Chuck Colson once described himself as willing to “walk over his grandmother” to get Richard Nixon re-elected.
That wasn’t an exaggeration. During the Nixon administration, Colson was known as the president’s “hatchet man.” He was brilliant, combative, fiercely loyal, and completely comfortable operating in the shadows of power. If something needed to be done quietly and aggressively, Colson was often the one doing it.
Then Watergate happened.
In 1974, Colson pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for his role in Watergate and was sentenced to prison. For a man whose identity had been built on influence, access, and power, the fall was devastating.
While awaiting sentencing, a friend gave him a copy of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. Colson was skeptical, but Lewis’ arguments were difficult to dismiss. One evening, after a long conversation about faith, Colson sat alone in his car outside his home in Virginia.
He later wrote in his memoir Born Again that he began to cry — something he had not done since childhood. He realized that his problem wasn’t political miscalculation. It wasn’t bad press. It was sin. And for the first time, instead of defending himself, he repented.
Colson entered prison a few months later. He served seven months at Maxwell Federal Prison Camp in Alabama. When he was released, he did not return to political consulting. He founded Prison Fellowship in 1976, a ministry dedicated to serving inmates and reforming the prison system. What began as a small outreach grew into one of the largest prison ministries in the world, operating internationally.
Takeaway: Sometimes it takes a great fall to hit your knees.
Source: You can read the story in his autobiography, Born Again.
