I first met Joshua (not his real name) many years ago, when I was still an undergraduate at the University of Indianapolis. He had just moved to Indy from Nebraska and was trying to get established. Joshua was excellent academically, a Christian who credited himself for his success. A string of horrible events happened to him in quick succession, leaving him devastated. Joshua got ejected from his occupational therapy program stemming from racial bias. He also got relieved of his position as the youth leader at Church, not for moral failure, but for political reasons. The youth group he started from scratch had grown into a thriving community, so of course many more people wanted to lead it now. Joshua couldn’t secure a job because his papers had expired. These all culminated to him sitting on his bed with tears streaming down his cheek, wondering how it all came to this. Did God still care?

 

The turnaround

A lady from an occupational therapy program in Nashville had closed for the day and gone home but the Holy Spirit told her to go back to the office and call Joshua, whose application, she had read earlier. She could not sleep until she obeyed. She went back to the office and called Joshua not knowing if he was a Buddhist or a pagan. This started the process that led to Joshua being re-admitted to occupational therapy. Joshua had started driving a taxi since he couldn’t get an admission or a job, and was with a customer when the call arrived late for him to resume school. Joshua was one of thirty people admitted out of seven hundred that applied. Glory!

 

Favor

Joshua met a lady who believed in biblical purity. A medical student at the top of her game who chose to allow him lead her. Joshua also got a paid internship in a field that never pays it’s interns. He was selected as one of two people out of the thirty in his class to receive a graduate assistant-ship, which helped pay for his tuition. A Church in Nashville approached Joshua to lead its youth ministry. Talk about restoration. Joshua said to me: “If God asks me to go into the ministry today, I won’t be able to say a word against it. Because I know He has done everything for me and given me everything I have. I know I am where I am not by my power but by His grace”. Isn’t that amazing? How God reconstructed Joshua to giving Him the glory instead of seeking credit for himself. Now you can see what God was doing all along when all of Joshua’s cards seemed to fall apart?  If you are in a desperate situation today, picture now, what the Lord is doing through it because He is doing something. He is in a reconstructive project on your behalf.

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert – Isaiah 43:19