Testimony

Captured by God: From the Gridiron to the Graveyard

The Testimony of Evangelist Michael Bowen

From Success to Captivity. From Darkness to Deliverance. From Prisoner to Preacher.

My name is Michael Bowen.

Today, I am an evangelist, missionary, father, brother, good friend and disciple of Jesus Christ.

But my story did not begin with a microphone in my hand.

It began with a football.

It began with dreams.

It began with success.

And it eventually led me into a place of darkness that I never imagined I would enter.

A place where addiction nearly destroyed everything God had created me to become.

But what the enemy intended for destruction, God redeemed for His glory.

This is my testimony.

This is the story of how Jesus Christ rescued me from the captivity, darkness, and hell of addiction and gave me a new life.

The Early Years: A Life Filled With Promise

I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas.

I grew up in a loving family, in a good neighborhood, and my parents provided me with opportunities many people never receive. I experienced a privileged upbringing, surrounded by support, encouragement, and the chance to pursue my dreams.

From a young age, I excelled in athletics.

Football became my passion.

It was more than a sport to me—it became my identity.

I worked hard, and by 1986, I had become one of the top high school running backs in the state of Texas.

After graduation, I accepted an opportunity to play football at Southern Methodist University (SMU).

During my freshman year, I earned a starting position on the football team.

But that same year, SMU experienced one of the most difficult moments in college football history.

The university received the NCAA “death penalty,” and the football program was suspended for two years because of violations.

Because of the circumstances surrounding the program, I transferred to continue pursuing my education and football career.

In 1987, I transferred to the University of Georgia.

Once again, I found success.

I was honored with the Olin Huff Award, recognizing me as the university’s most outstanding walk-on athlete.

That year, the Georgia Bulldogs finished ranked 13th in the nation and became Liberty Bowl Champions.

But even with that success, my heart remained in Dallas.

I loved SMU.

I wanted to be part of rebuilding a program that had been devastated.

So after one year at Georgia, I transferred back to SMU to help resurrect the football program from the ashes of the “death penalty.”

The Dream Comes True

I finished my college football career at SMU in 1990 as one of the top receivers in the country.

I was named:

All Southwest Conference Honorable Mention Receiver
Team Captain
Offensive Most Valuable Player

In 1991, my childhood dream seemed within reach.

I was drafted into the Canadian Football League by the Edmonton Eskimos and signed a six-figure contract.

Everything I had worked for was finally happening.

But then, in training camp, everything changed.

I did not make the team.

I was released.

I was given a one-way airline ticket and sent back home.

The dream was over.

I returned to the United States feeling defeated, humiliated, and devastated.

The identity I had built my entire life around was gone.

And in my pain, I turned to the very things that would eventually destroy me.

Alcohol.

Drugs.

Escape.

What began as an attempt to numb disappointment became the doorway into a 25-year battle with addiction.

The Beginning of the Chains

During my high school and college years, I experimented with alcohol and marijuana.

Later, those doors opened to stronger substances—cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine.

Football had always been my priority.

As long as I was playing, I could control my drug use enough to keep performing.

When it was time to train, I would put the drugs away and focus on becoming the best football player I could be.

But addiction was waiting.

And after my failure in the Canadian Football League, the restraint I once had disappeared.

The crack cocaine epidemic was sweeping across America, destroying countless lives.

And it captured mine.

I discovered crack cocaine.

At first, I thought I was in control.

I was not.

Slowly, the drug that I thought would help me escape my pain became the master of my life.

I would leave my comfortable home in North Dallas and drive into the inner-city projects searching for crack houses.

I was completely out of place.

A former college football player from the suburbs hiding in drug houses until sunrise.

I thought I was chasing pleasure.

But I was walking into bondage.

The Long Road Into Captivity

When the Gift Became a Battlefield

What began as a way to escape disappointment became a prison I could not escape.

Addiction is deceptive.

At first, it promises freedom.

It tells you that you are in control.

It convinces you that you can stop whenever you want.

But eventually, the thing you thought you controlled begins controlling you.

The drug becomes the master.

The person becomes the slave.

That is exactly what happened to me.

The same determination and drive that helped me succeed in football became distorted and redirected toward feeding my addiction.

I was a competitor.

I knew how to push through pain.

I knew how to endure hardship.

But I was fighting the wrong battle with the wrong weapons.

I was trying to defeat a spiritual bondage with human strength.

And I was losing.

Twenty-Five Years of Bondage

For the next 25 years, I battled addiction with everything I had.

I went through countless treatment programs.

I attended numerous 12-step meetings.

I spent time in mental health facilities.

I experienced repeated arrests, jail sentences, and eventually prison.

My family did everything they could to help me.

Everyone around me wanted to see me free.

But nothing worked.

I was a hopeless drug addict.

During those years, I was able to get married and have three children.

I experienced moments of success.

I had opportunities to rebuild my life.

But addiction was always waiting.

It was always there, ready to take everything away again.

My life became a cycle.

I would get sober.

I would rebuild.

I would convince myself that I had finally defeated addiction.

Then, without warning, I would disappear back into the darkness of crack cocaine.

The same pattern repeated over and over.

Losing Everything

My addiction became a lifestyle of destruction.

I would disappear into crack houses for days at a time.

I would spend every dollar I had on drugs.

I would give away my possessions to drug dealers.

I emptied bank accounts.

I lost jobs.

I lost vehicles.

I lost relationships.

Eventually, I abandoned the people who loved me most.

I became someone I never thought I would become.

A man who once stood on football fields in front of thousands of people was now living in abandoned houses, drug dens, and run-down motels.

I became homeless.

I became a street criminal.

I stole from people and businesses to support an addiction I could no longer control.

The person I had become was unrecognizable.

The enemy had taken the gifts God gave me and tried to use them for destruction.

But God was not finished with my story.

The Road to Prison

This destructive cycle continued throughout my twenties and thirties.

Then, in 2007, everything came crashing down.

At the age of 40, I was arrested after stealing a vehicle, leading police on a high-speed chase, crashing into another vehicle, and attempting to escape on foot.

A helicopter tracked me down, and I was eventually captured by law enforcement.

I was arrested and sentenced to 14 months in the Maricopa and Pima County jails in Arizona.

After my release, I was placed on intense probation.

For a while, I appeared to be moving in the right direction.

I completed one year of strict probation and transitioned into regular probation.

But when I received more freedom, I returned to the same bondage that had controlled me for years.

I relapsed.

I violated probation.

And I ran.

Running From the Law and Running From God

I knew prison was waiting for me.

So I lived with an attitude of surrender to destruction.

I ran through the streets of Tucson, Arizona, using drugs, stealing, and trying to survive.

I was not just running from the law.

Deep down, I was running from the pain inside me.

I was running from shame.

I was running from failure.

I was running from the person I had become.

One night, while walking through the streets, a man pulled up beside me in a truck.

He asked me if I knew where he could find crack cocaine.

I told him I did.

He gave me money to purchase the drugs, and I took him to a drug house.

I bought the crack and returned to his vehicle.

I broke off a piece for myself and gave him the rest.

As I began smoking the drug, everything changed.

The man was not a customer.

He was an undercover police officer.

A police vehicle pulled behind us with its lights flashing.

Officers pulled me from the truck.

I was arrested.

This time, I was charged with narcotics sales.

I received a two-year prison sentence and was sent to the Florence Unit of the Arizona Department of Corrections.

A Prison Sentence Was Not Enough

I served my time in Arizona and was released on parole to Austin, Texas in December 2009.

I truly believed prison had finally changed me.

I thought:

“That was enough. I will never go back.”

For a while, I lived differently.

I settled into a new life in Texas.

In 2010, my story came full circle in an unexpected way.

I was featured in ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary “Pony Excess,” which told the story of the SMU football program and the death penalty era during my college years.

The documentary aired around the world.

I began working in real estate.

I became involved in youth football again.

I coached young athletes in my community.

Eventually, I became the league’s football commissioner.

I coached my son’s team to three consecutive championships.

We had built one of the best youth football teams in our region, and we were preparing for a run at a national championship.

From the outside, everything looked restored.

It looked like my life was finally back on track.

But there was still a battle raging inside me.

I had changed my circumstances.

But I had not surrendered my heart.

The Final Descent

In March 2013, I went to a bar for a few drinks.

I never came home.

That decision opened the door to the darkest season of my life.

I disappeared again into the world of crack cocaine.

But this time was different.

This time, methamphetamine entered the picture.

What followed was the deepest, darkest place I had ever experienced.

The life I had worked so hard to rebuild collapsed almost overnight.

I abandoned my children.

I disappeared from my family.

I walked away from everything I loved.

For three months, nobody knew where I was.

I was lost.

Broken.

Consumed.

I was smoking crack.

Selling crack.

Stealing.

And eventually injecting methamphetamine into my veins.

I no longer cared what happened to me.

I believed death was the only way my addiction would ever end.

I had reached the bottom.

And yet, even there…

God was still reaching for me.

Captured by God

When I Reached the End of Myself, Jesus Found Me

During what would become my final descent into addiction, I reached a place I never believed was possible.

I had lost control of everything.

The life I had once known was gone.

The dreams I had pursued.

The family I loved.

The identity I had built.

The future I thought I had.

Everything was buried beneath the weight of addiction.

I was living in my car and in drug houses.

I was stealing to support a habit I could not stop.

I was using drugs every day.

I was broken physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

I had reached the lowest point of my life.

But what I did not understand was that I had reached the place where God was finally able to reach me.

The Darkness Before the Dawn

At one point during this final season of addiction, I became convinced that I had died and was in hell.

My mind was trapped in terror.

The torment was overwhelming.

I felt as though my body was burning with fire.

I began searching myself, trying to find wounds or evidence of how I had died.

I was looking for answers to something I could not understand.

I was convinced I was trapped forever.

The fear was unbearable.

But even in that moment of confusion and darkness, God was still protecting me.

The enemy had convinced me that I was too far gone.

That I had disappointed too many people.

That I could never return to my family.

That I was worthless.

That there was no hope for me.

But those were lies.

Because the truth is this:

No one is beyond the reach of Jesus Christ.

A Spiritual Battle in the Darkness

One night, I was inside a crack house.

I was high on drugs.

I had not eaten or slept for more than a week.

My mind and body were completely exhausted.

And then something happened that I will never forget.

In that moment, I experienced a terrifying spiritual encounter.

The spiritual realm seemed to open before me.

The darkness that I had been living in became something I could no longer ignore.

I saw the enemy’s influence working through a man in the room.

I could hear the enemy’s voice speaking through that situation.

The spiritual and physical worlds seemed to collide.

The enemy presented me with a temptation.

A lie.

A promise.

He offered me everything I thought I wanted.

More drugs.

More money.

More power.

More escape.

But the price was my soul.

The enemy told me that if I gave myself completely to him, I would never have to suffer again.

He told me I could have everything I wanted.

Then he said something I will never forget:

“Because when I shine, you shine.”

But the devil is a liar!

He promises freedom and brings bondage.

He promises pleasure and brings destruction.

He promises life and brings death.

But that night, God protected me.

When the enemy demanded my soul, I could not answer.

I could not say yes.

I could not say no.

I was silent.

And I believe that silence was God’s mercy covering me.

The Lord was not finished with me.

The Day God Captured Me

After that encounter, I left the drug house and found somewhere to sleep.

I believe God was giving me time.

Time to come out of the darkness.

Time before He intervened.

About three weeks later, my drug run finally came to an end.

On May 19, 2013, I was arrested for six counts of felony theft.

To the world, it looked like another arrest.

Another failure.

Another chapter of destruction.

But I see it differently now.

That was the day I was Captured by God.

The enemy thought he was taking me into another prison.

But God was rescuing me.

Jesus was not sending me to prison as punishment.

He was bringing me there as a place of surrender.

The place where I would finally stop running.

The place where I would finally die to myself.

The place where I would finally find life.

The Prison Chapel Floor Where Everything Changed

I was sent to the Travis Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for a one-year flat sentence.

And inside that prison, Jesus found me.

For years, I had tried everything this world offered.

Treatment centers.

Programs.

Counseling.

My own strength.

My own determination.

Nothing ever worked.

Because the one thing I had never truly done was surrender.

I had attended church.

I believed in God.

I considered myself religious.

But I had never fully given Him my life.

Until that moment.

Inside that prison, I finally broke.

I got on my face before God.

I cried.

I wept.

I surrendered.

I told Him:

“God, forgive me. Save me. I do not want this life anymore. All I want is You. If You save me, I will serve You for the rest of my days.”

For the first time in my life, I stopped fighting.

I stopped trying to fix myself.

I stopped trusting in my own ability.

I gave everything to Jesus.

My addiction.

My failures.

My shame.

My past.

My future.

My entire life.

And something happened.

The old man died.

A New Creation in Christ

In that prison chapel, Jesus Christ rescued me.

He delivered me.

He healed me.

He forgave me.

He gave me a new identity.

The chains of addiction that had held me for 25 years were broken.

I became a new creation in Christ.

The Bible says:

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
—2 Corinthians 5:17

God gave me the precious gift of His Holy Spirit.

He opened my eyes.

Where I was blind, now I could see.

I began to understand who I was in Jesus Christ.

I was no longer a drug addict.

I was no longer a prisoner.

I was no longer defined by my past.

I was a son of God.

I was redeemed.

I was forgiven.

I was free.

The Chains Were Broken