‘I Rode My Bike to God’

Jonathan Mobley was once a “frequent flyer” of the Cleveland County corrections system in Oklahoma. With no family support system to speak of and a substance abuse problem that began at age 15, Jonathan was often in and out of jail for trespassing, petty theft, and drug possession. He also served part of a 10-year sentence at the state prison in Frederick, Oklahoma for assault, an incident in which he was also stabbed in the throat.

“The problem was,” he now reasons, “although I knew something was wrong in my life, I actually thought what I was experiencing was normal.”

A constant diet of drugs and alcohol continued to contribute to his downward spiral well into his 20s. When he was not staying with friends or relatives, Jonathan was mostly homeless. The shelters in and around Norman, Oklahoma offered food and shelter, but his spirit was dry and floundering.

Because of his substance use, Jonathan was unable to hold a job. Even doing small labor tasks for relatives did not last. When he wasn’t high, he was skateboarding, playing guitar, and exhibiting a generally laissez-faire attitude toward life.

“My 10-year sentence was a ‘split sentence,’ meaning that I could do five years in [prison] and five years on probation,” Jonathan explains. “Even then, I only had to serve about sixteen months, from January 2017 to April 2018. One good thing about that span of time was that I was able to complete my GED.”

Soon after his release in 2018, Jonathan returned to Norman, but he was still homeless. His family members had moved away, leaving Jonathan on his own. He ended up in another shelter, where, unfortunately, he fell into a practice he learned from other residents.

“We had breakfast and lunch every day, and in the afternoon, we had case management,” he says. But in between it all, people were doing drugs on the property and breaking into homes to steal whatever was left behind – cell phones, laptops, jewelry – and those items became currency in an illicit bartering system.

Jonathan found the nearby University of Oklahoma (OU) campus to be “a goldmine for theft. When students were away (on breaks), no one was there to stop us,” he says. “Even when students left college for good, a lot of times they’d just leave their stuff behind.”

This kept Jonathan supplied with an occasional change of clothes, items to sell for more drugs, and even a bicycle he put to good use in the months that followed.

“Hanging out on the OU campus was a way of life for me. I was always getting arrested for trespassing or stealing stuff, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

An inner sense of right and wrong told Jonathan that what he was doing was bad. “I remember sitting at a friend’s backyard picnic table one day and saying to myself, ‘You’re okay,’ but then I heard a voice saying back, ‘No, you’re not okay!’”

Having been arrested over 20 times by 2023, Jonathan was given a 180- day sentence in the Cleveland County jail as a repeat offender — a rather stiff penalty for trespassing.

Jonathan was released on October 31 that year, and, retrieving his bike, he spent the next few days aimlessly pedaling around the city of Norman.

“I had to get on my bike and just ride,” he explains. “I continued to use drugs. I couldn’t help myself. And then I’d ride my bike for days on end just to sweat the drugs out of my system. As I rode, I began to realize what drugs were doing to me.

“The last day I took drugs the effects came over me in waves.” Jonathan adds that upon seeing his reflection, his eyes looked “wild and possessed.”

After a six-hour ride around town, Jonathan knew something had to change.

“I knew I had to run to God for deliverance. I knew that The Salvation Army was both a church and a shelter — after all, the word ‘Salvation’ is right there in its name.”

Turning his bike, and his life, around 180 degrees, Jonathan pedaled toward the Red Shield sign he had cycled past many times before.

“When we met Jonathan, he was sleeping behind the corps van,” recalls Lieutenant Corey Doggett, the Norman corps officer at the time. “We got him into the shelter and knew right away that he is a unique individual, very capable, and exceeds what he puts his mind to.”

Jonathan wasted no time immersing himself in the corps program. He began Soldiership classes and was enrolled as a senior soldier in July 2024.

“I’ve never seen the Holy Spirit work in someone’s life like what we witnessed in Jonathan’s,” Lieutenant Corey says. During Bible studies, whatever the subject, Jonathan “absorbs what is being taught. A lot of people you have to instruct, but he takes it in like a sponge.”

One week after his enrollment as a soldier, Jonathan began employment at the Army’s shelter, helping to steward the very place he once turned to for refuge and deliverance.

Up until the end of 2023, the period of his life Jonathan now describes as “the time he rode his bike to God,” he considered himself to be agnostic. But that all changed when he surrendered his life to Christ.

Ironically, the bike he once stole was later stolen from him. But nowadays Jonathan gets around in his very own car now that he has steady employment with the Army and a bright future.

“My state of mind did a complete ‘180,’” Jonathan says. “My countenance is peaceful, my life is improved, and my irrational chaos, fears, and worries are replaced by the fact that I am now a new creation in Christ!”