By Caleb Mast
Cellhouse Five is a series of steps and tiers, almost like a cathedral. As you enter the space, you hear both low-grade chatter and high-volume yells from one cell to the other in an effort to make connections and have relationships. Walking in, you can either go down to the lower level or up to tier three. The right tier is separated by about twenty feet of space from the left. The over thirty-foot-high ceilings could feel expansive, but instead, you feel trapped. Not only by the fact that you are in prison but also by the reality of what each of the one hundred souls present are going through.
I stopped at one of these rooms and met David, who looked through the bars at me. He came across as soft-spoken, harmless, and possibly feeling lost, but the ink covering all the visible areas of his body showed a facade of confidence, self-power, and fierce identity.
As I engaged him in conversation, it didn’t take long before he dropped the hopeless words about his court hearing, “They gave me life.” (a life sentance)
Attempting to find what his spiritual life was like, I asked him a few questions, only to discover that he had no deep belief in anything. Despite having spent years in prison, he had not heard the gospel message and knew very little about God and the Bible—Truth.
As with many men who have participated in gang-type activities, spiritual reality was not a big question; he knew it was real. He just didn’t know the truth about it or where the real power was actually found.
In the following moments, David told me that his life had been filled with horrible choices and actions. God gave me the grace to speak of His holiness and justice to him. I asked David how he would and should be judged standing in front of a Holy God. “If the state system, though imperfect, gave you a life sentence, what should a perfect God do?” I asked him. With all that was in him, he wanted to find a way to cause this Holy God to accept and love him, not condemn him.
In probably one of my most fumbled acts of sharing the gospel, I gave him the good news. God does have a way. On His terms, He provides the path we need to be judged and forgiven. David could see that our eternity is not based on our past but on Jesus’. David came to faith in Christ that day. He was able to confess with his mouth and believe in his heart that Jesus is Lord. I don’t think David said these exact hope-filled words, but he believed and felt them by all appearances, “He gave me life.”
