They say you can’t argue someone to Christ. Despite my love for a good argument, I agree with this for the most part. Sometimes, however, the things someone is arguing may just be questions about they are too proud to ask. They may be someone looking for answers about Jesus, but they are too proud to admit it. This, I believe was the case with Joshua.
Our team pulled up to this lot in search of a man that our friend had met the day before. When we got there this man was not around so we decided to make the most of our time there. Our friend, whose name is Eben, started a conversation with a few men and the rest of us spread out to speak to others in the area.
As Delaney and I are talking to a couple of teenagers, Eben called us over to talk to a man named Joshua. Joshua and Eben were speaking in Twi (ghana’s local language) at first. When they finally switched to English we could tell that they were arguing. Joshua was a Buddhist and he did not understand why we were so passionate about Jesus.
Joshua was defensive with his questions.
“How do you know God is real??”, looking for proof that God exists.
Eben told him about how scripture tells us that God is our creator and designer and that He gives us our senses so that we can experience Him is His creation. Though Joshua was listening, he was still not convinced. Eben then asked me to speak. I hate being put on the spot, but at this point I had no choice. I quickly found words, or Jesus gave me words, and I resonded with, “I know God is real because He speaks to me. Because I am his daughter I know His voice and I can here what he has to say to me.”
Joshua’s next question sounded like an argument, but I believe that he was really searching for an answer that he was too proud to accept at this point. He asked, “so how do I follow this God?”
Delaney began to speak now. She told him about how much Jesus loves us and that all we have to do is accept him in to our lives. She spoke about the lost sheep and how Joshua was the lost sheep and that Jesus was our shepherd who was searching for him.
As she spoke, Joshua changed. He went from defensive to broken in a second. He began to weep and tears were hitting his legs as he cried. Delaney reached out to him and asked if he would like to follow Jesus now. He sobbed back a confident, “Yes!”
Delaney prayed for him as Eben called the rest of the team over to pray with us. When we finished our prayer, something took over Joshua and he fell to his knees sobbing. At this point the other men around were laughing and mocking but, Joshua didn’t care because he was experiencing Jesus for the first time!
Joshua described to us that he felt something in his heart and then as the rest of the team joined, he felt something leave him. I told him, “That is how God speaks to you. That is how you know he is real!”
Eben led him in a prayer to accept Jesus into his heart and then demanded that he stop his Buddhist chanting and to burn all Buddhist books he had, because now he knows who the true God is and he has no need for those things anymore!
We went back to see Joshua the next day. The lot where we met him held a different atmosphere. There was joy there and there was joy in Joshua! He told us about how he read the little bible I had given him the night before. He told us that he just opened his bible and read the first thing he saw, which just happened to be John 3:16. As he told another of my teammates, he gets it! He is excited about his new life with Jesus and excited to join us for church on Sunday!
God showed up that day. We came to speak into the lives of these people but our words were not what changed Joshua’s life that day. Joshua opened his heart up to the questions he had and to the Holy Spirit just enough that God was able to move in him! God was able to bring another of his lost sheep back home! We didn’t find the man Eben came for that day, but we did find the man Jesus was looking for.
It’s amazing when you allow the Holy Spirit to work through you what can happen. Through God’s goodness and a few people who were willing to say yes to Him, people’s lives are changing and it’s such an amazing thing to be able to be a part of it!
