Bad decisions.

I was thinking about the time, several years ago, when I visited a friend in prison.

He actually used to work for me at a Christian radio station, and bad choices led to addiction, which led to an orange jumpsuit and a few years behind bars.

As I walked in I was searched, and I had to leave practically everything - including my wedding band - with security.

We met in a common area, where the tables and chairs are bolted to the floor. Not that I wanted to, but I was warned I couldn’t touch my friend, and the guards were glaring at us the whole time.

We had a nice visit and my friend told me that he had helped build the very room we were sitting in. Before he was arrested he sold steel for construction jobs, and this was one of his projects.

As I walked out and the large metal doors slammed shut behind me, I thanked God I was able to leave and as I gathered my belongings and put my wedding ring back on, it dawned on me that I was really only one bad decision from living on the inside rather than the outside.

One decision that I was very capable of making.

My dad used to say that lost sheep don’t mean to get lost. They don’t wake up one day and say, “Hey I think I’ll become a lost sheep today!”

No, they just put their head down in the morning and they start to nibble. And they keep nibbling, and walking, and they forget to look up and they stop listening to their shepherd.