was trying to love those like Jesus would.

When you make him your Lord, that impacts everyone

around you. Save your decision. 1 person you're going to

heaven. Lordship decision, watch the entire

environment around you change. That was pivotal for me, and

he made it so simple. There wasn't some really ridiculous hard

15 scriptures to go read and do these 1500 things. And

it's that simple. Lord and

savior. That's when I began truly saying

Okay. How am I going to

Energize love transform support

share hope encourage All these men that around

me now and presently that are still

inside hearing from the guards. You're nothing but

a blank. You're worthless. You're in here because no one

loves you. Society can't even stand to look at you.

Those are all false. That's all false. You're exactly where

god has you for the moment, and let's find what your purpose is while you're

there. Did you start writing the book while you are behind

bars, or did you do that later? When did that process start?

I did that once I got out because I I would

have never used the phrase, God does a waste a thing. Because even in the

midst of experience these miracles. I wasn't like, I'm so

happy that I grew that beard, and she used that to bring me here because

now I've just gotta witness This miracle, I wasn't intelligent enough and I wasn't

mature enough to witness what was still going on. But

once I got out and was able to look back and, honestly, The

thing that released me 13 years early

was the exact same thing that almost got me

killed In the 2nd murder attempt, identical thing. It's

in the book. When I got put back in the media

And able to step back and go, like, why am I here? Oh,

it's like the story of Joseph, who I love

and can relate to everywhere he went. God was with him.

And at the very end, after his father had died and all of his brothers

are like, oh, no. We're in for it now. He's gonna

kill us because we chucked him in the pit and we sold him. And

Joseph looked at him and said, Bless you. What all

y'all intended for evil? God used for

good. That was the moment I'm like, I need to are putting

these things down in the book. Because so many people

in society. In prison in churches are in

the middle of their thing that they would say, this is evil.

People are spreading rumors about me. I'm in the middle of my sin. I'm sitting

in a prison cell. I'm about to get divorced. I just had a son who

just told me blank That's the

moment where God's like, I can play in this game right now.

If it looks impossible, God's gonna sub himself in.

That's when I started writing the book. So,

obviously, released early? Yep.

And 2020. Right in the middle of COVID. Right in the middle of COVID. What

was that like as you exited the prison

system. The weirdest part

that I don't often share is I got

released May 27, 2020, May

26th at 9 PM.

I was considered to be so dangerous that I had to stand for count

as normal. And I was only allowed to use a plastic spork

And I'm locking down in a cell, but somehow, Tim,

8 hours later, according to society In the

prison system, praise God. I got out, but now

I'm walking free. I'm going to Walmart. I can go to

Applebee's or I can go to Outback, and I can use a fork or a

knife. And I'm the same person,

but I'm not as dangerous or as scary.

It's the weirdest mindset of like 7 years.

I couldn't use anything, but a toothbrush this

big, because it can't be made into a shank. Now I

can go to ACE hardware and buy Garden shears

that are this long. There was a lot of

things that had changed. There was no Use your phone. Tap

to pay. There was no Uber and Lyft, and there now dudes are wearing

masks. Skin girls are wearing masks. It's Why did I come out

here to? It almost felt safer inside, but

it was a good and very pleasant struggle to reassimilate.

I always had great support. Like I said earlier, great family who's there

to always love and support, encourage me.

But there were definitely times where, like, my 1st trip to Walmart

was it didn't go well. Way too many people and people reaching

across and shoo shoo. I'm used to prison where the number one rule

is be respectful. You reach across someone in prison,

you might, if you're lucky, get a, hey. What are you doing? Most often, you're

gonna get a shove or a fight because you just disrespected

someone. Walmart's not the most respectable place, Tim.

I'm not super excited about my visits to Walmart and Costco. I did

this last week and things like that too. What about,

Well, alright. You're obviously your identity changed while you were

in prison. Was there any impact on your

identity as you Exited because of the change in the

surrounding circumstances, etcetera. You said some things just

then, but any Anything go on

with your identity when all of a sudden you're hardened

criminal, using a sport, and then all of a sudden now

Society considers you a okay. Here you go. Here's knives

and probably no weapons, I'm guessing, but, you know, here's here's

whatever here's whatever you can get that would be

any identity issues you you dealt with when you were

released? I can honestly say no because

of the

Hard. Times dive into the Bible and the hours

upon hours of sitting in that chapel. Like that was my job from 7

AM till 8 PM to be around chaplains and believers,

to really be able to pound in me and believe in my heart.

I am exactly what this Bible says about me. I was made

in the image of God. I don't wake up every morning, like,

I'm such an image of God today. I can't wait to go and share this

with everybody, but I wake up knowing the truth that

I chose to do something, but that doesn't get to define me for the

rest of my life. Others may choose to do that. I

still have issues with people in society, like not being able to

get past. Having to register or not being able

to hear I could read off

what the Powerball numbers are gonna be tomorrow night, and there'd be some people like,

I don't wanna hear a word you have to say. Because no matter what you

say, it's coming out of the mouths of a sex offender.

I don't get to choose how they respond to my truth. I don't get to

choose how they respond to my words. And if I love them,

all I can do is share and love and encourage.

And it's hard to like, let their

reaction go. And there's

been some not so great reunions, But there's

been some absolutely wonderful ones, and I

don't give this man enough credit. 1 of my Greatest

friends, mentors in my life. He's a couple years younger than me. His name's Brett.

He never lost support for

me. He never chose to judge me or shame

me. And when I got out of prison, he

introduced me to the majority of my great friends

right now who are in a men's group that I'm so honored and proud to

be a part of. Had he not done that, I don't know where

my life would be right now because what he chose to do was to say,

that's scary, Tim. If you think of your most inner circle,

Are you gonna walk in someone they don't know and be like, Hey. This guy

just got out of prison. This was the crime he did.

I love him, but how about you guys accept him in? He

and I had over 30 years of history,

But that group is walking and

talking and living and trying to follow the Lord. So they respond

in kind, like You are not what other people say

about you. You are what we believe the Bible says about

you. That's really impactful to have a friend like that.

Who's willing to not just be like, I love you in secret, but

to stand on a rooftop and be like, Hey, this guy, This is

my guy. And even though he chose to do what he

did, I love him. That's changed

my perspective of how I can Help all my friends who get

out. Not be like, I liked you inside, but now that I'm out here, I

got a I got an agenda. I got my own image to protect, so

I gotta push you away. Now I one of my best

friends is serving a life sentence for murder,

And he's probably the kindest nicest easily the

funniest person I've ever had in my life.

And the really cool part of the book, he edited

it and did better than most professionals ever could. And

actually heard that from the publisher. They're like, Who'd you have that at this? I

go, a guy serving life in prison. They're like, dude, he nailed

it. All the commas, all the punctuation, everything was grammatically. It

was so easy for us. I'm like, Praise God. That shows

a lot of maturity from your buddy

that he obviously is comfortable in who he is, That he would

introduce you and connect you. And I think

it's fascinating. I think there's a great lesson

In understanding Sabbath rest, being just where

we need to be as best we can regardless of

circumstances, what society, culture, Other people say about us

when you exited. That was very powerful. RJ

Society calls you a sex sex offender

society calls you a sex offender.

Scripture says that you're been

forgiven and washed of your sins.

Do you truly believe That you have been forgiven of the sins that you've

committed? Yes.

Like, I know you're probably wanting more context to that, but

Yes. No question.

And one of my favorite things to share with a lot of the guys to

don't know the Lord that are sitting in prison. Like, yeah, he can forgive

you because you didn't kill someone or you didn't do this to

50 people. Or If you remember

Jesus on the cross, he's got his 2 dudes beside

him and one's rattling off. Hey. If you're really who you think

you are, Why don't you get us off of here? At least yourself, bro.

And the other one was like, don't you understand what's going on here? And he

says, hey. I I'm confessing who you

are. You must be the lord. Romans 10/9. Believe with your heart and

confess with your mouth that he is lord. You will be saved.

Jesus doesn't look at him and say, Hey man, before I

forgive you and allow you to come in to paradise with me, what, what did

you do? What, sorry about that. Yep. Good

luck hanging here. He forgives

all sins. Paul,

amen. So I follow-up question.

This is a little bit of an audible. I usually would have a Question as

I wrap up. But RJ, I would love for

you to some people may be watching this via video. Some people may be

listening in on the audio, but I would love for you to just look

into your camera, speak into the mic to

anyone that I don't know if

they are where you were before

The crime or they may be in a situation that you were

during your incarceration before you met the lord. They

may be in a situation even after that. Whatever the holy spirit puts

on your heart, just take a minute and just speak directly

to someone That has listened in to this entire

conversation and minister something to them before

I put some, as much of a bow as I can on this on

this conversation. Thank you for that opportunity.

What I didn't share to whoever it is that's watching,

looking, listening, My story started with me

laying on the train tracks. Trying to kill myself.

Before I got sentenced to prison. I knew I was

gonna end up there and didn't think I could deal with that

circumstance. There were several tracks

that were at this location that I went and hid my car and laid on,

and it was late at night. And my dad drove trains his entire life,

And I know if you can't see 1, you can hear 1. And if you

can't hear 1, you can feel it. And so I felt the tracks and I

knew which track that train was coming on. I laid on it

Neck on the rail. Because I

felt alone. I felt isolated. I felt hopeless.

This was the only way out. Called mom, dad, brother, best

friend, and said, hey. I'm gonna kill myself. I did something I can't even deal

with. Love you. Bye. The track that I was on,

thankfully, was the wrong track. And the train went by beside

me. And I'm gonna land this plane, but this is really

important. I drove around the city of Denver for 4 hours

because I was afraid to go home. I was afraid thinking the cops are gonna

be there, and I'm gonna have to walk it the circumstance, this punishment.

When I about ran out of gas, I drove

home and my parents lived 5 hours

away from me. Four hours.

I walked in to my apartment and I

took the 1st step in thinking the cops are gonna be in there.

And sprinting out of my bedroom in the back was my

dad who was at home 4 and a half hours

ago or 4 hours when I called him and said I'm gonna kill myself, and

he's crying. And I'm not a believer, I didn't understand this until

I finished writing my book. I looked at him and I go, what are you

doing here? And he put his arms out,

and he said, I didn't know what else to do.

I said, dad, I called you and told you I was gonna kill myself. What

was your plan? He goes, I didn't have 1. I go, why'd you come here?

He and he said this. And in 2012, this didn't make any sense

to me. He said, I promised your mother and God

that I was gonna take care of you and your brother until the day that

I died. So when you called, I came.

I said what he goes, you called. I came. And his

arms were out. He didn't yell at me. He didn't tell me to apologize or

to do a 1,000 things. He put his arms out. And as a

30 year old, I ran into him and hugged him and fell asleep in his

arms scared, and they went to the police station the next day.

Here's the thing I'm telling the person listening.

That's the perfect representation of what

Jesus does. It's in the Bible called

the prodigal son story. We might be in the middle of our pain, in the

middle of your sin, in the middle of your fear, in the middle of your

circumstance that you cannot deal with and you're feeling alone, you're feeling

isolated, hopeless, scared, Full of fear.

God is already standing there with his arms out.

He's already come. All you need to do is

call. And go. And

that is the thing I can share the most in the middle of what

you're going through. He's already there. He's not

gonna waste it. Thank you, Tim, for letting me share that. Thank you,

RJ. RJ, where can people find god doesn't waste

a thing and give your ministry website and all if they wanna support

because you're going back into prisons, Yep. And you're able to go

back in there and share this message and minister there. Give

just a little bit of where people can find it. We'll include it down in

the notes, and then I'll wrap up. Awesome. Yeah.

Not my will ministries.com is the ministry website. You can see

some of my Testimony of couple of the places I've

spoken with and couple of the churches that I've stopped and shared

what the lord has done in my life. There's links to have me come and

speak at your men's group, at your church. I'd love to do that. I'd be

honored to be welcomed in anybody's community. You can find the

book on there. You can there's links to go to my publisher. There's links to

go to Amazon. Like you said, it's God Doesn't Waste a Thing by the pen

name, Luke Chance, which Chaplain Troy, his 2 sons'

names are Chance and Luke, so it was an awesome way for me to give

honor to him coming in and loving me when very few would.

A goal of mine is to continue supporting and going into those inside of prison.

So if you're feeling called or urged or led to learn more

about that, where if you're trying to find a really cool way to tithe or

donate or support, I'm not telling you to not give your money

to your local church or ministry or food bank. But

there's a lot of people who need to know that we love

them, that they're not forgotten And a donation can help

them communicate with their sons, daughters, wives, buy shampoo.

It's a worthy cause, and I would really ask that you pray about it. And

if you're interested, go to not my will ministries.com and reach out to me,

and look forward to doing prison ministry with you. Thanks,

RJ. We'll include everything down in the notes, or if you're watching this via video,

you can find it all there too. We are seek, go create here,

and, we have conversations That people don't have in

a lot of other places as you were, listening in and

viewing here. I appreciate RJ. I wanna honor you,

Not for what you did, but for your identity and who you are

and for your vulnerability in sharing that because I

think that's when our hearts are touched, and I believe that our journey

here on this Earth is to soften our hearts. You

definitely helped do that, and I know you continue to. So again,

we're see go create. We've got new episodes every Monday, And

until next time, continue being all that you were

created to