Just before he received his last prison sentence in 2019, Lewis Gibson was living in a homeless hostel. He’d been warned that he would end up in jail again if he continued on his drug-fuelled lifestyle.
‘I was in despair, because I knew I was going back to prison,’ Lewis explained. At a crisis point, Gibson turned to a United Christian Broadcasters (UCB) devotional he’d picked up during a previous stint in prison. In it, he read Romans 10:13: ‘Whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’
He took a marker pen and wrote the verse on the wall of his room. ‘It struck me as a revelation,’ he said. ‘I read it again, and I read it out loud. I was so desperate. I’d had enough of the way I was living my life.’
Every day afterwards until he was sent back to jail, Lewis called on the name of the LORD through that verse. And God answered.
Enslaved to drugs and alcohol
Lewis’ life started its downward trajectory after his parents split up when he was nine years old. As a cry for attention, he began to shoplift and commit petty crimes to impress his friends, resulting in getting in trouble with the police and, eventually, being suspended from school.
‘My behaviour really just went off the rails,’ he said. ‘I just gravitated towards the people who were giving me the approval I was seeking.’
After getting arrested at just 13, Lewis ended up in a children’s home. He described that incident as the turning point in his life which began a cycle of escalating criminal activity and longer prison sentences.
‘I couldn’t make the connection between my behaviour and ending up in prison,’ he said. ‘I saw myself as a victim.’
As the years went by, Lewis started selling drugs and developed addictions to cocaine and heroin. ‘We just lived to use,’ he explained. ‘Every day you wake up and you’ve got withdrawals.’
Each time he was sent to prison, Lewis came to hate the lifestyle he was living and determined to change his ways.
‘I had faith in myself. I didn’t understand that I was powerless against drugs and alcohol,’ he said. ‘When I got out, I’d be using the same day.’
That’s when Lewis discovered Christianity through the UCB devotionals and Gideon Bibles provided in prison. He started reading them in secret every day.
Then, in April 2019 when he found himself at rock bottom again, Lewis had a breakthrough.
As his cell door slammed behind him, Lewis looked at his reflection in the mirror on the wall. ‘I didn’t recognise the person looking back at me,’ he said. ‘In that moment I broke down completely … I didn’t know where else to go. I’d come to the end.’
Like he’d done before at the homeless hostel, Lewis cried out to God. ‘I’ve come to believe God knows when you’re sincere in your heart,’ Lewis said. ‘That’s when He stepped into my life.’
Freed to live for Jesus
For the next two and a half years, Lewis went through what he described as a ‘massive transformation’. His new behaviour earned him a position of trust within the prison, and he went through the 12 Steps of Cocaine Anonymous.
‘I had a lot of support in there,’ Lewis said. ‘I used to rubbish all those people but as soon as I asked for help, they were there for me.’ However, it wasn’t until Lewis shared the 12 Steps with another inmate that he realised the way that the programme overlaps with the gospel.
His friend, who was more familiar with the Bible, told Lewis that the 12 Steps reminded him of the book of James. So, Lewis picked up a Bible and read it. ‘It absolutely blew me away,’ he said. ‘I was hooked.’
Lewis then started reading the Gospels, where he encountered Jesus. Despite being confined to prison, Lewis experienced a freedom he’d never had before. ‘I had a purpose,’ he said.
As his release date neared, Lewis prayed that God would protect him from falling back into his previous lifestyle. When he was being taken down to the prison reception, Lewis said, he felt filled with the peace of God. ‘I had no desire to go and get alcohol or drugs,’ he said.
Since that day, Lewis has found a church family, been baptised, and even started his own construction company which sponsors and hires ex-convicts and addicts.
Having completed the Peter Stream theology course, Lewis is now going through preordination with his church and uses his story to point other people, including prisoners, to hope in Jesus.
‘When I do share my testimony in prison, you can see it’s so powerful,’ he explained. ‘It’s a beautiful thing to see, the light coming on in someone’s eyes.’
‘The biggest thing I’ve learned about God is that He’s a faithful God,’ Lewis said, reflecting on his journey to faith. ‘He hasn’t let me down – not once.’
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