Every person Carroll County Sheriff Clint Walker arrests is read the same Bible verse: Luke 11:24.
This is what he believes God wants him to do, the sheriff told members of the Greenwood Kiwanis and Lions clubs Thursday.
The verse says, “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’”
“If you don’t see God in your life when we put you in jail or rehab,” Walker explained, “when you get out you may make it two weeks, two years — but it if you don’t put God in there, the Holy Spirit, that addiction is coming back to you, and you will fall.”
Walker, the son of a Southern Baptist preacher, was an agent for the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics for 17 years. He became the bureau’s chaplain and later moved to Carroll County, where he ran for sheriff. He has held that post a little more than two years.
For years, Walker read the verse to arrestees but never really listened to what it was telling him, he said.
He compared his former life to a clear water bottle.
“I was an active deacon in a church sitting right there in a suit and tie, and I was living the life that I thought I was supposed to be living,” Walker said. “I was just like this bottle. Folks could see through me, but I had stuff hidden inside of me that I didn’t talk about.”
Walker said he had “deep sins” that no one really knew about at his church including drinking, dipping, swearing and a lust that was running his life. During this time, Walker had a son, Aiden, who now lives in Missouri.
He said he began to grow his faith through God but often felt the burden of his sins return.
“If we cast our cares upon him, and never feel the pressure, the anxiety or tension or worries or addiction, we would not be people who pray,” he said.
It is this idea that helps him keep in constant communication with God, he said.
Walker said he has not had a drink or dipped in 12 years.
Yet at one point in life, his strength was once again tested.
A custody battle for Walker’s son broke out between the two parents in a Southaven courtroom. Although Aiden lived with Walker, his mother wanted custody. He claimed she was staying with a “known child molester” and tried to present witnesses to prove his claim. Their testimony was not allowed because of a state statute of limitations.
The judge ruled in favor of the mother. Walker said, “Something happened in my stomach, and I thought I was going to die.”
As he drove along Interstate 55 from Southaven, he felt a sense of peace float over him when he decided to trust in God.
According to Walker, a week later in the district attorney’s office in Grenada, he was told that the laws in Mississippi had changed, and the man had been indicted on seven counts of child molestation and openly pleaded guilty.
“God changed the law to take care of my son,” Walker said. “I don't know about y’all, but God has got me. I wasted enough time living for myself.”
He said, “I am here to encourage you that if you are in a walk of life that you don’t want to be in, let God in.”
Every morning at his department, Walker and his deputies read a prayer card to ask for God’s protection.
His faith has often helped him in his role as sheriff, and at one point it brought tears to a man’s eyes that he had arrested, he said.
“We are going to continue to pray, and we are going to continue with the fight,” he said.
•Contact Lauren Randall at 581-7239 or lrandall@gwcommonwealth.com.
