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God shall Redeem

by | Thu, Sep 22 2016

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On the day he went to jail, Luke Houghton must have felt he’d fulfilled one of his greatest ambitions. He wanted to be tough. He wanted to be invulnerable. And that need had carried him through a childhood full of addiction and crime. No one, least of all him, could have imagined that one night, in his cell, an encounter with God would change his life irrevocably.

Now happily married with a young daughter, Mr Houghton told Vision’s Shelley Scowen one of the most remarkable stories you will ever hear. It ends in the kind of redemption we all hope for. In the middle, the kind of despair that would leave anyone feeling lost and hopeless. But it begins in primary school, with a nine-year-old boy and his teacher.

Loveable Roguish Child of God

Colin Buchanan on Play School ©ABC

Colin Buchanan on Play School ©ABC

When Play School presenter and children’s entertainer Colin Buchanan taught Luke, he was only twenty-two, just out of teaching college, experimenting with new ways to introduce students to God. Mr Houghton said that Colin made school a pleasure. “He had a song to teach you something constantly, all day long,” Houghton said. “And he was pretty amazing to learn off. He was a caring, loving human being, who gave heaps and impacted my life massively.”

Luke also gave something back, when a search for a lost schoolbook was immortalised in song. Luke’s Desk lists an impressive collection of oddities, including a Fibreglass canoe, half a pound of sausages, and a devon sanger from 1982. And that’s just the first verse. Luke and Colin both insist that everything in the song was true. ““Luke was a really loveable roguish nine-year-old, who had a very messy desk,” Buchanan said. “That’s why I wrote the song about him. And he’s a loveable roguish child of God now, which is really delightful.”

Choosing Crime

I was going to go out of my way to be a horrible person, and to become the toughest human being that I knew I could become.

Even then though, a shadow was falling over Luke’s future. He described how, when he was eight, his trust was broken by a family member, and the pain of that betrayal changed everything. Not long afterward, he remembers driving past Long Bay jail, as he often did, and realising that the people who lived there were the strongest and most frightening he could think of.

“And as a nine-year-old I made a conscious decision, that I was going to be one of those people, and I was going to go out of my way to be a horrible person, and to become the toughest human being that I knew I could become, so that I wasn’t damaged in the way that I had already been damaged very recently.”

Finding that path didn’t take long. I mean, the ice-cream man sold pot.

In Sydney’s eastern suburbs, it’s easy to become a criminal, even for a child. “Finding that path didn’t take long,” he said. “I mean, the ice-cream man sold pot.” For a long time, he was able to conceal his drug use from his family, but when they moved closer to the beach when he was twelve, it became easier to access hard drugs. Soon, he had become dependent on Heroin, and was stealing from family and friends to obtain it.

Trapped by Addiction

By then, his addiction had become all-consuming. He could hardly remember the pain that had lead him to it. One day, at fourteen, he woke up, and decided not to take any drugs. Within two hours, he was extremely sick. When he rang a friend to ask what was wrong, they explained that he was in withdrawal.

“And as a fourteen-year-old you don’t understand. I had no concept of what addiction to heroine might do to a child. I had no concept at all of what it was doing to my body inside. And I was violently ill. I was on the toilet, and I was bleeding from parts of my body I shouldn’t be bleeding from.”

At sixteen, Houghton moved to Queensland, hoping that the change of scenery would free him from a lifestyle which he knew was spiralling out of control. He had made himself tough. He had hurt people, and not been hurt. Maybe he didn’t need to go to jail after all. But by this time, he was using more than 1,500 dollars worth of Heroin per day. And it was too late to escape the destiny he’d chosen.

Jail isn’t Cool

On his first day as a prisoner, Houghton realised that he wasn’t as tough as he’d thought. “I got put in a unit with some dudes that really rocked my world,” he said. “It was pretty scary, but it made me jump back to, I’m a child, and I’m going to get hurt again here.”

He knew that to survive, he would have to prove himself, to do something that would gain him the respect of his fellow inmates. What he did, that first day, pushed him over a line. “I lost all conscience,” he said. “I lost everything. That was what jail became. And I thought, I can’t stop now. I now have something I’ve got to live up to. I now have things to do.. And it just escalated, worse and worse, for a long time.”

Through the next ten years, Houghton learned the hard way that jail isn’t cool. “It’s pretty horrible. There are people that are just grubs. Couldn’t be bothered washing. Couldn’t be bothered cleaning. You’ve got to smell them. You’ve got to live with them. They’re not right in the head.”

As he began to grow up, he became disillusioned with the violent politics of the prison. Slowly, he was beginning to find his conscience. But there was only one way to escape from his reputation. He had to destroy his tough guy image, and leave the mainstream population.

I wasn’t someone who needed to go to protection, but I wanted to for myself, because I’d had enough of that life.

Going into protection is highly taboo among prisoners. Usually, it only happens if you’ve given evidence against someone, or if you’re the kind of prisoner who’s likely to be frequently attacked. Mr Houghton was neither of these. “I wasn’t someone who needed to go to protection, but I wanted to for myself, because I’d had enough of that life.”

And I got bro, you need Jesus, just straight out. And it really freaked me out. First thought was, from you? Really? From you guys?

One day, he walked past a group of friends, and they called him over. He wasn’t sure what they wanted, but thinking he might get drugs, he turned back to them. “And I got bro, you need Jesus, just straight out. And it really freaked me out. First thought was, from you? Really? From you guys? And then I looked down, and they had bibles open on the ground, and they’d been clearly writing things about what they’d been reading in the bible.”

Houghton didn’t know what to say. He could only walk away. But the image of these tattoo-covered men, well-known for getting into fights, crouching together with their bibles, got him thinking. He thought about his mother, who had always had strong faith, and how she sometimes seemed to know things she couldn’t possibly have learned from anyone else.

Revelation

“I was in my cell at night,” he said. “In jail, everything’s quite funny. Everything’s like orange and floodlit. It’s really freaky. The raiser wire’s got this beautiful glisten. Beautiful’s probably not the word, but it does, it glistens beautifully.” Staring into the eerie night, he was remembering how his mother had said “if you talk to God, he’ll talk back”. He decided to try.

I said I’ve been through hell and back, and realistically, if you are real, I’m blaming you.

“I said look, if you’re real, you’re going to have to do something to me, or show something to me. Because I don’t believe in you. I said I’ve been through hell and back, and realistically, if you are real, I’m blaming you. I’m angry with you, that an eight-year-old boy got hurt. What’s going on mate?

And he spoke to me.”

God said to Luke “I want to love you, and I want to be with you”. But that wasn’t enough for him. “We had it out really bad,” he said. “We had a really big argument, and heated discussion. And then at the end I just said well, come on then. I said do something amazing, if you are so good.”

The revelation God gave to him then, when he lifted him out of his cell, began the healing of wounds he’d lived with for decades. “I’ve spoken to some people, and they don’t really believe, I suppose, that it happened. But what he did to me in that cell, and the way he freed me, and the way he took me out of that prison temporarily, but it felt like an eternity. And the way that he put me back to where I was when I was a kid, and how I felt before that happened… I can’t describe it.”

Working for God

From that point on, everything began to change, even the small things, like the work he did for the prison, to earn the $15.60 a week for soap and other small luxuries. He decided that, rather than working for the jail, he would instead work for God, and through that, he began to enjoy his job. Meanwhile, he threw himself into a Bible college course by correspondence, and like the inmates who had called him over, learned about Jesus, and how much he had always needed him.

“I started liking people,” he said. “Even people that didn’t deserve to be liked. I’d gone to protection, and I had to live with child molesters. And that was a real eye-opener for me, and was pretty hard for me. But I think it was God’s growth in me. I think God only revealed himself to me after I’d made that decision that I’d had enough of that crappy old political life.”

Freedom and Love

Working in jail taught Luke useful skills, like welding, which prepared him for life in the outside world. By the time he was released for the last time, he had changed so much that he was willing to volunteer his time for a friend from church who was struggling to start a business. He had been helping out on his Burpengary property for almost a year, when, one day, he saw a woman walking toward them, taking photos of flowers.

He was surprised to learn that this was his friend’s sister, whom he’d never known about until now. “We met, and she introduced herself to me, and as she said, I looked at her like she had boogas in her nose or something. I was just a bit in shock, A, that Liam had a sister, and B, that she was really hot, and I really felt attracted to her.”

We just fell in love. And I figured ah well. May as well get married.

“She came to church one Sunday night, and she said I don’t really know anyone. Is anyone sitting here? And I said yeah. You are.” Afterward, he took her out to dinner, and it nearly broke his bank, but he didn’t care.

Mr Houghton wouldn’t have blamed her for wanting to keep away from a man with his history, an ex-con not long out of jail, struggling to find work and become a better person. But God knew, when he brought them together, that she would see more than the shadow of his past, and he would prove his dedication to the future. “We just fell in love,” he said. “And I figured ah well. May as well get married.”

A Healing Miracle

His next surprise came when, one day, his wife told him she was pregnant. “I was that excited, I nearly fell off the chair, but I was that stunned, I nearly fell off the chair. Because we couldn’t have children. It was an absolute impossibility. I was thinking it’s Jesus. He’s come again.”

Baby, HandDoctors had been so certain they could never have children that they’d never even considered it. Understandably, Houghton’s wife didn’t want him to get too excited. It was still possible that the baby wouldn’t survive. But Houghton had it on good authority that the pregnancy would last. “Straight away, God says it’s going to be a girl, and you’ve got to call it Galia.”

“I’m telling the people I love, because I’m so pumped. Because God’s told me, clearly, a name.” He’d never heard the word before, and it took a long search to find what it meant. The child was a gift, a sign to show how far a person can come by following in the footsteps of Christ. But her name was a promise. In Hebrew, the word Galia means “God shall redeem”.

God builds, and God renews, but he still lets you continue on. And there’s things that you still have to deal with, because you still have to give yourself to him every day.

The Road to Redemption

For Luke Houghton, redemption has been a long road, and he’s far from the end of it. “Don’t think that Christianity is easy, and the struggles all go away. God builds, and God renews, but he still lets you continue on. And there’s things that you still have to deal with, because you still have to give yourself to him every day. You’ve got to continually work at it every single day, and it’s hard. It’s hart not to slip back into an old lifestyle, and it’s hard not to be like that.”

“And violence, it was my thing. I turn to violence straight away, and shame shame, I’ve knocked four people out since I’ve been a Christian. And probably they didn’t deserve it. None of them deserved it really. But that was my thing, and I struggled with it. I’ve been going through some struggles at the moment with it, wanting to hurt someone.”

But the obvious changes in him show us also how far he has already come. “I reckon two years ago, this person would be on the floor by now,” he said. “So God is doing the work in me. But its been a really difficult road.”

I’ve continually turned back to God, and said here I am still. Let’s keep going at this, because I don’t want to end up back there in that dark place.

Even since his release, he has faced the kind of challenges that could shake anyone’s faith. He recently suffered from Cancer and was forced to take months off work. But his employers supported him in ways he said could only be Godly. “God’s really blessed us. And he’s blessed us through people that are in him, and know him, and love him, which is a real inspiration for me.”

Mr Houghton’s determination to overcome his weaknesses should be an inspiration to us all. Since God first spoke to him in his jail cell, he has been tested many times, and even failed a few. “But I’ve continually turned back to God, and said here I am still. Let’s keep going at this, because I don’t want to end up back there in that dark place.”