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Lost Kings: The Impact of Prison on Men with Steven Snook

Step inside the dark and gripping world of incarceration with “Lost Kings: The Impact of Prison on Men with Steven Snook ", as a former felon reveals the shocking truth about the lasting impact of prison on men.
Get ready for a heart-wrenching and ey...

“Lost Kings: The Impact of Prison on Men with Steven Snook " is a captivating and thought-provoking show that explores the impact of prison on men. The show is an interview with Steven Snook, a former felon who spent 19 years in the prison system and 377 days in solitary confinement.

 

Through his personal account, Steven shares his experiences of life behind bars, the challenges he faced, and how his time in prison affected his mental and emotional well-being. He provides a raw and honest portrayal of the struggles that inmates face, from the harsh living conditions to the dehumanizing treatment they receive.

The show delves into the psychological impact of long-term incarceration and the devastating effects of solitary confinement. Steven shares his personal experiences of isolation, the toll it takes on mental health, and how his faith kept him whole.

The audience will also gain insights into the flaws of the criminal justice system, including the disproportionate impact on communities of low-income backgrounds. We also delved into the prosecutions of non-violent versus violent crimes. The show highlights the need for reforms in the system to ensure that prisoners receive the support they need to rehabilitate and reintegrate into society.

“Lost Kings: The Impact of Prison on Men with Steven Snook "  is a powerful and moving show that sheds light on the harsh realities of prison life and the long-lasting impact it can have on inmates. It challenges viewers to consider the current state of our system and how it impacts the men within.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] . I mean, it, it is a 20 foot thick wall. Yeah. When you walk in it mm-hmm. and that door closing behind me. I knew they was supposed to let me out, but I mean, that door closing behind me just sent chills. Right. Prison is not a good place. Right. It's not a happy place to be. How is it that the way the system is, it turns so many people into repeat offenders?

[00:00:25] Okay. Well, because one for, for one reason, brother, the rehabilitation efforts that society believes are available are not available. Okay. So if a man doesn't really want to help himself and have access to the ability to help himself, he's in trouble. Any idiot can go to prison and lift weights and play spades all day, won't.

[00:00:49] Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential? Growing to the men we dream of being while taking care of our responsibilities. Working, being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves. Well, that's the big question. In this podcast, we'll help you answer those questions and more.

[00:01:09] My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast mission. Welcome to the Fal Man Podcast, your home for all things, man, husband, and father. Big shout out to Fallible Nation. You guys make this possible and a warm welcome to our first time listeners. My name is Brent, and today my special guest is Steven Ook.

[00:01:28] Steven spent 19 years in the federal prison system, including 377 days in solitary confinement. Today, Steven is a very different man, but he has an incredible story to share. Steven, welcome to the show, man, Brett. Thank you brother. Steven. We're, uh, we're, we like to start things with a little bit of fun, so I've got a multiple choice question for you.

[00:01:49] Okay. I'm gonna play the little game. You guys, if you're listening to this, wherever you're listening to it, play the game with us. Don't cheat, don't go look it up during the rest of the episode. Question in New Zealand, what is it? Legal to fly in a hot air balloon with A, a dog, B, a bicycle, C, a violin, or D, a rooster.

[00:02:12] I'm gonna say a rooster. A rooster. All right. Remember guys, that's the answer we're going with is a rooster, and we will get that at the end of the show. Find out if Steven is right. I love weird laws in interesting places, like some of the most absurd laws they put on the books for no reason other than some politicians somewhere had to like create a law.

[00:02:35] So his name was in the books. Stephen, before we go down the road of who, your backstory and stuff like that, who is Steven Snook today? Right now, in this moment? Well, I'm gonna tell you that he's not, he's not the rooster anymore. And uh, I had to go with the rooster because that was my nickname for years of my life, the rooster.

[00:02:55] And, uh, it kind of came from a Alison Chains song, um, called Rooster. Mm-hmm. . So if you, your audience is familiar with that old tune right there, that's, uh, that's a me and a synopsis of who I used to be, who I am right now, brother. I am a man of God. Without question. I'm not a man of God that is a religious man.

[00:03:14] I would never try to put somebody on the Bible or hand 'em a Bible and tell 'em that Jesus loves you. I'm a man that has counted the cost. I've seen the price of what this is and what it takes to be able to help a sick and dying world to really be able to reach out and help somebody. I've counted the cost.

[00:03:30] I've agreed to pay the price. Uh, just to tell you something that you, I, you don't know this, there's no way you could know this, but I just finished a 21 day water only fast, not what they call an America a Daniel Fast, which the Bible doesn't describe as a Daniel fast. They calls it a Daniel mourning, okay?

[00:03:50] A biblical, true biblical fast. No food, just water 21 days. Why would I do that? Why would I press in like that? Because I need all of God, all of him, that he can use me and work through me to help people that have been abused in their life or that have been strung out on drugs, or that have been in prison, or that are currently in prison.

[00:04:11] So I'm willing to pay that price for them, brother. All right, Steven, I, and I'm, I'm a huge ch Alison Chains band. I, I grew up in that age group, uh, Nirvana, and I remember Nirvana when their garage band and all of the, like the Seattle grunge scene. Uh, I love Alison Chains. In fact, that, that is on one of my normal playlist is Rooster.

[00:04:32] So Steven, what is something just absurd that you like to do right now in your life? Absurd. Well, yeah. You mean you probably caught me off guard a little bit right there. I love lo, I love fasting for long periods of time. Mm-hmm. , because I never come out of that without having experienced something from God.

[00:04:51] Um, this pass fast right here. On day 14 of this fast, I was laying on my couch and the Lord took me into a vision. And in the vision there was a guy sitting on the floor with a black hoodie on, with the hood tied over his face with just a little hole there in the front. So I walked around the man to look at his face.

[00:05:09] I couldn't see his face, so I stepped back away from him. I said, Lord, I don't understand what this is. I can't tell what, who the man is. He took his hood off and I could see that he had this short, buzzed hair and he, about half of his face was in a shadow, so I couldn't see all of his face. He is like his whole head and face was in a half of a shadow.

[00:05:27] I said, Lord, I believe I know the man, but I need that shadow to remove. I can't tell who he is. And then the vision went away. So I picked up the phone. I called my son. I have an adult son. I said, son, do you have a black hoodie? He said, no, dad, I ain't got a black. I said, okay, I'm just checking, man, if something happened over here.

[00:05:44] I don't tell people when I'm fasting like that. So I just told 'em something happened over here. I hung up. I laid back down. I started thinking about it. My phone went off. I reached down and picked it up. I had a friend request on Facebook. I looked at the man's Facebook profile picture, and it was the exact picture that was on that vision.

[00:06:00] Half of his face was in the shadow and only the other half. I'm gonna show you the picture on my phone. I accepted it, recognized the man's name and accepted it. I said, man, what you doing, man? Where have you been? I didn't even know the man was alive. This man used to sell kilos of cocaine for me, man, 20 years ago.

[00:06:16] He said, bro, I've been watching you on social media, man. Please don't stop what you're doing. So it meant a lot to me because the Lord confirmed that vision. Now, watch what happens. Two days go by, I'm laying in the bed. It's day 16 of that water only fast. My body hurts. I'm hurting now about 10 o'clock at night.

[00:06:33] I crawl up in the bed, phone rings. I told the Lord, I said, I'm not getting up to get it. The Lord said, you're gonna get up and get it cuz it's your responsibility. So I crawled outta bed. I went out here and I grabbed a hold of that phone. I said, hello, hello, hello. I did this for about 30 seconds, man. It was that dude.

[00:06:50] I seen it on caller id. So I hung it up, went to walk back in my room and the phone rang. I picked it up. I said, what's up dog? He said, bro, that's the craziest thing I've ever experienced in my life. He said, I'm here by myself. My phone's across the room, and I just heard this voice saying, hello, hello, hello.

[00:07:06] And it was you, man. He said, my phone just called you, man. I said, let's talk a little bit, man. Something's going on. What's going on? Come to find out, man told me he had got born again 14 years earlier, and he walked away from the Lord. He felt like he was extremely lonely. He couldn't find men that were like him, that were hard, aggressive men that had been criminals or that were real bold men.

[00:07:25] He couldn't find men like that in the church. I said, brother, you ain't alone no more. God ain't put us together like this by accident, and now we're going to put it this thing together. We're gonna take that same drug crew and we're going to use it for Jesus. I love it. I love it. Steven, what purchase of a hundred dollars or less have you made in the last year that's had the most impact on your life?

[00:07:49] Purchases I've made in the last year for under a hundred dollars. Boy, that's tough right there, man. What would it be, bro? I guess a steak . You, you do 20 years in jail, man. Hey, can I put this picture up here, man? I wanna cover the man's name up. Say you need to cover the man's name. Can you see that? Yeah.

[00:08:12] Yeah. That's the profile picture, brother. That's the vision. That was in the vision, bro. Who takes the long, you listening? Check out the video to see that picture. Uh, the video will be on YouTube and. Um, shoot, I just went blank. the other one. TikTok. No, I, I have a backup all my YouTube videos. I also have a Rumble account.

[00:08:37] Awesome. Just in case YouTube ever decides to get tired of me. Uh, they like to decide randomly who's offensive and who's not. So, and when you start talking about truth, they, they tend to get a little, uh, you know, happy about closing people down and shutting people off. So I have a backup account on Rumble at all times to make sure all my videos go to both.

[00:09:01] So guys, the, the picture of the guy's face is just exactly what he described. Like, I mean, just word for word, exactly what he described, and I can definitely see how a good steak man would, would be a huge impact. Yeah. Uh, after that kind of stretch, what is something people should know about you upfront before we really start to dig again?

[00:09:24] Man, I'm passionate, man. I'm a passionate, passionate man, man, about what I stand for. Um, a big part of who I am and what I stand for is not just to help as many people as possible with every breath that I have left on this earth, but I like to reach men like you do. That's why I respect you and what you're doing, because the way that I read the Bible and the gospel of Jesus, Jesus never called a soft man to be a disciple.

[00:09:50] He just didn't do that, brother. He called hard men, old men of faith. You know what I mean? And unfortunately, what I see out here in the church, since I've been out now for about a year, it's got a lot of soft dudes in it, man. And God's gotta step up, man, because the women that are in the church are actually looking at some of these dudes, man, and they're like, look man, you gotta step up.

[00:10:09] You gotta be a little bit harder than. You are not going to reach a drug addict or somebody that's been abused in their life or somebody that's been in prison or jail or somebody that's lost and is, is thinking about killing herself with this soft water down thing. And I know that's why Jesus picked him hard men, cuz he could take a man with a little bit of courage and a terrible background, a background.

[00:10:28] He can make that man a awesome disciple for him to help a lot of people. But somebody else that maybe has a doctorate from Dallas Seminary is soft in his heart, is worthless to the Kingdom of God, brother. Uh, I,

[00:10:46] without going on wild tangents, trust me, you, you and I have a lot of grievance about the modern church. Uh, they're, they're just, it's has not been, I don't think they've been successful with the way they reach out to men. They tend to soften men up instead of letting men be the men they were created to be.

[00:11:07] Right? Did for years. For years I thought I was going to hell cuz I, you know, God didn't love men with a bit of an edge, with a bit of, a lot of aggression and stuff like that. Right. How could I fit in that picture? So I, I totally get what you're saying. And I mean, the Bible's full of hard men that God did amazing things with, uh, brings a lot of comfort for those of us who have had some color to our past.

[00:11:34] Right? Yeah. Yeah. Don't try to soften me up, bro. You know what I mean? With this, whatever they're teaching out here, cuz I'm gonna tell you right now, that's why their prison ministry is so sorry. And they go in there and sing a few tunes and Hannah Guy Bible and tells 'em Jesus loves and it means absolutely nothing.

[00:11:49] Mm-hmm. . But when you're a former, you know, big time gang member like myself, which men would say big time gang member. I count all that as garbage now. But back then I was somebody in that world. So men, when I got radically saved and born again and fooled, the Holy Spirit of God, men still had to respect me in the system, brother.

[00:12:07] I was in prison in what? Eight different states, all over the United States. They still would respect me. They would wanna know what happened. And you know what? When I would present that gospel in a different way and say, brother, the way that they've told us about Jesus and about the Father God, about the Holy Spirit, they, they didn't tell us.

[00:12:23] Right man. Jesus. Yeah. Jesus died on the cross. And, and, and they put him in a tomb, but he rose from the dead. Bro, they've been preaching to us a dead Jesus and a live Bible. The Bible's all good and it's true, but Jesus is alive at the right hand. He set the, the Holy Spirit back down and we can walk in this supernatural life.

[00:12:42] I expect to hear from God on a, on a basis of at least once every three or four days. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. . And when I would present that to these men in prison, they would say, rooster, how do I get that? I'd say, brother, now we're gonna get somewhere cuz I can show you how to get there. But it's a price.

[00:12:57] There's no price to salvation. Jesus paid for that. But to get the better things from God, to be able to hear from God and be able to help a lot of people, there's a little bit of a price you're gonna have to pay and it's gonna start with some fasting and some prayer. And that's how it really catapulted.

[00:13:09] Man. I told you before we started rolling that, uh, I had a friend who worked in the prison, prison ministry for years, uh, in Washington State. He was the only chaplain who could walk death row and That's awesome. Kenny. Kenny was covered in tattoos. He was an old, old hard school one. Percenter. Biker. Yeah. He got his wife.

[00:13:30] He traded a motorcycle for his wife. Yeah. That's how traded a Harley. That's how he got his wife. Uh, he old school, hardcore motorcycle. And Kenny did not look like a bible thumper. So Kenny could walk anywhere in that prison. And he understood it. He had spent enough time in prison that. He understood the men in there, he understood the way they saw life and he could connect with them.

[00:13:57] He just, and it was awesome. I see other guys who were prison chaplains like, dude, I know I don't know what I'm doing, but you walking in there in a polo shirt and your khakis is not the right approach. I'm telling you now. No, it's not. It's not hidden . Now guys, we're gonna take a break for just a minute and roll to one of our sponsors and we are gonna come back and get into Steven's story in just a second.

[00:14:23] Now, before we go any further, I wanted to share with you guys, I don't always tell you how much I love doing my podcast, like I passionately love what I'm doing and one of the things that makes my life better as a podcaster is to work with a company like Grow Your Show. Grow Your Show is a one-stop podcast.

[00:14:42] Do it all. Now I use Grow Your Show for my marketing, but Grow Your Show is literally a one-stop shop. You can record your episode and just drop it off with them and they take it from there. It's amazing. If you are interested in picking up podcasting, it's a hobby, or maybe you're looking to expand your business and use podcasting in that aspect, talk to my friends over Grow Your Show.

[00:15:01] Adam will take care of you. I guarantee it. I trust him. He's my friend, he's my business colleague, and I wouldn't trust anybody else with my show. Okay, here we go. We'll go back in. All right guys, we're back here with Steven Snook and Steven, I want you just give us the overview, tell us your story cuz it's fascinating.

[00:15:21] Oh, awesome brother. I appreciate that opportunity. Uh, let me just run through this real quick, brother. I was born in Hampton, Virginia in 1976. I was born, my mother was 15 years old and I already had a brother that was a year and five months old. So she had her first child at 13. She had her second at 15.

[00:15:38] There was no man in her life. My brother and I had different fathers. It was extreme poverty. She tried to do the best that she could with us within two years. There was no way for her to take care of us. D C f S was different back then. The way she relayed the story to me was that she loved us and she just couldn't take care of us.

[00:15:55] So she shut us by the road and she called the police to come and get us. They put us in a foster home. Eventually, we were taken out of the foster home system and, and taken in by my brother's father's sister, who was not actually related to me, but she loved us all the same. Brought us into Illinois where she.

[00:16:14] The problem was, is that she married extremely violent ex-military alcoholics, and she had a pattern of this. These were the type of men that she would marry. And so the second man that she married, uh, when I was about seven years old, ended up becoming my defacto father. He was a boxer in the military, extreme alcoholic, extremely violent.

[00:16:35] He taught me how to fight like a man by the time I was 12 years old. By the time I was 14, 15 years old, I would go in bars and just crush guys. Um, I had a boxing coach also as well. And so you can just imagine that type of life. No loving home. My uncle was completely insane. Uh, would come home, he'd be drunk, shoot a shotgun off from the house and blow the fish tank up.

[00:16:56] Uh, extreme poverty. He wouldn't work. She was a waitress. So by the time I was 15, I became a drug dealer. I started out selling marijuana. My brother, who was a year and five months older than me, he just ran away. It was better to run away and live like a hobo and jump on railroad cars to California or other places than to live where we lived.

[00:17:16] So, At 15, I started selling marijuana. Moved out on my own. Uh, by the time I was 19, I was a full-fledged drug trafficker. I would get dropped off at the Indianapolis, uh, international airport, get on an airplane, fly down to the Mexican border, pick up loads of marijuana, ship it back, started going to jail, getting busted here and there, state after state, after state.

[00:17:37] Then when I turned 21, I ended up catching a case with my girlfriend who was 17. We were living together against the law. Can't do that. Still into drug trafficking, still selling cocaine, marijuana. Go to prison. Spend three years in prison, maximum security prisons. Two of them in Illinois, Stateville and Menard.

[00:17:55] One of the prisons had 3,500 inmates. 2000 of them have life sentences. Got out of there at 24, start, hit the ground, running straight back to cocaine trafficking, just did not care. Gang member, all that, had a crew on the street. As soon as I hit the ground, I put a massive crew together. Again. Now I'm trafficking cocaine.

[00:18:16] At 26 years old, I get busted by the DEA and the fbi. I had one co-defendant on my case that was my wife. She was 22. I was 26. Uh, we'd been married less than a month. Um, they gave me 262 months in federal prison, which was the least amount of time that I could get. They gave my wife two years in federal prison just because I wouldn't cooperate with the government.

[00:18:39] And that's kind of how that works, the carrot and the stick. Uh, about five months after I'd been in jail waiting to get the time and I know how to jail, I'd been to prisons and jails all across America. Like I said, even on the Mexican border, didn't bother me. Nothing phased me brother. Uh, about five months after I'd been there, I sent my youngest brother on a mission to collect, you know, 50, $60,000 for some other drug dealers that owed me money.

[00:19:04] Uh, I, I didn't even think about it, you know, it was just part of the life. Uh, maybe a week later I got on the phone. I called home and they asked me. I had been watching the news. And I said, no, I, I haven't been watching the news. They said, well, your brother's on life support. He was in a devastating car accident in a high speed police chase throwing guns out of a vehicle.

[00:19:23] See, he had went to do that shooting and the police got on him and trying to get away from the police. Him and his partners, man, they got in a bad car wreck. So now he's on a breathing machine. He's dying. And when that happened, brother, I do not know. I still can't explain how this happened to a man like me because I did not grow up in church.

[00:19:43] I'd probably been in church three or four times my entire life. Now, in America, you hear about Jesus because it's America. There's a church on every corner. I went into that. I hit my knees and I said, Jesus, I need you to come into my life, man. I need you to save my brother's life. You save my brother's life.

[00:20:00] I'm gonna give you my life. Look at what I've done. I've got a beautiful young wife that's going to prison because of me. I got a brother that's gonna die because of me. I'm destroying everything around me. I need you to save him. I give you my life, Lord. I ask you in my, my life, and I'm gonna tell you what brother.

[00:20:17] He honors that prayer right there. About three weeks later, a little still small voice that you learned to recognize as you kind of get a little bit older. Told me Tomorrow you're gonna start reading the Bible and you're not gonna eat. I'd never heard of fasting. I never read the Bible. I did not own a Bible.

[00:20:33] I went and asked the old black man if I could borrow his Bible. I'd seen him with it. He let me borrow. I went into a prison cell. I came out 11 days later, I'd read the Bible from Genesis to Revel. I went back handed it, that old black man, I said, lemme tell you something, pop. That's the greatest love letter ever written right there.

[00:20:50] And from that point forward, brother, I was on fire for Jesus. And a year, by the year and a half later, I found something in the Bible that said, as God's children, we can receive the Holy Spirit. I prayed for that boldly. I said, Lord, I'm your child. I'm asking to fill me with your Holy Spirit by myself. I'm just walking.

[00:21:09] That little voice said, just open your mouth and let it go. And before I knew what was going on, brother, I had a rumbling in my stomach, started coming outta my mouth. I was praying in tongues, man, I didn't even know what I was doing. Went straight to the prison cell man, hit my knees, man, looked up into the ceiling, said Jesus, I knew you was there because I did know he was there.

[00:21:27] But when I received that, that baptism, the Holy Spirit, it took me be, it took me beyond the believing, and it took me to the point of, And just, it's just been on and on and on, man. Just awesome, awesome. Since that time, um, you know, prisons not without its mountains and its valleys, you know, you fast forward a year from there.

[00:21:47] In 2005 I'm laying in bed reading a Bible and a dude outside my race comes into my room and disrespects me. I gotta get up out of bed and I get up out of bed and I go give him an opportunity now cause I'm a Christian, but I'm not a soft man. And I said, look, the way you talked to me back there was very disrespectful.

[00:22:03] And when he did not apologize, I crushed him out there in front of about 200 dudes. He didn't know he was getting ready to fight 160 pound white man that'd been trained how to fight since he was about eight years old. So I went to solitary confinement. Had some awesome experiences with God back there, ministering the dudes.

[00:22:19] Um, you know, and just time goes on. Time goes on, man, you're doing 20 years in jail, which I was, I ended up serving 19 years. Um, I ended up doing about eight of it in Florida, in Georgia, in North Carolina. The feds can kind of move you as you, as they wanna move you when you're not close to home. And I'm from Illinois.

[00:22:35] I did some time in Virginia, then back to Illinois, then back in Illinois in 2017. I'm about 14 years into that federal sentence. And I ended up going to solitary confinement for 377 days. And it was during that time rather that I started a vigorous routine of prayer and fasting. And I, that's where I really learned how to fast three days at a time, five days at a time, seven days at a time, just to press into God.

[00:22:59] I said, Lord, I need to hear from you. I need you to change the course of my life. And I need you to fill me with so much of you that I can help these hard men around me, these gang members around me. and that's when those type of things started happening. I mean, all the units around me in the solitary confinement, there's four units back there.

[00:23:16] We're in a former A D X, okay? Supermax prison where officers had been killed. Right out in front of where we're at. Every wing back there, guys are killing theirself, uh, assaulting staff. When they come to the Wing that I was on, brother, we were having bible study, man, we were having revival back there, man.

[00:23:35] Dudes were getting born again, man. Two guys back there received baptism. The Holy Spirit, the police couldn't believe it. It's not because I'm something special man. It's because I made myself available. I made myself available to God so that he had a man to stand in the gap to use in that position right there.

[00:23:52] I had CEOs coming to my bars, bro, taking their hat off their head saying, Hey Rooster, man, would you pray for me man? I said, yeah, I got you. I'll pray for you. You know what I'm saying? Because they know they might come by my cell on Friday and come back the next Friday and I ain't had no food. You know what I mean?

[00:24:07] Because I'm in there praying. For Jesus to be able to use me to help these guys back here, these brothers back here that are lost no matter what their race was. So it was a beautiful thing, man, cuz guys were getting radically saved, man. They got into the word and they started getting transferred out to other prisons and they would take that with them.

[00:24:24] You know what I mean? Um, I wrote about it, you know, I didn't wanna write about it, but a good partner of mine wrote me. He said, man, just write about what's going on, man. I said, I don't wanna do it. I'm praying, I'm fasting. Dudes back here are getting saved. I don't have time to waste. He said, I want you to write about your life because your kids are gonna wanna know you man, and you've been gone almost 20 years.

[00:24:42] I said, all right, I'll do it. I sat down, I started to write it. I wrote the first chapter from my first memory in life saying the ABCs. I put that, that scrap paper that I wrote it on with the three inch pins all they give you. I set it up on the shelf and the next day I got a letter from my partner, man, he said, He was in Florida.

[00:25:00] All right, we're about a thousand miles apart. He said, man, I don't know why God's telling me to do this. Man, I knew you 15 years ago. I know the type of man you are with God. I know you're into the word. I know, I know you, man. He said, the Lord is only me to talk to you about the ABCs. So I'm gonna talk to you about the ABCs of the Christian faith.

[00:25:19] He is confirming to me what I started this book with, what God had me started with. So I just wrote down everything God was doing and wrote down the stuff in my life. And uh, you know, that's kind of how my life has evolved, man. 2002, February, 2000, uh, uh, 22. And I got out of federal prison after 19 years.

[00:25:37] All right. Now there's, we're gonna have to unpack a little bit of this here cause there's a whole lot to unpack to that story. Let me ask you first, do you consider yourself a product of your environment or a product of the choices you made in reaction to your environment? Brother. It's a combination of both.

[00:25:54] Okay. I have a theory on that. Not long after I got outta federal prison, I was asked to give a lecture here at a big private university called Bradley University here in Illinois, uh, on criminal justice reform to a classroom full of future lawyers and judges. And I explained to them that when a man comes out of an environment of poverty, and many times this happens, whether it's a trailer park or the projects in a big city, if you're in that environment of poverty, you can make it up out of there, brother.

[00:26:21] There are a lot of success stories where you can make it up out of there if when you're going home, there's some love or a little bit of structure. But if you are being raised in that environment of abject poverty, and you're going home and somebody's beating you, or sexually abusing you, or is on drugs in that home where you're at, and you have no escape, there's no relief from you from that pressure and that stresses on you, the result of that is gonna be death or prison.

[00:26:48] Okay. You can't get away from it. There's no way out of there in that scenario where you've got the combination of both. You'd be surprised how many men I was in prison with that are from big cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, they've never even been outta their neighborhood. You know, they may live in a 15 story project.

[00:27:04] Uh, where are they going? They're going to the corner to my, you know, a pack of cools and a 40 ounce or something like that, and coming right back. They're not going fishing, they're not going hunting. They haven't been exposed to the world. You know what I mean? So there's something about having that combination of both of those, the poverty and the abuse or the abuse of household that there's really no escape from.

[00:27:25] So yes, that makes you a product of that. And then the bad decisions become the natural decisions. I think I was 17 years old before I ever walked into a home where I really felt a loving environment. I just wanna share this with you real quick. As I was given my story to that particular class, and I remember it because it was the first college that I'd spoke at.

[00:27:48] I've spoken at others since, but they're looking at me like a deer in the headlights because they haven't heard somebody talk like this that could articulate what is really going on in prison and maybe some solutions to some of the problems that we have, and how as backwards some of this stuff really is.

[00:28:03] Okay? And I said, okay, check this out. You pull up in your house. I tell these kids this, they're young men and women, and your mom and dad been in the front room and they're, they've had a heated argument going on, but they see out the window that you've pulled up. You don't know they're arguing. You put your key in the front door and you come in, your mom smiles at you, Jay.

[00:28:22] She, she smiles and she said, Jessica, would you like a sandwich? And your dad said, baby, have a school today. But you know, something's wrong, but you can't see it, but you can feel it because the atmosphere has changed. The atmosphere in that room is charged with the argument that was just taking place even though they're putting on their best face.

[00:28:41] Okay, so when I was about 17 and I did walk into a home that was just full of love and everybody in that home loved each other, from the parents to the children, it was like, what is this? You know, this is not like any other place that I've been to. It was the love that was permeating. So when you're growing up in an environment of poverty and you go home and it's just chaos and abuse, you may have had a good day at school and you walk home and somebody slaps you, or your mom's is in there doing dishes, crying, bleeding.

[00:29:10] It's just, it's what it is, man. That atmosphere is constantly, constantly charged with that negative force, man. So it's, it, it, it, that cocktail right there, brother is very dangerous. Yes. You're a product of it and then it becomes the most natural thing in the world for you to do that. I committed a felony every day from the age of probably 15 on.

[00:29:28] Okay, so that kind of leads in. The next question is, Do you think your life would've been radically different with a positive male role model in your life early on? Oh, I just couldn't even imagine. I just could not even imagine what that could have been like. And at when I became an adult, I found out that years earlier, uh, some of the coaches from some of the athletic teams I participated on, uh, baseball, football, stuff like that, that they were actually talking about when I was a kid, Hey, I wonder if one of us could maybe adopt this kid or do something for 'em.

[00:29:58] And, and that's the sickness of it, unfortunately. And people, I understand people are hamstrung and there's not a lot you can do, but when you see that something's wrong, you've gotta make a decision. You've gotta man up a little bit and try to make a decision. What can I do in this situation? Am I gonna let this situation that I know is going.

[00:30:18] I know that this is happening to this young man. Am I gonna let him go up and spend 20 years in prison or am I gonna try to intercede and maybe talk to his folks and say, Hey, if it'd be all right, can he come stay with me and my family for the summer with my son and we'll go out to Wyoming or Washington State out to support?

[00:30:32] That would've been all the difference in the world. You know what I mean? So I'm a big advocate for that. Um, I do speak about that at universities. I believe in big brothers, big sisters, don't get me wrong. Mm-hmm. . I love that idea of that. Okay? But it can be a dismal failure for this reason. You go in and you get little Ricky outta the environment that he lives in.

[00:30:51] You take him to Baskin Robbins, you get him a new pair of Air Jordans, and you throw the football around with him. You take him home the next day. What's he got? Baskin Robbins played catch with a football and a pair of shoes. He walks in the house, his dad beats his ass. His mom's in there crying. He's right back in it.

[00:31:08] But if you could take him outta there for three or four months, maybe let him go to a summer camp for free. See middle class white kids in America, they get to go to summer camp, their parents send 'em off there. It's a great experience. There's counselors there. They learn about stuff from their peers and how to be comfortable around people.

[00:31:25] That's their age, and they learn from the counselors there. These poor kids can't go there. It has to be something that if the government is serious about solving some of these violent crime and crime issues, then they should come on board and say, you know what? Every kid in this trailer park that wants to go to summer camp from the summer, from the age of eight to 12, you can go for three months for free.

[00:31:46] And I believe many parents would be on board to do that if the mother was strung out on meth or ice or crack or whatever the case may be. And that's just my theory, you know what I mean? I'm sure there's a gazillion reasons why they're not doing it, but I can think of one reason, one good reason to do it, you know?

[00:32:02] All right. Now for point of reference, okay. I've gotta ask some of the obvious questions that people are gonna ask. , all of us see TV and movie show. And for a lot of us, that's our only point of reference. What is life actually like living on the other side of the law, living as a criminal drug dealer?

[00:32:24] What is life like in actuality? Uh, it, for me, it was again, this, that was just my life. That was the life that I created for myself. The moments. When you're a far away from God like that, your moments of success, what was supposed to be the happiest moments of my life? I've got $300,000. I've got seven kilos of cocaine.

[00:32:48] I got a beautiful wife and a beautiful girlfriend. You know what I mean? I've got real estate. I'm driving a luxury car. This is it, man. Those are the most memorable, most miserable moments of my life. That's when I was probably closest to suicide in those moments where I couldn't drink enough and I couldn't get high enough to kill the pain that was in me or the mental, the mental problems that I was having.

[00:33:12] You know what I mean? And, and to me, and again, this was the remedy that I could present to men in prison that suffered from the same things that I did. The remedy was the risen Jesus. If I could present to them that Jesus was alive, and he's not on that cross, that's on somebody's necklace, but he's alive and he sent the Holy Spirit back down and that you can, you can hear from God.

[00:33:34] But not only that brother, that stuff that's been tormenting you, I can show you how to get free from that. Through the blood of Jesus, I can show you how to walk in victory every day, brother. I could be in solitary confinement with no air conditioning in a 95 degree heat in Illinois at 3:00 AM you can sit on the end of your bed with sweat pouring off your body and be singing songs to God with more joy in my heart than I'd ever had in my.

[00:33:57] and it wouldn't just be me, brother. It's up and down the hallway. It's contagious. You know what I mean? It's really contagious. So, you know, that's my perspective on that. You know, I have so many prison stories. The ones that I love to tell the most are the God stories where I saw somebody get saved that couldn't be reached, or somebody that was such a drug addict that they were strung out on drugs in prison.

[00:34:18] I like those type of stories, but I've got all the others too, man. You know what I mean? My first three years in prison, on my state case, I was just a stone cold gang member. Man hardcore took a hit that wasn't mine. You know, I mentioned that to you earlier. I mean, just, I was that guy too. You know what I mean?

[00:34:35] But there's freedom. There's freedom in Jesus. I will always say that man to my last breath on earth, because I know what happened to me. You know, if you look at how contagious that, that, that really is, I've got two brothers, both of 'em have been to prison multiple times. One of 'em is going to get baptized on Sunday.

[00:34:55] And the other one was just working in a mission the other day, feeding people, you know what I'm saying? . It just, it works like that, bro. What was your mental state when they handed down a 22 year sentence to you? I'll tell you what, it didn't, that part didn't bother me. I just, I just didn't care at that time.

[00:35:19] What hurt me was that they gave Jessica 24 months. Okay? I've got a picture of her in my book and you see her. She's very pretty. 22 year old blonde. We just had a baby man. We just got married. They give you an opportunity when you're about to get crushed with all that time to speak to the judge. My lawyer didn't want me to speak to the judge.

[00:35:40] I demanded it. I've got my sentencing transcripts, okay. I went up and I said, your Honor, I understand why I'm here. There's no doubt every man in woman in this courtroom knows that I'm a drug trafficker. Okay? But I don't understand why she's sitting over there next to me at the defense table. And he said, well, I'm gonna tell you why.

[00:36:00] Because the prosecutor filed a complaint. They knew what would happen, and they knew that my hands would be tied and that I would have to send her to prison here today. And you know what? That was before 2005. Here's what happened. I got sentenced to 2003. Jessica got sentenced to 2003. Back then, the federal guidelines were mandatory.

[00:36:19] Whatever they said you had to get. You had to get, and the judge didn't have any discretion in there. In 2005, they changed that. They changed those guidelines from being mandatory to advisory, which gave the judge a lot more leeway. He could give you a lot less time and it didn't matter what the prosecutor said.

[00:36:35] Now I tried to file for that. Basically you've given me an illegal sentence and the courts agreed, but I was time barred cuz that'd already been for longer than a year. So all those years I couldn't get back into court to get any of that time off of me because I was time barred. So I know a lot of things brother, that are wrong with the criminal justice system.

[00:36:53] I helped a lot of men in that way. In the natural as well. Right before I left federal prison, I filed a motion for a a a, a Mexican fella, Hispanic fella out of New Mexico who had 55 years. He'd been down almost as long as me. So he'd been down about 18, 19 years. He still had another 20 to go and something amazing happened.

[00:37:12] I'm just gonna, I wanna tell your audience this, I'm gonna keep it blood raw, real, okay? Because I'm real brother. It doesn't matter to me. What people think about me. I know who I am and where I'm headed and what I'm doing. Okay? Obama got elected 2009 in the federal system. All of us that were in there for trafficking drugs, we thought we were getting out.

[00:37:32] This man ran on a platform of prison reform. Okay? He's gonna come in here and he's gonna do some criminal justice reform. He went and did a big speech in the El Reno federal prison in Oklahoma. Man, brothers we're good. Negative. The Democrats had the house and the Senate. I'm not a politician. I'm not a Democrat or Republican man.

[00:37:51] I'm a, I'm a God lover. I'm a Jesus freak man. I love the Lord, okay? But I'm gonna tell you what's right and rights wrong and wrong. If people don't know any better than they just watch this on their tv, they say, well, Obama, Obama, man, this guy did a lot for, no, he didn't. What he did was they passed something called the Fair Sentencing Act, which made that those, the other black dudes that got 30 and 40 years for a piece of crack that's as big as your thumbnail, they changed the crack ratio from 101 down to 18 to one.

[00:38:15] But watch what he did. When he signed it into legislation, he made it non retroactive. So all them young black dudes that was in prison with me that'd been there three years, four years, five years that are doing 30 years, they can't get out. They're just like me. They're stuck. We can't get back in front of the judge because we're time barred.

[00:38:32] So anybody that was already in prison just wasting away for a little bit of drugs, couldn't get anything. They had it brother for eight years, they did nothing. Now watch this crazy man. Trump gets elected and we're like, oh no man, it is over with. We're laughing. We love the debates. People loved him in prison, you know what I mean?

[00:38:51] Cause he is so funny. But he's talking about giving drug dealers to death penalty. So we're like, man, we're a hit. He gets in there, bro, on my word of honor, have your, have your audience man, guys out there. Google this, man. Get back with me if you wanna dispute it, okay? Because I posted a video about it one day and it got 27,000 views and four hours on YouTube because of the lies that they tell.

[00:39:12] Okay? Let me tell you what he did, bro. He got into office. He told Jared Kushner, his, his son-in-law, I want you to take care of prison reform. Jared's father had been a federal inmate. People don't know that, but Jared's dad had been to federal prison. So he knew what was wrong in the system. So he got with Cory Booker and them dudes up there, man, they got prison reform passed.

[00:39:33] Watch what they did. They went in there and made all them laws that Obama made non-reactive. Trump said, matter of fact, make all them retroactive. So all them black dudes that was in there with me, wasting away with them, huge sentences, man. They're in the halfway houses right now, brother. They got out. If they was in there for a non-violent drug crime doing 30 or 40 years or life, my last roommate at the halfway house had life.

[00:39:53] He's a free man now because Trump signed that into law. A little bit of common sense. I'll tell you something else. They stripped us, us. We were supposed to do 85% of our sentences the whole time I was in federal prison, brother. We did 87%. Every Democrat that was ever in there could have changed it. They knew we were doing 87%.

[00:40:11] Everybody filed on it. We got denied at the court every step of the way. But the law says we only have to do 85. They made us do 87 for decades. That's another thing Trump did. He said, well, that's stupid right there too. Take that, make that retroactive. That got me out early. He said, that says 85%, make 'em only do 85%.

[00:40:29] I'm just stepping in there and, and delving in there, brother. I'm not a political ma'am, but I will tell you this, a facts of fact. When I get into gun laws, if I, you let me touch that. I'm gonna tell you something that shocks people in America. That's where they really wanted me. They started wanting me to go do these political things and I didn't wanna do it cause I wanna talk about Jesus.

[00:40:46] But I can tell you the facts. I can break it down for you. I can explain to you right now one of the super causes of the violent crime epidemic in America right now. Brother, if you let me do it, I'll. Let it go brother. Here's what it is, bro. A old timer like me, a guy like me is considered an old timer, okay?

[00:41:03] You've been down 10 years on a 22 year sentence. Like me, our job in these higher security prisons is to check a dude's paperwork when he comes in the door. He's got 30 days from the time he hits the door to get all his paperwork so we can make sure he's not a snitch and he is not a child molester. He can't beat neither one of them.

[00:41:20] Two things. Don't be a snitch and don't be a child molester or you gotta get outta here. You can't be in the prison with us. Okay? So these, we noticed this about 10 years ago. These young dudes were coming in tattoos all on their face. They're obviously gang bangers, they're MS 13 or Latin Kings or GDS or Vice Lords or whatever they are.

[00:41:38] Blood Crips. These young guys are coming in. We, we check 'em in the door. Somebody from their own race or their own car will ask 'em how much time you got home. I've got, uh, 40 months. You got 40 months. You ever been in trouble before? Yeah. Yeah. I just got out of prison. You got 40 months, you ju you come to federal prison with 40 months, you just got outta prison.

[00:41:58] What'd you do? I got caught with a load of pistol with an extended magazine. Okay, you gotta get your paperwork. You got 30 days to get your paperwork dog. And if you hot you better get outta here. We're gonna crush you. And they would get their paperwork. And their paperwork was right. That's what they're giving him.

[00:42:15] And that started about about 12 years ago. Really. So we're like, what is going on? These dudes are coming outta prison, getting caught with these loaded guns that have been modified to kill people. He ain't going deer hunting or squirrel hunting and they're getting 36 months, 40 months. And they're kicking him right back out there.

[00:42:32] They ain't doing that man no favors cuz when he, he's getting right back out and the beef that he got was involved in to carry that gun is still going on. And they're just constantly getting out and we're turning, we're seeing it churned. You get caught with enough drugs just fitting the palm of your hand, your mandatory minimums 10 years.

[00:42:47] You get caught with a loaded gun on you. And they know what you're gonna do with, they're gonna give you about 40 months. And that's why you got what you got going on right now. If we were not surprised, the dudes in federal prison were not surprised, bro. When the George Floyd riots broke out and they started doing everything they were doing in the cities, and I'm not saying this from a white man's perspective, I'm saying this from every man in theirs perspective, because it hurt us because we're watching it on the news.

[00:43:10] You know what I mean? In fact, they took the TVs from us and made it where we couldn't even watch the regular tv. They didn't want us to even see it. We knew what was going to happen. Man, you can't keep putting these violent drug offenders, I mean, violent gun offenders back out there and keep the drug offenders in prison.

[00:43:23] It's, it was stupid. It was real stupid what they're doing. I hope they fix it and, and, and make that part of it right, because that, that, that's just not right, man.

[00:43:34] How is it that such an awful place, right? You were in for non-violent drug offense. Yes. How is it that, I mean, I, I've, I visited prison to do chaplain work. and you know, I knew I was, I was coming into two chapel and I was leaving, right? Mm-hmm. . Cause I was walking through the doors in the wall that Supermax, and so it was a Walla wall estate pen in Washington.

[00:44:05] I mean, it, it is a 20 foot thick wall. Yeah. I mean, you walk in it mm-hmm. and that door closing behind me. I knew they were supposed to let me out, but I mean, that door closing behind me just sent chills. Right. Prison is not a good place. Right. It's not a happy place to be. How is it that the way the system is, it turns so many people into repeat offenders?

[00:44:30] Okay, well, because one for, for one reason brother, the rehabilitation efforts that society believes are available are not available. Okay. So if a man doesn't really want to help himself, and have access to the ability to help himself. He's in trouble. Any idiot can go to prison and lift weights and play spades all day.

[00:44:50] Okay? And a lot of guys fall into that because that's what their homeboys are doing. But if you're determined to change your life, you'll be able to find the right men to do it. The things that I learned how to do really well in prison, I was able to find men that that was what they did when they were out.

[00:45:09] And I would go to 'em with respect and humbly and say, man, will you teach me how to do this? And it didn't matter if it was real estate or the stock market or whatever the case may be, man, hey, I'm, I'm willing to learn, man, if you'll help me. I don't have a lot of money, but I'd like to learn something, man.

[00:45:23] You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. . Uh, but the rehabilitation in there that, that they say exists, actually, they did a little bit of the opposite. You know, they ended up taking all the college classes and the ability to have their professors come in. They took all that away from the guys. You know what I mean?

[00:45:36] That happened in the late nineties. Why you doing that? I am not saying these men don't deserve to be there because yeah, you did the cr, you did the crime. You know what I mean? You gotta do some time. But don't sit out here and tell people, man, man, we're trying to help these guys into prison, man, these returning citizens, brother you's a liar.

[00:45:51] You're warehousing 200,000 men in the warehousing and you're not helping 'em get any better. Now, I believe that some of that may change, um, and I think based on all the violent crime that I'm seeing on television, that maybe they're gonna change now and start cracking down on a little bit more of that.

[00:46:09] Um, but they make it such a political issue both ways. You know what I mean? And where if it just, if you just took a little bit of common sense, bro, I'm gonna tell you something right now, brother. This is going to freak you out. Okay? This is on my word of honor. Okay. You know, I just did this 19 years, man, when I was about eight years into this thing, nine years into this thing, I was in a prison in Petersburg, Virginia, okay?

[00:46:36] And I noticed something was going on up there. and I started to see a lot of transgenders on the compound men that were transitioning to be women. And I said, well, this is something new. You know what I mean? So I gotta investigate what's going on. I'm bold with the stuff that I do. You know what I mean? I, I'm like you.

[00:46:54] I would interview a dude in prison, man, if he'd open the door, and I'd be like, man, what'd you do? You know what you in here for? How did you get here? Are you interested in changing your life? They created a program about a year. Again, I'd hate to say the names of which presidents was doing what, but they're the ones that appoint the director of the b o P.

[00:47:13] He's appointed directly from the president. They started a gender dysphoria program in the B O P. Now, many times the B O p I say b o P, that's Bureau of Prison, federal Bureau of Prisons. It is an experimental ground. If we can see that this works in here, what will it do in society? Will it be. And please audience don't think that I'm that dude.

[00:47:36] Man, I am not that political dude, man. I'm a born again Christian. I preach the gospel. Most of the podcasts that I'm on are about that, you know? But I'm gonna dive into this because I believe it's that diabolical. They created a gender dysphoria program. Men started going over to the counselors and the psychology and the psychologist began to tell them, you are really a woman trapped in a man's body.

[00:48:00] So what happened was these men started to get different colored IDs than the rest of us have to have a ID badge in prison. So they started to give these men different colored IDs, certain staff members, certain guards, couldn't even shake 'em down. The guards had to go through sensitivity training. Now you're thinking, okay, these are the trans transgender type dudes that get the boobs and no brother.

[00:48:20] I had a roommate that looked like a dag on skinhead man. The man was in great shape, could do 45 minutes straight of jumper open. I come back from the yard one day, man, and he tells me that his name is different than what it is. . I said, what the, what the heck are you talking about? He's like, man, I went to psychology, man.

[00:48:35] They told me I'm really a woman man trapped in a man's body. I had called my mom and told her and everything. I said, man, are you tripping brother? What are you high? What is going on? I had to move outta there. I'm talking about the man lost it and they encouraged it. By the time I left there, they had started giving people hormone, uh, injections.

[00:48:54] They could either take the shots or they would put 'em on patches. You had a, a, a swath of men in a prison that's got 707 no 1700 inmates in it. I'm gonna say they outta 1700. They may have had 300 transgender men that started transitioning in the prison that weren't doing that before. SA said, man, this is diabolical man.

[00:49:17] This is the devil man. This is insanity. What is going on here? And let me tell you what's going on right now, cuz you know I just left a year ago in the men's federal prisons in the United States of America. Go check it. Ladies and gentlemen, in these men's prisons, they're selling women's feminine hygiene products right now in America.

[00:49:39] You tell me that the devil's not real. They are selling women's panties. Women's brawls, pink watches, women's perfumes in men's prisons on the man's commissary right now in America. Double check it. That, that, now, that right there for me, saying that they might not let your podcast be on YouTube for that.

[00:50:00] That's okay. We'll stand on our ground on it, man. Some things are worth standing your ground on and YouTube cannot lock it. The video will be on rumble. It's okay. And if you guys are listening on the audio, they don't kick us out. So I don't care. One of the, one of the platforms will keep us. Guys, this conversation is incredible.

[00:50:18] We're digging in so much here. Stick around. We're gonna dig into. More prison reform and part of the reason that Steven's life looks very different. As we come back from our break right now, we're gonna roll our sponsor and we'll be right back with more from Steven. How well do you sleep at night? Do you toss and turn and wake up more tired than when you went to bed?

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[00:51:10] Sleep tomorrow. Now let's go on to the show. All right, guys, we're back with Steven Snook and we are talking prison reform and life. After living a criminal life, Steven spent years in prison. If you miss the first part of the show, guys, you gotta go back. You do not want to miss this show. Share it with your friends.

[00:51:29] This one is going to impact you in a big way. Steven has an amazing message and an amazing story, and we're gonna keep digging into that. Now, Steven, the Bureau of Prisons just updated its, uh, its website as of the 21st of this month. I, I went and checked some statistics. It says 93% of inmates in the system are men, and about 49% are non-violent drug offenses like you were.

[00:51:56] In your opinion, is the current solution of, and we've talked about a little bit of these, he handed sentences hurting and making the situation worse, or is it actually what needs to happen? It, it's not working bro. It's not working. Uh, you know, a lot of it's from what I was talking about earlier is because it's lopsided where drug offenders are getting so much more time than gun offenders.

[00:52:22] And when I say gun offenders, I'm not talking about a guy that bought a gun illegally at a gun show. I'm talking about a guy that's been to prison, who is a known criminal, who buys a nine millimeter with an extended high capacity magazine and gets caught with it and gets three years in prison. That's not right.

[00:52:38] And that's what the feds are doing. And it's, it's wrong. They know it's wrong and they've gotta fix that. Um, What, you know, what needs to happen predominantly. Okay. What, what do you, what would you do with a man if somebody was using some common sense? You know, back in the day there was a thing where if a guy, you know, he got into some trouble and he went to the bars and he drunk a little bit.

[00:52:59] I'm talking about in the fifties and sixties and this and that. And he goes in front of the judge and the joke says, here's the deal, young man, I've seen you three or four times. Now I'm either gonna send y'all to the penitentiary or you're going to the military. Now those days are long, long gone. Yeah.

[00:53:11] But one thing that you can do is when a man goes to prison like that, give him an opportunity to educate himself, to find it, to, to build a trade. Now I'll give you an example from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. They do have some classes there to where that you could become a plumber or an electrician, um, or maybe a carpenter.

[00:53:33] Okay? But there's 1600 guys in the prison. There's only about 20. Of those spots available, maybe 30. You've got 1600 guys and every one of them probably needs to learn some sort of a trade. And you've got about 30 slots for 1600 guys. And then you write up a report, some bureaucrat writes a report, and it's just like, man, we're doing a great job in these prisons.

[00:53:59] Have you seen the, my goodness, the graduation rate, the graduation rate's high. You only had 30 guys. 95% of 'em graduated. Congratulations, man. 25 guys outta 2000 man got something going on. The rest of 'em are sitting around working out, lifting weights, playing cards, man, trying to figure out what they're going to do with their life.

[00:54:17] You know what I mean? So I believe this, if a man really wants to change himself mm-hmm. and make an opportunity available for him to do that, you just make that opportunity available for him to do that. And then let's see what happens. Um, you know, I kind of take it back to like the prison chapel, uh, scenario that we talked about earlier.

[00:54:36] And the two things aren't identical, but there are, there's kind of similar. Many of the men that work as chaplains in prisons, they're just correctional officers, man. That's all they are. It's just a nine to five for 'em, man. You know what I mean? They're not into it. Now I have met a couple that love the Lord that would go above and beyond to help you.

[00:54:57] That would not compromise Jesus. And you know what happens? Sometimes, sometimes the rest of the staff doesn't like him. They're not the most popular guy. But for a man that's really in there looking for some help, if he can get close to that chaplain, his life's going to change. And I believe it's the same way with educational opportunities.

[00:55:13] If you have some educators in the prison that are there for something more than just a nine to five job that really care about trying to help somebody, and the O and the man on the other end that's wearing the prison uniform is really concerned about the rest of his life and determined to make a change.

[00:55:28] You connect those two, you've really got something. You know, I, I'm hooked up with a lady over here now that works for a nonprofit outta Chicago and she actually. And she's the first one that I've met. And this nonprofit just started. It's a pilot program in Illinois. She goes into prisons, state prisons, and helps guys learn how to beat entrepreneurs, put the drugs down.

[00:55:49] You know, you've already got a little bit of a spirit. You'd like to be your own boss. Put the drugs down and let's talk about opening a landscaping business if you don't want a boss, and let's figure out what that looks like. And that's what she does. And that's a wonderful thing, man. That's one program.

[00:56:02] I think the state's got about a hundred thousand inmates in it. I mean, I really don't know, man. It's nuts. So yeah, a lot of that needs to change, brother

[00:56:13] does. Taking non-violent drug offenders like yourself and putting them in these supermax facilities with lifers and men in for much more hard crimes impact the rehabilitation of guys in for lesser sentencing or for lesser issues. It it does, of course, obviously it does, man. Cuz when you're in Rome, you kind of gotta act like the Romans.

[00:56:38] Okay? But here's what happens. If you are a non-violent drug offender and you don't have that 30 or 40 year sentence, chances are you are gonna go to a place where everybody's not getting stabbed every day. The problem is, is when they put that life on you or give you 50 or 60 years, now you are going to a place where you're in there with a bunch of guys that just don't care anymore.

[00:57:00] You know what I mean? Um, so they try to make that available to where you can. Step down out of there. When I was in state prison, I was just one of them guys because, you know, cause they base it sometimes on your age. Oh, here's a guy that's young, so he's gonna be a little bit more aggressive. You know what I mean?

[00:57:16] And we've gotta do this and this and this. And he's gonna go up to a high security. The feds do something kind of similar. They have a point system. It's based on your crime, it's based on the amount of time you've got. It's based on your age. So if you're young and you've got a bunch of time for drugs, you're going to a higher security.

[00:57:33] But you know, so it's, it's a little bit outta whack. They did change that about halfway through my federal, uh, sentence to try to kind of eradicate some of those issues, some of those problems. Definitely the lower security that you go to, the more freedom you have. Also, the less respect that the inmates have.

[00:57:51] So for me, the sweet spot is always probably a medium security prison. You're not down in the low security prison where you might have to just slap somebody cuz he's being disrespectful and doesn't know that you're really a gangster. Okay? Maybe he sees you with a Bible and thinks you're soft and forces your hand.

[00:58:07] You might actually have to hurt him. You know what I mean? In a medium security prison, there's gonna be a lot more respect, but everybody's not getting stabbed every day. When you get up to a higher level of penitentiary, somebody's getting stabbed once a week for sure. You know, and you know, every day going to chow.

[00:58:21] Your life is on the line. Now I will tell you something else in America and prison system that is outta whack because we are in America. And this is the richest country in the world. We can do better, not just with our educational programs in prison or possibly sentencing reform and things like that, but we can do better with the way that we're punishing guys in prison.

[00:58:41] You know, I went back and told you I did 377 days in solitary confinement. I didn't even have an incident report for 11 months. They didn't even have a charge against me for the first 11 months. Okay? I probably did a total of three years in solitary confinement, be between my state and, uh, my federal sentence.

[00:59:00] Um, sometimes it was my fault. Sometimes I'd get in a fight. They put me in a hole for four months or three months, okay? Whatever. Uh, sometimes trouble just finds you in jail. Sometimes you find trouble, maybe you lose your way a little bit. But why are you keeping a guy in the hole for a. , you know what I mean?

[00:59:17] What is going on that you feel like you need to put a man in solitary confinement for a year? He's already in prison. Mental health is this huge issue now. My goodness, brother, every, I can't turn the TV on. They talking about some mental health. We gotta do something about his mental health. You walk into prison, man in a, in a prison with 1200 guys in, and you probably got 200 guys in solitary confinement.

[00:59:37] What you doing? Because they're back there hanging theirself, bro. I saw three suicides one time in about a five month period. You know what I mean? So you know their remedy for that is not, let's make guys where they don't spend as much time in solitary confinement. Their remedy is, well, let's make sure that we give everybody a roommate so the other inmate can watch the inmate that's really going through something so he doesn't kill hisself.

[00:59:57] Now what are you doing? You're not helping nobody, man. You're just not helping anybody. You know what I mean? No way that you make a guy spend more than six months in solitary confinement unless he assaulted a staff member. Or raped somebody, you know what I mean? You just, it's just wrong. You know what I mean?

[01:00:13] It's just wrong. So that's another thing, brother. They can do better. They can do better. They know they can do better. People know they can do better and they're just not all that concerned about doing it. You know? And I, I wanna tell you something else too. Cause I do not ever want to anybody to confuse me as if, um, I've, we've gotten off the beaten path from my normal sweet spot, which is talking about Jesus and the gospel.

[01:00:34] Okay? And getting men led to, to salvation, to change their life. But it's okay because these conversations that we're having right now, and the tough questions you're asking, they need to be asked. I don't want anybody to ever think that I'm against law enforcement or correctional officers. There are 90, I'm gonna say 90% of all the correctional officers, both male and female staff that I ever met, were good people.

[01:00:57] Man. They are doing time. They've got a job that doesn't really pay all that good. It's okay. Um, but they're doing eight hours a day in prison still. . So if a man like that does a 20, 25 years in, in that job to retire, brother, he's pulled about eight years of his life inside of a prison, and it wears on you.

[01:01:19] So these guys are killing theirself too. You know, the suicide rate for a correctional officer is very, very high, very high. You know, I, two of the federal prisons I was in, officers killed theirself. Both of 'em shot theirself in the head, you know what I mean? So, um, it's high. A lot of your correctional officers are ex-military dudes, so they're usually pretty cool, you know what I mean?

[01:01:39] And they'll jam with you, you know what I mean, and talk with you and, you know, just treat you with, but then you got your, your, your butthead officers that just want to destroy everything you've got and take your property and give you incident reports. But, you know, for the most part, man, they're pretty good people.

[01:01:55] Let me, let me ask you, because most people cannot concept. Right. I, I've talked about it on some of my shows. Very few people can stand to be alone with their own conscious, with just their mind in silence and meditate for 10 minutes. Like most people can't handle just being alone with their own thoughts for 10 minutes to 30 minutes to meditate or to pray or whatever, like it, it unnerves people to an incredible amount.

[01:02:24] People cannot conceptualize solitary confinement, especially for an extended period of time. What is it actually like to be in solitary confinement for an extended period of time? Well, I'm gonna, I have to cut that in half. Okay. Okay. I have to break it down to doing solitary. The longest stretch I ever did in solitary confinement before I met Jesus, before I got born again was six months straight.

[01:02:49] During that time, I worked out a lot and I read a lot, and I was in a cell by myself for about four and a half of those months. And as long as I kept myself busy with reading, I was okay. All right. That was the time that I saw all the suicides because the guys were hanging theirself and you could see 'em through the bars and sometimes the officers would just leave him hanging there for six hours or eight hours till the corner came in, cuz the guys already dead.

[01:03:12] I mean, if he's dead and stiff and dead, a lot of times they wouldn't even go in there and chop 'em down. Okay. That was in state of Illinois prison. Federal prison's a little different. They'll go in there and usually cut the rope on 'em. Now, after I got born again, going to solitary confinement was like going to a retreat for me.

[01:03:29] When I did that 377 days in, in solitary confinement, that was the greatest opportunity of my life. I may not ever have an opportunity like that again in life. Who gets that opportunity? I mean, brother, you can't do that. You have to work. You have to take care of your family. You have responsibilities. Okay?

[01:03:45] The only responsibility that I had right there is to my father in heaven. and Jesus in the Holy Spirit, and my job was to get as much of him and pressing into as much as him. So all day long I would pray, read my Bible, or read the most powerful Christian books ever written like books by John G Lake or Smith Wigglesworth, or books like, you know, the Katherine Coolman books like that, that could really ignite a spiritual hunger.

[01:04:10] And I would fast a lot, you know what I mean? And again, I'm a big proponent of fasting because I believe that not only preying on the empty stomach does something, but God honors that sacrifice that you're giving him now. You just can't fast and go by the regular day and fill your day with social media and television, all this and that, cuz all you're doing, you are just on a hunger strike, is all you're doing.

[01:04:28] Or maybe like a Muslim, I'm gonna fast till six o'clock every day, brother. You're just on a fancy diet. You're tripping. You know what I mean? A biblical fast is abstaining from food for spiritual purposes. There's only one instance in the entire Bible where somebody didn't do that and the American church adopted that version.

[01:04:45] because it's the version for the soft man, you know what I mean? And they call it a Daniel fast. And the Bible doesn't, it calls it a Daniel morning. But if you abstain from food and just drink water for seven days, I guarantee you that God will change the course of your life. I guarantee it. There is no doubt about it.

[01:05:03] He will honor that you have decided to pay the price. You've counted the cost, and God will change the course of your life. The things will open up to you. He'll give you revelation into the word. The Holy Spirit will be speaking to you. So during that 377 days in that room, in that cell by myself, it was awesome brother.

[01:05:21] I had bars in front of me cuz we're in an old adx I'm able to yell out. At first, it just started as general questions, guys from different races. I've got gang bangers from Texas down here. I've got, you know, Muslims down here and skinheads and former U F C fighters that are back there for breaking guys' legs.

[01:05:38] And it, it's everybody back there, but we can't see each other, but we can hear each other. And they know what I'm down there doing and they know I'm a former gangster and they gotta respect me. And eventually they would ask questions and I would give 'em answers. So many different religions in prison, so many different opinions.

[01:05:52] And they would ask me questions, I'd give 'em answers outta the Bible or talk to 'em about experiences I'd been through. Then that question and answer session would turn into like a Bible study. So about six o'clock in the evening, I'd just walk up there and say, Hey guys, man, everybody, check it out. Open your Bible up, man to, to Acts chapter two.

[01:06:09] Let's go over this thing right here, man. I wanna show you something that happened, man, right here on the earth, something real that happened, man had thousands of witnesses. Let's, let's check this out. They would do it and then eventually I can get 'em to read some of the most powerful Christian books that I could get my hands on back there, which was kind of difficult, but I was able to do it.

[01:06:25] God made it happen. And if I couldn't get him to read the Bible, okay, I wouldn't even try to, to present a religion to him like that, but I could get him to read the cross and the Switch Blade by David Wilkerson. Where he went to New York and helped all 'EM gang members and all them heroin addicts up there.

[01:06:41] And I could get 'em to read that book. And then they'd say, man, you believe this is real? And I said, I know it's real. Unless you're calling that man a liar, unless you just believe he's lying, then I believe it's real. Yeah. Well, how do you get something like that? I said, brother, you asking the right guy.

[01:06:53] I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna teach you. I'm gonna teach you how to get victory over everything that's been tormenting in your whole life and every abuse that you ever went through, and get forgiveness for everybody that you've ever abused. I'm gonna teach you, brother. I'm gonna teach you how to forgive people that have hurt you in your life and ask other people to forgive you.

[01:07:10] And I'm gonna teach you how to get closer to God. I'm gonna teach you how to receive a Holy Spirit. I'm gonna teach you how to hear from God. You know, very pointed brother. I could sing and dance in that cell when I was in there by myself. I'd have so much joy in my heart, brother. I'd be. because I'm seeing guys get saved back there and changing and take that with them and their, their families.

[01:07:29] Start writing 'em cuz we're back there for months and months and months. And their families are just like, whatever you're doing, whatever's changing. You keep doing it. We've never heard you like this, you know, in your whole life. You know? So, um, it, but it does different people, different, you know what I mean?

[01:07:43] And it's unfortunate because, I will tell you this, I do believe that demons are real. Okay? I don't believe that demons under every bush are responsible for everything, man. Because the world's crazy. It's just the way that it is sometimes. But the, the men back there would sometimes be tormented because of the environment that they're in.

[01:08:01] They're already in a prison. They don't have Jesus. So they're in a state of depression. They're. , they're anxious because the staff's not letting 'em know what's going on, and there's constant chaos. And the enemy will feed off of that environment and he'll begin. That will begin to multiply, and that's when that mental torment comes in.

[01:08:18] And pretty soon they're hearing a voice saying, man, you're not gonna make it outta here, and you're not worth anything. Even if, even if you did, and you might as well kill yourself. And that's where God needs a man like you or me or somebody that's listening right now to say, you know what, no it, this stops right here with me.

[01:08:34] And I'm gonna tell you why. Because I'm gonna make myself available. I'm asking you, Lord, to use me to help these men because I'm not gonna lose any of these men on my watch and I don't care what they've done. I don't care if this guy, Robb Banker, shot some whatever. Listen, Lord, use me. I will make myself available.

[01:08:51] I will keep myself clean so that you can use me to help this dude, man. Steven, what can we do in society to start to change this story? Boy, you're asking me something right there, man. My answer to that brother's, not very popular man, because I, man, I've got so many solutions from a natural perspective that are just common sense solutions.

[01:09:15] I, I, and in my heart, sometimes I wish the b o p would ask me, what do you think would be, you know, a way to correct this or correct that. I wish maybe some people that make laws would be more proactive instead of reactive and you have a mass shooting, they wanna take everybody's guns, man, what are you stupid?

[01:09:32] That is not the answer to this problem. You know what I mean? Common sense solutions are the answer to these problems. What's happened in America that I can see and remember, I didn't grow up in church, but I have been born again now for 20 years, okay? We are trying to solve problems that require a spiritual solution, but we're trying to solve them on a, on a natural level.

[01:09:55] What would happen in the United States if the president came out tomorrow and said, I would like to declare a national of prayer and fasting the entire country. I would like every person that's not a nursing mother and is not under some type of health advisory. To fast, please, for 24 hours and let's just pray for the United States.

[01:10:18] I just wanna know, brother, what do you think would happen? Now, maybe everybody's not gonna do it, but maybe half would do it or 40% would do it. But I believe you would have some breakthrough, man, if we're serious, man, if we're serious about solving some of these things, man, we're gonna have to dig in.

[01:10:36] We're gonna have to dig in. I mean, I see some street ministries that come out here in the city where I'm at right now, man, they've got a violent crime problem. I know these men, I know their hearts are in the right place, man, but you standing out there on the corner, out in front of the liquor store, brother passing out Bible tracks.

[01:10:51] It's probably not going to do it, dog. It's probably not going to do it. But if before you went out there to do that, if you fasted for three days and prayed for three days and went out there in the power of God and got your mind quiet to listen to for the Holy Spirit, and you had a word of knowledge for one of them guys walking into that liquor store and said, Hey, home, can I holler at you for a minute?

[01:11:10] The Lord wanted me to say this to you. Let me tell you what happens. That man gets saved. I want to tell you a story, brother. I've gotta tell you this. This is just awesome. I was less than a year from getting outta prison. I got a brand new grandbaby. I both of two of my youngest children's are adults, and my oldest daughter's 26 years old, less than a year left.

[01:11:32] It's almost time for me to get out after all these. And I have a dream. And in this dream, the Lord shows me this black dude that's in my unit. This dude is a monster brother. He's a blood outta St. Louis. And he is in there smacking and punching his own guys right and left. And ain't nobody doing nothing about it cuz he's a crazy killer and he's been in prison forever.

[01:11:54] And he carries a knife. He don't cross my line. I don't cross his, because our circles could never cross like that. We're two different type of people and the Lord gives me a dream about this dude and tells me, I want you to go tell him. I said, Lord, I'm not doing that. I'm not, I am not doing that because I, I apologize.

[01:12:15] Yeah. I, I I'm not doing that because I don't know what's going to happen. I, that's why I'm not doing it because if this man gets crazy with me and we're gonna have a fight and I'm gonna lose a bunch of good time and if he pulls that knife out, one of us is gonna die. You know what I mean? So, you know, I'm just, and, but you try to fight against the Holy Spirit and he'll let you.

[01:12:34] Because you're going to make your own choice, but then you feel bad about it. And I'm like, you know what, Lord? I'm gonna tell him. So I catch him by himself, and, uh, I said, Hey, can I talk to you man for a minute? And he's like, yeah, what's up? I said, uh, I know. Do you, I don't know if you know this about me, man, but I'm a Christian man.

[01:12:49] I I'm a real one. And he said, no, I didn't know that. I said, I am, man. I said, and, and I believe the Lord gave me a dream for you. Can I tell you? And he said, what's up, man? I said, you were probably between the ages of eight and 10, you didn't have a shirt on, and you're just staring at me, and you got these big, huge buck teeth and you just got this look man, and you're just, you're just staring at me.

[01:13:16] And I kind of went into the detail of exactly what I saw in the dream, and I said, brother, that's, you know, that's what it was, man. He looked at me, turned around, and walked off. I said, boy, that went well. Yeah, I went back to the cell. I'm like, well, thank you Lord for that. You know what I mean? At least I didn't get into it with this dude.

[01:13:33] And we had to kill each other in here. So I waited about a week back down into the day room. 200 guys out there. Nobody knows what we're talking about. And I said, Hey man, can I holler at you? He's like, what's up? I said, look man, uh, I'm just trying to see if I miss God right there. I need to know that I miss God.

[01:13:52] Okay? Did that dream mean anything to you? Man? Looked off in the space, bro. Turned around, man. Tears rolling down his eyes. Rolling down his cheeks. The hardest man in my unit, bro, in a medium security prison is crying. And he said, yes. He said, because I was nine years old and that's exactly what I looked like.

[01:14:12] And that's when I first got locked up. He said, I was playing with a pistol man. They locked me up, man, and put me in a juvenile home man with a bunch of older kids, man. And that was the beginning of the end for me. I said, let me tell you what Jesus told me to tell you, bro. He told me to tell you that the way that you looked right there and the way that you was, is the way that he sees you right now.

[01:14:33] He does not see you the way that you see yourself right now, 16 years in this sentence, man, he sees you the way that you were back then, man, like an innocent child. You know, brother, before I left that prison, man, that man right there was reading John g Lake books. I was taking him to his cell adventures in God.

[01:14:50] You, you see what I'm talking about? The difference, man, between going to somebody and saying, here, read this Bible. Jesus loves you. And going to somebody with a word from God because you've paid the price and you've been willing, you're willing to sacrifice to hear from the Lord. It's big, bro. It's a big difference man,

[01:15:08] there. Sorry, I'm, I'm digging cuz there's just no an response to, to that man that's, Such an incredible story that there's, there's no actual good response to that . So I won't, I won't try, I won't muck that up. Trying to, uh, add to that, Steven, while you were in solitary, God put this idea on your heart to create something, and I wanna share that with everybody while we're here talking.

[01:15:36] It is a Bible frame that changes, right? With daily Bible scripture. Is that correct? That's correct. A actually, the way that I designed it, it changes the new scripture as often as you want it to. You could say you want it to change a new scripture every hour or every half hour or once a day. Um, the way the Lord showed it to me, it just, it put a brand new, uh, scripture up there every day.

[01:16:03] And that is at your website, Jesus speaks llc.com. People can order those there. But we, we talked, not everybody, I, we haven't talked about it. You and I had over an hour long phone conversation several weeks ago, uh, and, and just had an incredible conversation. It was, it was delightful getting to know to you know, you and talk to you then and hearing your heart.

[01:16:28] You have no knowledge of how to do this kind of stuff. This, this was a totally new technology, a new concept to you. But God put this on your heart and said, this is what I want you to do. And you've been having an amazing reaction with this. And guys, we will have links to this website, to this product in the show notes.

[01:16:48] I want you to come, go check it out. It is something that can inspire you every day. Everybody knows that, you know, this isn't a religious show, but I am a Christian. I, I am a believer. And being in the Bible has incredible build incredible benefits to you every day. . And here's man, you, you spent 19 years on that last sentence, and God put it on your heart in solitary confinement and said, I want you to build this.

[01:17:20] Yeah. And you got outta prison and that's what you did. Yeah. And you know what? I'd never, I'd never used a smartphone and Facebook hadn't been invented, and he just put the right people in my path that wanted to give me a second chance at life. That went through my background. People connected with, uh, college here and stuff, and they said, look, man, we'll give you a second chance.

[01:17:43] We don't even know if this idea that you have a work. Um, I wanna say also it's, it's jesus speaks llc.com and the LLC stands for Life, Liberty and Christianity, brother, you know, you just can't make a title that long. Jesus speaks life, Liberty and christianity.com. You know, it just doesn't work. Okay, so, Um, yeah, it's, it's really been awesome, man.

[01:18:05] People love 'em. They got three different sizes. Some of 'em, they can be wall mounted, they're decorative, and that, you know, it's just awesome. You don't need that internet or you don't need a app or anything, which I could never, I would've never been able to navigate those things myself anyway. Uh, but like you and I were talking earlier, another thing that I'm really excited about that there'll be some more information.

[01:18:26] Like, people could go to my website and stay connected to me, do the email address, or if they, if they wanna buy a frame, awesome. If they don't, awesome. But I've just got all my paperwork done for my nonprofit and some people are gonna help me get that going. Okay? And that nonprofit is not for me to make money.

[01:18:45] Okay? That nonprofit is to get my book that I wrote in solitary confinement, professionally edited and formatted. And the nonprofit is gonna come in there and they're gonna purchase these books at wholesale prices. and we are gonna put 'em into places that won't buy books that only accept donations, jails, prisons, rehab centers, abuse victim centers.

[01:19:11] We're gonna do this all across America. And if we can do it into other countries, we'll do that too. Uh, because it's a story that needs to be told. And because it's not just a story about me, but I, I present the cure, man. I can lead guys there. And I've been doing it since I've been out. I've been interviewed by the news.

[01:19:33] I'm got a P b s, they did a television special on me coming out in February. I meet awesome people like you, man. And, um, with every breath I got, man. So I, I would love that, man. If people would keep up with me. Go to the website, Jesus speaks llc.com. There's gonna be a ton more information coming up about the nonprofit too, and just be part of it.

[01:19:55] And I, and I'll tell you one of the biggest reasons why Man is because. , this mission is bigger than, it's bigger than you brother. It's bigger than me. You don't know how many lives are gonna change. You know, when I was in some of my darkest hours in prison, bro, I remembered walking through somebody's house when I was a kid that had the footprints in the sand plaque up on the wall, and I stopped it stopped me dead in my tracks.

[01:20:20] And I read that, you know, the footprints in the sand and the guy's talking to Jesus. And he's like, the hardest times of my life I only seen one set of footprints. And the Lord's like, man, that's when I was carrying you, bro. I remembered that when I was 40 years old. I probably read that when I was seven or eight years old.

[01:20:35] So I wasn't really surprised, man, when the Lord gave me the dream because man, we need more of that. You get a scripture frame, you don't know who's gonna walk through your business with, you got one of those desk models on there at at your office, and somebody that doesn't believe in God that's in a dark place or going through a divorce and they walk through there and see one of the inspirational scriptures.

[01:20:53] You don't, you don't really know the impact that that's gonna have. On somebody. You know what I mean? It, it, it is pretty impactful, man. The feedback's been awesome. Let's say that, that's incredible. Steven, you know, there are those shows. I don't know how to end because it's like, there's, there's just so much more that could be impact.

[01:21:16] We're gonna have all, all your links, all the ways for people to get in touch with you down in the show notes and the description. Guys, as always, we know your nonprofit is coming up next for you. That's your big focus now, and God willing, that's gonna go really well and you're gonna start getting those books into all kinds of places that need them.

[01:21:35] What is the most important thing you want people to hear today? The bi. I think the biggest thing, man, is that whatever you think that you are worth, you're worth so much more than that to. The God that created all this man, the earth, the universe, everything, man. He says that the greatest thing that he ever created was you.

[01:21:58] So no matter what you've been through, and as worthless as you may have felt, um, brother to God, you're worth infinitely more than that. He is begging for you to reach out to him. He has made it so easy, man. He made it so simple, man. The Bible said he gave every man the measure of faith to believe that Jesus is the son of God.

[01:22:20] We've all been given that measure, and I'm asking you if, if you believe anything that I said today, I'm asking you to just get along with God and say that doubter's prayer and say, Jesus, man, if, if, if you are real, if the Jesus that this man's talking about is real and alive, and you can come into my life and change the course of my life and change my mind, I'm asking you to do that.

[01:22:43] That's it, brother. That's it for me, brother. Guys, it seems really stupid, but somebody's gonna wanna know. So the answer to the question in the beginning was from Factor Rooster, Steven got it right. But that is really so insignificant right now because if that's what you stuck around for, you missed, and you need to go back and listen to this again because so much more important things were shared today.

[01:23:04] Guys, be better tomorrow because of what you do today and we'll see you on the next one.

[01:23:11] This has been the Fallible Man Podcast. Your home for everything, man, husband, and father. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a show. Head over to www.thefallman.com for more content and get your own Ible Man gear waiting and.

Steven Snook Profile Photo

Steven Snook

Hello, my name is Steven Snook and I am the owner and creator of Jesus Speaks LLC. The LLC stands for Life, Liberty, & Christianity! This is my story.

When I was born in 1976, my mother was only 15 years old and I was her second child. She was living on her own and in such extreme poverty that she put my brother and myself by the side of a road and called the police to come and get us.

I was sent to Illinois to live with an aunt. She was a waitress and married violent alcoholics. This life was full of abuse and poverty. So the foundation of my life was laid. Abuse, poverty, alcoholism and drug addiction.

By the time I was 15 years old, I was selling marijuana. I had become the fruit of my environment. Soon I went to live on my own and sell drugs full time. I was no stranger to trouble or law enforcement. By the time I turned 21, I was completely entrenched in the criminal lifestyle. I ended up getting sent to prison for 3 years because of a case involving my 17 year old girlfriend. Upon my release at the age of 24, I was still lost in the world of drug trafficking, and at 26, I got arrested with drugs again, and was sent to federal prison. This time my sentence was for 22 years. The story of a ruined life from birth.

But Jesus had a different plan! I was radically saved and born again in 2003. My life with God has been an incredible one. I became a preacher of the gospel to men in prisons all over the United States. God used me to reach inmates that could not be reached by normal means.

In 2017, I spent over a year in sol… Read More