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CBN.com – Los Angeles -- one of the most glamorous cities in America.
It also has a side that’s not so pretty. Take for example Skid Row, where there’s rampant drug use and homeless people line the streets. Ernest Miller was once part of this scene, and it began in 1979.
“I wanted to forget everything I had learned,” he says. “I was brought up in a Christian, God-fearing home, but I wanted to be like everyone else. Everyone else was cool. They smoked cigarettes, used all kinds of language, dressed a different way, and I wanted to be like them.”
So Ernest, who was attending college on a music scholarship, left school for the glitz of the entertainment world. He started a singing group with his friends called Spirit of Destiny.
“We thought we were doing something spiritual. But it all stopped at the name. That’s when everything stopped.”
The disco group indulged in the party life and with young Ernest as their lead singer, Spirit of Destiny recorded a few albums. But the group disbanded when Ernest was ready for a change…
“I burned out and wanted to do something else,” Ernest explains. “I ended up signing up for the Navy.”
While stationed in Japan, Ernest started using cocaine. Then he became a trafficker for one of Japan’s most notorious dealers. He smuggled drugs between Japan and Thailand. The local authorities caught onto the drug ring, and Ernest was on their list. He knew that if the Japanese police caught him, he would face a much harsher sentence than he would under U.S. jurisdiction.
“I had in my mind that if they catch me, they won’t catch me off base because I know what’s going to happen,” he says. “It’s not American law or rules. It’s 20 years off the bat.”
One day Japanese authorities caught Ernest transporting drugs in his car, and the race was on.
Ernest recalls, “I took off, speeding through the streets of Japan in a car, crashed into the gate of the Navy base, drove around the base with cars driving behind me, and I’ve got a car full of drugs. I’m throwing the drugs out of the car, and I drive the car into the ocean.”
Ernest survived the plunge. But with the drugs at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him. So he was sentenced to 90 days in the Navy’s brig. It was there that he became a devout follower of Buddhism.
After serving his time, Ernest was discharged from the military. He headed home to southern California still devoted to his Buddhist faith… and still a drug user. Neither one gave him what he needed.
“There wasn’t any peace,” Ernest explains. “There was confusion…lies, deceit. It was a scheme that sounded good for me at the time, and I bid on it. I ended up spending seven to eight years tied up in a cult. I just didn’t like what I was going through, and I didn’t have any way out.”
So when a friend invited Ernest to attend church, he went along.
“I heard the Word of God for the first time in many, many years. I still wasn’t convinced that it was for me. But it started coming to me, and [I started] remembering things I had been taught as a child. I started remembering how Christianity had worked in my family.”
Ernest was moved by the service but not convinced. He stepped back out into the world of drug dealing and hitting cocaine several times a week.
One night, he was so high he flagged down a taxi and simply told the driver, “Take me to the drugs.”
“I didn’t know where I was going to go. I didn’t know where I was going to end up. All I knew is that I came and got in this taxi to get some drugs,” he says. “My body craved the drug, and that was the only thing I knew. But the driver assured me that whatever I needed, they had it in there. He said, ‘Just go in there; they got it.’ And I looked at him with disdain because I thought he was trying to put me out of the taxi. I said, ‘I have money.’ He said, ‘I don’t need your money. Just go in there. They’ll help you. They have everything you need.’ I felt hurt, and I stood there not really knowing where I was.”
The taxi driver could have taken Ernest anywhere, but instead, he dropped him off at the union rescue mission in downtown Los Angeles.
That first night, Ernest says he wanted to leave. But the Lord spoke to him very clearly and told him that he needed to stay.
As much as he craved drugs, he wanted freedom from the drugs even more. He enrolled in the mission’s one-year discipleship program. It was there in the mission’s chapel where Ernest gave his heart to Jesus Christ.
“I would come in when there was no one here, and because there’s an echo here, I could hear myself. It seemed like the Lord was sending a message to me that everything was going to be all right. I would come here and look at the words that were shining out toward me. God would tell me that I’m beloved. He’d say that I’m blessed, respected.”
Today Ernest works as a paralegal. Yet even as he walks through the rescue mission building today, five years later, vivid memories come flooding back.
“I remember being in here, not wanting to be here,” he says. “Telling God I was going to leave. He wouldn’t let me leave. I’m just thanking Him. By the grace of God I’m not in San Julian. I’m not doing drugs; I’m not stealing. I wanted to keep what I had, which was nothing. He worked my heart in this room. He took my heart, and he just changed it. He changed my life. I remember not even liking myself but God taught me how to love in this room. He taught me to love my neighbor, my family, myself. He taught me to love His Son Jesus.
“I don’t care how bad your situation seems. My duty is to tell somebody how good He is and about His amazing grace. I just thank Him so much for it.”
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