I went to school during the week, and on the weekends I would go do trade shows. I started buying all the trade shows for the year, and then COVID happened. I wasn’t just broke. I was in the hole, looking up at broke, $40,000 in debt. My wife and I were lying in bed, and she was in tears. She said, “I don’t make enough money for us to live here.” I told her, “It’s okay. Have faith. God’s got us.” And then she goes to bed, and I’m crying out, “God, please, I need you!”
What do you do when the ground gives way beneath your feet and everything is falling apart? In that moment of truth, can you depend on God to show you how to receive a harvest during a famine!
Joshua Stephens and his family would discover that God is faithful even in the midst of famine.
After twice being served with divorce papers, Joshua knew his marriage was on the brink of collapse. Despite the negative situation, in his heart he saw his family together in the mountains. Everything changed for the better when he met a business associate named Aram, who was a Charis Bible College graduate.
Joshua shares, “So, I meet Aram, who’s twenty-four years old. We were having dinner, and there were these girls hitting on him. But Aram just wasn’t interested, and I remember thinking, What’s going on here? I asked him if he was okay, and he told me that he loved the Lord and didn’t want to do that to Him. And I’m like, ‘Wow, whatever that is inside of you, I want that.’”
Aram then invited Joshua to the 2018 Men’s Advance, an event that would change Joshua’s life forever.
During the conference, God confirmed to Joshua that he was meant to attend Charis in Woodland Park, situated near Pikes Peak, a mountain he had seen in a vision months earlier. Determined to follow this calling, he returned home to Arizona and announced to his family that they were moving. Eager for a fresh start, his wife, Jessica, readily agreed.
During his first year at Charis, Joshua immersed himself in the Word of God and began to change effortlessly. He found himself with a new marriage and a newfound trust in God as his provider.
“My wife started to smile and laugh again, and man, that was the most beautiful thing,” Joshua shares.
“He was talking differently, not so rash and mean. Just the way he was doing things was different, and it was better."
Then came COVID-19.
“I wasn’t just broke. I was in the hole, looking up at broke,” Joshua says.
After spending the last two years studying the Bible and growing in his identity in Christ, Joshua reached the moment of truth. He could either give in to fear and let his dreams and visions fall by the wayside, or he could trust God to finish what He started. With everything to lose, he followed the peace of the Holy Spirit.
Led by the Lord to Genesis 26, where Isaac sowed in the land during a famine and reaped a hundredfold that same year, Joshua decided to sow the last of his money into creating a social media presence for his business.
Despite being $40,000 in debt, he chose to trust in the Lord as his provider.
“When you have a company that is led by a vision from the Lord, nothing is impossible,” Joshua affirms.
As for Joshua’s family, they finally have the husband and father they’d always longed for.
Thank you, partners and friends! Because of you, Charis graduates like Joshua are taking Jesus beyond the church walls and sharing His message with those who need it most.
Quotations have been edited for length and clarity.
