I was born and raised in Hobbs, New Mexico, in a loving family. I attended Christian schools until about the fifth grade. Even as a boy, I had a heart for hurting people. I could not have imagined how much hurt I would eventually experience—or how God would use my story to reach others.
Growing up with two brothers helped shape me into a fighter. Our fights left me praying at night to become meaner, stronger, and tougher. Looking back, I recognize how deeply I wanted to protect myself from being hurt.
The summer before my senior year of high school, my family moved to Norman, Oklahoma. I left behind the friends I thought would be in my life forever. I felt isolated and alone, carrying that loneliness through graduation in 1989.
What began as experimenting with drugs eventually became a life consumed by addiction. By the early 1990s, I was deeply involved in the drug world while using church attendance as a cover. I knew how to appear religious without surrendering my life to Jesus.
For the next eight years, I manufactured methamphetamine, dealt drugs, and associated with dangerous people. Eventually, I became wanted by the authorities myself.
But while I was running into darkness, I had a praying grandmother who would not stop crying out to God for me. She was warring in prayer over a life that seemed determined to destroy itself.
In 1999, I went to prison. I was released on July 21, 2004.
Prison interrupted my life, but it did not end the struggle within me. When life became difficult, I returned to drugs and darkness.
Throughout those years, I held on to the promise in Romans 10:13 that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Again and again, I cried out, and I believe God preserved my life. Yet I continued resisting the wholehearted surrender I desperately needed.
During a period of abstinence, I met Brandy. We married in 2015. But abstaining from drugs had not resolved what was happening inside me. When hardship came, I returned to the same destructive patterns.
Over 27 years of addiction and darkness, I damaged relationships and burned bridges, including with my family. By the time I was 47, I had reached a place where I no longer wanted to live.
There were multiple suicide attempts. After one of them, I found myself alone in an emergency room. In that place, I knew I needed help.
On July 21, 2020, I entered rehabilitation.
Even there, I initially tried to manipulate circumstances to accommodate the life I had been living. The despair did not immediately disappear. Once again, I found myself struggling with thoughts of ending my life.
Then, seven days after arriving, something happened that changed the direction of my life.
I was walking from the cafeteria toward my room along a hallway I had traveled every day. Looking to my left, I noticed a cross hanging inside the chapel. To me, it seemed to shine brightly, drawing my attention as though I were being called inside.
That night, I entered the chapel and threw myself onto the altar.
I cried out for help with everything I had. I knew I could no longer keep trying to live on my own terms. This was wholehearted surrender.
What happened in that chapel is something I can only describe as supernatural. I do not know how long I was there. When I became aware of my surroundings, I was on the floor near the altar, and the room around me was in disarray.
But what mattered most was what had happened within me: I had surrendered to Jesus Christ as the Lord of my life.
My life has never been the same.
He lifted me out of the darkness and set my feet on solid ground. He placed a fire deep within me—a burning desire to reach the lost, proclaim the gospel, and see captives set free.
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob restored my life and brought my family back together—better than before! Where addiction had brought division and brokenness, He brought restoration. The relationships I thought I had destroyed became part of my testimony of His mercy and faithfulness. My family stands as a living witness to the restoring power of God.
Today, that calling is at the heart of Lance Hindman Ministries. I want to serve people who are hurting, people who feel forgotten, and people whose families are still praying for them.
I know what it is to be the person someone is praying for. Now, I want God to use my life to become part of the answer to someone else’s prayer.
I am called to preach the gospel unrestricted, unperverted, and undiluted—with honesty, compassion, and the fire of the Holy Spirit.
My testimony points to the mercy of Jesus Christ. After all those years of running, I finally surrendered to the One who had never stopped calling me.
The life I live is no longer my own. My life belongs to Jesus Christ.