As a young child, Adam Wiggins learned a lot about alcohol and drugs from his father. His dad was addicted to both, yet still managed to hold down a job and provide for his family. Adam didn’t see enough negatives to dissuade him from drinking and using drugs at a young age, and the consequences of that lifestyle led to a few arrests and time spent in prison.
Yet it seems God was at work in Wiggins even then. When he was 10 years old, Wiggins’ mother began going to church, and shortly thereafter she gave her life to Christ. Wiggins said that when his mother walked the aisle during an invitation, he followed her. A couple of years later, his dad followed suit and soon quit alcohol and drugs cold turkey, completely giving his life to the Lord.
Wiggins saw the radical changes in his parents, but he had experienced no personal change of his own. By the age of 13, he realized something was wrong.
At the time, he had gotten no counseling to make sure he understood the decision for Jesus Christ that people thought he was making, so after talking to his pastor Wiggins made what he felt was a real commitment to the Lord, and got baptized again. But Wiggins struggled to follow the Lord and break away from the destructive patterns of behavior he had already adopted.
“It was so confusing, because I had seen so much with my dad and had started doing things in the neighborhood,” Wiggins said. “It was hard to escape all that because everyone was doing it.”
So he didn’t escape from it but incorporated it into his new life at church, smoking pot and drinking on Friday and Saturday and attending church on Sunday.
“It was a double life,” he said.
At the age of 18, when his parents said he didn’t have to attend church any more if he didn’t want to, Wiggins left his double life behind and embraced the drugs and alcohol, “running and living a fast life.”
That fast life earned him a stay at a Florida prison and a brief stint in a Georgia jail. Yet even in rebellion, God led Wiggins to his wife Sabrina. Four children later, Wiggins found his way back to the Lord. He not only became a consistent believer but it now on a church-planting team in Florida. Adam did not take a conventional path to the ministry – most pastors’ resumes don’t include prison – but he says he wouldn’t change anything about his story. One of his mentors said of him, “He doesn’t give up — that’s a picture of his life,” Drum said. “God didn’t give up on him, and he doesn’t give up either.”
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Nicole Kalil is a reporter for the Florida Baptist Witness (goFBW.com), the official news source of the Florida Baptist State Convention. Article adapted by Rev. David Holwick.