“God, if you’re for real, I want You, but I don’t know how to find You. I don’t know how to do this.”
Those words in a prison cell—and the encounter with God that resulted—changed Sonny Lara’s life and brought him the fiery passion for Christ he has today. He and his wife, Linda, share the story with Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network.
“When you go into prison, you make a choice: Either you serve God, or you serve the devil,” Sonny says. “Just like the Bible says, you can only serve one master. I was tired of living that life.”
That’s when he surrendered to God—and God showed up, right there in his prison cell.
“I heard him say, ‘I visited the woman at the well, but I visit you at the cell,” Sonny says.
His salvation didn’t make his life in prison easy, though. “People think you hide behind [your faith],” he says. “But I was so done with my life, I didn’t care. I said, ‘God, you’re either God, or I’m a dead man. …. It was weird, the Holy Spirit, right away when they started trying [to intimidate me] led me to Proverbs 16:7. … It says, ‘Those who reverence God, I’ll make your enemies at peace with you.'”
God also did the miraculous in Linda’s life while her husband was in prison and brought the two into a vibrant ministry, working with the blessing of the city of San Jose to bring teens out of gangs and into new life in Christ. To learn more, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines here. Subscribe to the Greenelines podcast on your favorite podcast platform for more inspiring stories like this one, and be sure to check out the Laras’ own podcast, Miracle Madness, also on the Charisma Podcast Network. {eoa}
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