Spending sanctioned time at rock bottom — such as prison — forces perspective on one’s life.
Consider the now late Charles “Chuck” Colson, the “evil genius” of the Nixon administration, who spent nearly a year in prison for a Watergate-related conviction:
I shudder to think of what I’d been if I had not gone to prison. Lying on the rotten floor of a cell, you know it’s not prosperity or pleasure that’s important, but the maturing of the soul.
He found God and dedicated a good part of the rest of his life ministering to prison inmates.