Tuesday, August 10th, 2021
I asked Ricco at the Wright County Jail yesterday how he could be such a strong Christian and get into the trouble he did that landed him in jail for possibly a very long time. If you’ll remember, Ricco is a person I lean on for spiritual perspective.
His answer was this. “Pat, before that crime I had two identities and kept switching back and forth between one and the other. The first was my life hidden in Christ. The second was my life hidden with Ricco. I was what you’d call a sketchy Christian or a wish washy Christian. When I committed that crime it was because I was not living out my identity with Christ. I hung around in the wrong places with the wrong people doing the wrong things. My identity was with drugs and gangs. That crime was my wake-up call. The identity of the Old Ricco is dead. I am now alive in Christ and solid with him, and that’s my identity now – all the time.”
Ricco is a spiritual mentor and Christian teacher in the Wright County Jail. He conducts weekly Bible studies and serves as a listener and advisor to believers and non-believers alike. He is God’s instrument to his fellow inmates … and to me as well.
How about you? What is your identity? Do you switch back and forth between a person hidden in Christ and a person who goes his or her own way?