Local Lion owner shares his testimony

How God Guided the Owner of Local Lion out of Darkness and into Faith

By Ben Cox and Josiah Davis

Josiah and Meredith Davis are the owners of a popular donut and coffee shop in Boone called Local Lion. David and Freida Davis are Josiah’s parents and long time (41 years) friends of myself and my wife Connie. The reason I have chosen to feature the testimonies of David and his son together in this issue is because their stories both highlight how crucial it is for each one of us to have our own personal “come to Jesus” moments, where we surrender to God’s will and purpose for our lives.

Besides that, each of these men’s lives illustrate that coming into a relationship with God is just the first step in a journey where we’re meant to experience an on-going, ever-deepening relationship with God. “Growing in the wisdom and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” means that we are continually transformed until that day when our “faith is made sight” at our death or at Jesus’ return.

Raised in a Christian Home

As I listened to these two men tell their stories, I was amazed again at God’s amazing grace! One way this grace is evidenced is by the Lord’s relentless pursuit of us even when we’re trying to run away from Him. Though raised in a strong Christian home by parents who were immersed in the Church life of a strong Christian community, Josiah chose to run, until God’s love broke through.

Josiah is no different than many of us who were raised in Christian homes. He had a normal, well-adjusted childhood, raised by a loving mom and dad, who sincerely endeavored to provide for their children mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. But since there’s no such thing as perfect parents or children, we all experience growing pains, whether we’re the child or the parent.

As he reflected on his personal relationship with God, Josiah remembered with fondness the time when he first made a decision to follow Christ at nine years old. “My dad baptized me when I was a kid,” he said. “I remember that. It was like a light was turned on in my heart when I came out of the water, and people were singing and clapping and praising God.” Wouldn’t it be great if our children’s innocence could be protected from that point on?

Full house: Josiah at Topsail Island with his parents and four siblings, from left to right: David, Emma Beth, Jacob, Anna, Josiah, Frieda, and Jesse.

Season of Rebellion

I’ve been grateful to observe and share the strong testimonies in this magazine of those who made early decisions for Christ and have stayed true to and matured in their faith through the years! However, there are far too many who stray from the faith, sometimes never to return. In Josiah’s case, his slide began when he began to look up to and be influenced by the wrong kind of people. Here’s how Josiah explains that process:

“I remember this group came into a church lock-in from a different school, probably 8th grade or 7th grade. And there were all these different kinds of kids that I’d never been around before. I guess in a Christian school you grow up like, the world is out there and we’re in here, right? So, when I hit about 8th grade, I started to be like, what is this world out there? As a result of those types of experiences and my own independent nature, when I left the Christian school where my dad was the Principal and where I attended until the 8th grade, I didn’t want to hang out with Christians.

I wanted to hang out with a certain crew in high school, and I wanted to experience the world. I guess I’m saying my rebellion wasn’t rooted in anger towards my dad or toward the Church as much as it was the desire to experience the world.

I wanted to get high due to selfish curiosity, and the allure of the world driven temptation. And once I kind of got on that path then I was on that path. I don’t know that I started out wanting to get high, but after I got high the first time it became a lifestyle I got ensnared in, which led to full scale rebellion. I was not listening. I shut my ears and eyes to everything that my dad and mom said and what the rules had to say. I just didn’t care. Essentially, as I got further into stuff, I started to reap the rewards of that, and to see the shallowness of relationships that are forged around getting high and partying all the time.

It was in this time period that I got into a conversation with my dad about my future plans, which did not include college or a career path. I told him that I just wanted to experience adventure. Rather than challenge me that I needed to be responsible or tell me I was unrealistic like my teachers in high school were doing, he gave me a copy of Madam Guyon’s ‘Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ’. I put the book in my backpack and began reading it at school.”

As he grew more and more disillusioned with the party lifestyle, Josiah slowly began to find his way back to the Lord, when his relationship with God suddenly turned a corner.

“Soon after, I was drinking at a party and saw a character across the room who was known to have ruined his mind and life with drugs. It was as if my eyes were opened, I seemed to see that he was covered in darkness and that same darkness covered me. I was on that same path of ruin. In that moment, I saw a seed of light, literal light. It reminded me of the light I experienced as a 9-year-old at my baptism. I simply knew it was Jesus.

“I seemed to see that he was covered in darkness and that same darkness covered me. I was on that same path of ruin. ”

Walking with the Lord

From that point on, I guess my ears really started to open. Who knows how much God said to me before, when I was just hard-hearted and wasn’t listening? But my ears started to open. At some point I just went and confessed all my crap to my parents, and confession started helping me get free.”

Josiah’s father, David, is widely known in our community as Mr. D, because that’s the nickname that stuck from his years as a beloved principal and teacher at Appalachian Christian School and then as a middle school teacher at Parkway Elementary. David worked hard to warm his son’s heart to God, admitting his own shortcomings along the way. “We had long talks about how rules were limits on him for his overall safety, not simply a need he perceived I had to be controlling,” David said. “I had helped build that perception, and I had to help deconstruct it.”

“So,” Josiah said, “I started confessing, and I was also simultaneously being awakened to loving the Lord. It’s like I just started walking into freedom. Essentially, I told the Lord that Your love is more important to me than getting high, that I don’t have the strength to do this by myself, and that walking in communion with You is way more important to me than getting high.

To this day, the importance of not doing things that adversely affect my love relationship with Him is still what guides my way. For example, I’ll get a bad attitude or hard-hearted about something, and then God will remind me of His love and then it helps me. Essentially, God’s love is what gets me through. It’s what will renew me. I don’t know that there’s this conversion moment as much as the confession of freedom and then endeavoring to walk that out.

I guess I’ve always had this desire for experience. And my dad helped me to see and connected with me to see that could be fulfilled in God. I started to realize that there was fulfillment for me for who I was as a person in God. So that was also that part that became one of the driving forces in my life. God’s love and experiencing God’s love became what I was living for. I started to experience God, and the fruit was good.”

Growing together in God: Josiah and his father David smile inside Local Lion. David now works for Josiah, baking some of the delicious donuts that the shop is famous for.

Lights in the Community

As a close friend of the Davis family who pastored the church where Josiah grew up, it’s gratifying for me to behold how Josiah’s journey has led him back to ASU, to a Master’s of Theology (MTh) in Church History from Wales Lampeter University, and now into ownership of Local Lion. Another cool twist to this story is that Josiah’s dad, who retired from Parkway Elementary School after years of teaching the middle school students there, now works for him, baking those delicious donuts that are served at Local Lion.

In the uncertain times that we business owners are currently facing, Josiah has served as a shining example to both myself and the community of how to stay positive and to keep trusting in the Lord, no matter what our uncertain futures hold. Both of these men have continually had their lives shaped by the Lord, and they continue to live their lives by His guidance each and every day. Thank you, Mr. D and Josiah D, for what you and your contributions mean to the older and younger generations here in the High Country.

This article was originally written for the Summer 2020 Edition of The Journey magazine.

Walking Into Freedom