How Jesus Met Me in My Lowest Place and Gave My Life Meaning
If you had met me a few years ago, you probably wouldn’t have looked at me and thought, “That’s someone God is going to use.”
To be honest, there was a time when I wouldn’t have believed it either.
As a young man, I got caught up in a lifestyle that looked exciting from the outside but was rotten underneath. Bad choices, wrong people, fast money, and a mindset that told me I had to do whatever it took to survive. That road eventually led me to prison, where I spent five years incarcerated for drug smuggling.
And when those gates shut behind me, I genuinely thought my life was finished.
Not paused.
Not delayed.
Finished.
I thought I’d thrown away my future before I’d even really lived it.
But now, looking back, I can honestly say this:
Prison was the place where my old life ended — but it was also the place where God began to reveal my real purpose.
The Lifestyle I Thought Would Save Me Nearly Destroyed Me
Before prison, I was living in a way that many young people get drawn into without really thinking about where it ends.
It starts small.
A few bad decisions.
A few compromises.
A few justifications.
You tell yourself it’s temporary.
You tell yourself you’re in control.
You tell yourself you’re only doing what you need to do.
But sin never stays small.
It grows.
It hardens your heart.
It clouds your judgment.
And before you know it, you’ve built your whole life on something that can’t hold you up.
That was me.
I was chasing money, status, and a sense of control — but really, I was empty.
I didn’t have peace.
I didn’t have direction.
And if I’m honest, I didn’t truly have God.
I may have known about Him, but I wasn’t living for Him.
And eventually, the choices I made caught up with me.
Nothing Prepares You for the Moment Your Freedom Is Taken Away
There’s something about prison that forces reality on you in a way nothing else does.
When you lose your freedom, all the noise disappears.
No pretending.
No distractions.
No image to protect.
No running.
You’re left alone with your thoughts, your regret, your anger, your shame, and the truth about the life you’ve been living.
That’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to face.
Because prison doesn’t just lock up your body — it exposes your soul.
And for a while, I was angry.
Angry at myself.
Angry at life.
Angry at the people I blamed.
Angry that I had ended up there.
But once the anger started to wear off, I was left with something even heavier:
the reality that I had lost myself.
Not just legally.
Spiritually.
Mentally.
Emotionally.
I had drifted so far from the person God created me to be that I didn’t even recognise myself anymore.
And that’s where everything started to change.
I Didn’t Find God in Comfort : I Found Him in a Cell
People love to talk about finding God in beautiful moments.
At church events.
At worship nights.
At conferences.
And God absolutely moves in those places.
But me?
I found Him in a prison cell.
I found Him in the silence after the lights went down.
I found Him in the loneliness.
I found Him in the guilt.
I found Him when there was nowhere left to run and no one left to impress.
That’s where I started praying for real.
Not religious prayers.
Not rehearsed words.
Just raw honesty.
“God, if You still want anything to do with me, I need You.”
And the beautiful thing is this:
He didn’t turn away from me.
That still breaks me when I think about it.
Because I deserved consequences.
I deserved the weight of my choices.
But even in the middle of all of that, God met me with mercy.
Not because I had earned it.
But because that’s who He is.
Jesus Didn’t Just Comfort Me : He Confronted Me
One of the biggest lies people believe is that coming to God is just about feeling better.
But when Jesus really starts working in your life, He doesn’t just comfort you — He confronts you.
And that’s exactly what happened to me.
God started dealing with my pride.
My excuses.
My selfishness.
My rebellion.
My wounds.
My bitterness.
The things I had buried.
The things I had normalised.
The things I had blamed on everyone else.
And that was painful.
Because it’s one thing to ask God to help you.
It’s another thing to let Him show you what actually needs to die in you.
I had to come to terms with this truth:
I wasn’t just in prison because life had been unfair to me. I was there because I had made sinful, destructive choices.
That level of honesty was hard.
But it was also freeing.
Because healing only begins when truth is allowed in.
And once I stopped defending my old life, God began rebuilding a new one.
The Bible Became More Than a Book — It Became My Lifeline
When I started reading Scripture properly, it hit differently.
Because when you’re broken, the Word of God stops being theory and starts becoming survival.
Verses about grace, repentance, redemption, and new life became deeply personal to me.
I wasn’t just reading stories.
I was seeing myself in them.
Men who failed.
People who fell.
Lives that looked finished.
And yet God still stepped in.
That gave me hope.
One verse that stayed with me was:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new is here!” — 2 Corinthians 5:17
That verse became real to me in prison.
Because I had spent so long believing that my identity was fixed.
That once you’ve messed up badly enough, that’s it.
That you’ll always just be:
- the criminal,
- the ex-offender,
- the one who blew it,
- the disappointment,
- the bad example.
But Jesus spoke something better over my life.
He said I could be new.
And that changed everything.
Leaving Prison Wasn’t the End of the Battle
A lot of people think the hardest part is doing the sentence.
And don’t get me wrong — prison is hard.
But coming out can be hard in a completely different way.
Because once you’re released, you’re expected to just “get on with life” as if five years hasn’t changed everything.
But the truth is, when I came out, I was carrying more than a bag of belongings.
I was carrying:
- shame,
- fear,
- uncertainty,
- trauma,
- regret,
- and the pressure of trying to rebuild from scratch.
The world had moved on.
People had opinions.
Some looked at me differently.
Some wrote me off before I even had a chance.
And some only saw my record, not my redemption.
That can mess with your head if you let it.
Because when society keeps reminding you who you were, it takes real faith to keep believing who God says you are.
So How Did I Discover My Purpose?
If I’m honest, I didn’t discover my purpose in one big dramatic moment.
It didn’t happen overnight.
It happened through walking with God daily and allowing Him to reshape my life.
And this is what He showed me:
1. My past was not wasted
For a long time, I wanted to erase my story.
I didn’t want to talk about prison.
I didn’t want people to know where I’d been.
I didn’t want to be “that guy”.
But God started showing me something powerful:
what I was ashamed of, He could use for His glory.
That doesn’t mean He approved of what I did.
But it does mean He is powerful enough to redeem it.
And once I understood that, I stopped seeing my past only as a source of shame.
I started seeing it as part of my testimony.
2. My purpose is connected to people I can now reach
There are certain people I can speak to now in a way I couldn’t have before.
Young men heading down the wrong road.
People chasing fast money.
People carrying father wounds, rejection, trauma, and anger.
People who feel trapped by labels.
People coming out of prison thinking life is over.
Because I know what that darkness feels like.
And when I speak now, I’m not speaking from theory.
I’m speaking from lived experience.
That’s when I started realising:
God can use my life to reach people that religion alone often can’t touch.
3. My purpose is bigger than just “staying out of trouble”
For a while, I thought success would simply mean not going back.
And yes — that matters.
But God showed me He had more for me than just survival.
He didn’t just save me so I could exist.
He saved me so I could live on purpose.
To encourage.
To disciple.
To serve.
To speak truth.
To be a witness.
To help others encounter the same grace that rescued me.
That’s when I stopped asking, “Can I recover from my past?”
And I started asking, “Lord, how do You want to use my life now?”
That question changed everything.
God Gave Me Purpose Through My Pain
One of the deepest things I’ve learned is this:
God often reveals purpose in the very place where you experienced your greatest pain.
And for me, that pain became part of my calling.
Not because prison was good.
Not because the mistakes were worth celebrating.
But because God wastes nothing when you fully surrender it to Him.
Now I understand that my story can carry hope.
My scars can carry healing.
My testimony can carry freedom.
And if God can pull purpose out of a prison sentence, then there is absolutely nothing beyond His power to redeem.
To the Young Adult Who Feels Like You’ve Ruined Your Life
Maybe you’re reading this and you feel disqualified.
Maybe your story is different from mine.
Or maybe it’s painfully similar.
Maybe you’ve done things you’re ashamed of.
Maybe you’ve hurt people.
Maybe you’ve sabotaged your own future.
Maybe you’re carrying guilt you can’t shake.
Maybe you feel like everyone has moved on and you’re stuck under the weight of your worst decisions.
If that’s you, hear me clearly:
Jesus Christ still restores broken people.
Not polished people.
Not perfect people.
Broken people.
People like me.
People like you.
You are not beyond grace.
You are not too far gone.
You are not disqualified from purpose because of your past.
If God could meet me in prison and begin rebuilding my life from the inside out, He can meet you wherever you are too.
My Record May Exist on Paper — But Heaven Calls Me Redeemed
That’s one of the most powerful truths I live by now.
Yes, I have a past.
Yes, I made serious mistakes.
Yes, there are consequences to choices.
But my life is no longer being written by my failures.
It’s being rewritten by the grace of God.
And today, I know this:
I am not just a man who went to prison.
I am a man who was found by Jesus.
I am a man being restored.
I am a man with a testimony.
I am a man with purpose.
And that purpose is bigger than anything I ever chased before.
Final Words
If I could say one thing to anyone who feels like their life has gone off track, it would be this:
Your lowest point can become the place where God introduces you to your real purpose.
That’s what happened to me.
What looked like the end of my life became the place where Christ began rebuilding it.
And now, instead of hiding my story, I want to use it.
For His glory.
For other people’s healing.
And as proof that no prison, no shame, and no past is stronger than the redeeming power of Jesus Christ.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You that You are a God of mercy, restoration, and second chances. Thank You that no life is too broken for You to rebuild. I pray for every person carrying shame, regret, or the weight of their past remind them that in Christ, there is still hope, healing, and purpose. Use our stories for Your glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
I’m Yours Truly
Andrew A Lloyds Adeleke
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