Televangelist Jim Bakker's I Was Wrong is surprisingly engaging. Who knew he bunked with Lyndon LaRouche in prison and read Solzhenitsyn? And it's so fruitful from the viewpoint of sobering oneself up. It is a tragedy that men seem to learn only from tragedy. So we must constantly read of other's nightmares in order to prevent our own --with God's help that is.
A particularly poignant moment is when, in prison, Christ's preacher realizes he'd forgotten who Christ is, or rather never knew Him in the first place. After a dream in which he imagined Jesus pulling out a slice of His own eye (as if a contact lens) handing it to Bakker saying, "I want you to see everything and everyone through My eyes" Bakker writes:
I began to ask, as much to myself as to God, "How can I see everything and everybody through the eyes of Jesus?"
The answer, whether from God or my conscience or my own mind, was crystal clear: I must read every word Jesus said, because if I know Him and His words, then I can see everything through His eyes.
Instead of reading my usual two motivational or inspirational books each day, I began reading the Gospels every day. I got a red-letter edition of the Bible from the chapel library, the words in red indicating the words of Jesus. I literally wrote down every word Christ spoke as recorded in Scriptures. Then I wrote a condensed version of the verses to help me remember them. For instance, "Love your neighbor." "Love God." "Do not sin." I began to see things in the Bible that I had never seen before. I made up my mind then that I was going to ask God all the difficult questions I'd skirted over in my busy years. The first question I asked God was, "Why are there so many dying people here, and why can't I help them? What can I do?"
I was surprised at the answer I heard from God: "You are arrogant. You think that you are the only person I have in this prison. I have many others here. I am God." And then God said to me, "I did not bring you to prison to minister. I brought you here to get to know Me."
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