He Guides My Way

"Does He not see my ways, and number all my steps?” Job 31:4, NAS.

Rev. David Barnabas has worked among the Indian communities in and around Penang, Malaysia for many years. Having himself been saved out of a lifestyle of addiction, Pastor Barnabas has a big heart to minister to people suffering from addictions to alcohol and drugs. Timothy is one man that God snatched from the edge of the pit through the love and faith of the Barnabas family.

Timothy and his friend were hard-core alcoholics. Their addiction had left them homeless and without family. Pastor Barnabas and another Christian worker met the two men outside a coffee shop. They invited them to share a cup of coffee and visited with them. David shared with the men about God’s work in his life and offered to pray with them. Both men were willing, so after praying together Pastor Barnabas invited them to come to church.

The following week they attended church, but after one or two weeks they disappeared. With addicts this pattern of behavior is not unusual, so Pastor Barnabas carried on with his ministry and committed the men to the Lord’s keeping.

Then one morning Pastor Barnabas was driving into the city. Normally he drove straight down a main road into the city, but for some reason the Spirit prompted him to turn right. While it was not Pastor Barnabas’s normal route he obeyed the prompt and turned, figuring it would not take him that far out of his original route. Again he felt strongly led to make another turn; this time to the left. Pastor Barnabas wondered what this was all about. He scanned the road searching for God’s reason for giving him this detour. One final prompt came for him to turn right. As he turned he noticed a big garbage bin. Something lay next to the bin in a heap. Pastor Barnabas drove on.

About half a block later it registered with Pastor Barnabas, that heap by the garbage bin was a man! He immediately shifted the van into reverse and returned to the collapsed man. It was Timothy. He was shaking. He smelled awful. Pastor Barnabas loaded him into the van and rushed him to the General Hospital. Staff there examined Timothy and told Pastor Barnabas there was nothing they could do for him; he was too close to death.

Pastor Barnabas was undaunted by an impossible diagnosis. His God specialized in the impossible. He loaded Timothy into the van again and took him home. He burned Timothy’s putrid clothes, and then spent the next hour scrubbing him clean under a hot shower. He powdered his rubbed raw skin and carried him out to sit in the sun. Timothy was unable to walk.

For the next three months Pastor Barnabas nursed Timothy back to health. Every day he read devotions to Timothy, and in the course of his physical recovery, Timothy gave his heart to the Jesus who had saved him from the garbage heap.

When Timothy had regained his strength, Pastor Barnabas arranged for him to go into a drug rehabilitation program. Timothy didn’t complete the program and returned to Pastor Barnabas’s home. Pastor Barnabas received him again, but encouraged him to complete a rehab program. Timothy agreed. Again Pastor Barnabas arranged another rehab program, and this time Timothy completed it.

Timothy returned to Pastor Barnabas’s home for one last stay. He found a job and soon was able to get his own place. It has now been several years and Timothy has been set free from the craving to drink. He is married and has a new life is so many ways.

Pastor Barnabas and Timothy were having coffee at a shop one day. A woman in the shop kept staring at Timothy. Timothy leaned over to Pastor Barnabas and said, “That woman keeps staring at me because she knew me before. I used to wash dishes for her to get a few dollars to buy alcohol.” Timothy went up to her. She apologized for staring. She said, “You look like a man that used to work for me on occasion, but he must be dead.”

Timothy looked into her eyes and smiled. He said, “No, I am not dead. I am that man, but Jesus saved me.” He shared the entire story of his transformation, and she listened in complete amazement.

The other man, Timothy’s friend, died on the streets. Timothy knows that would have been his fate had his friend Pastor Barnabas failed to follow the guiding of the Spirit that one day.

Pray that:

God’s people will be sensitive to His prompts even if it takes them out of the plans they have for the day.

God will heal addictions of all kinds and in the process bring addicts to saving faith.

The many Malaysian Indians will find healing from addictions that are all too common among them and find salvation in Jesus.

Pacific Rim is a region of the International Mission Board, SBC.