How God Helped Me Secure My First NIH Grant

By the summer of 2016, three years after becoming a believer, God had already set me free from anxiety. However, as a tenure-track assistant professor in the 4th year, I was yet to secure extramural grants for my cell biology research. 

I remember praying in my office one day. I reminded God that if He intended to keep me at the University of Southern Mississippi, He would need to give me a research grant soon. 

Then my prayer turned into complaints. I grumbled that many of my atheist colleagues were more successful than me in that regard. “Why?” I asked.

“You are different,” He replied, to my utter shock. “For me to give you a grant, you will need to surrender your work to me.” As if scales had fallen from my eyes, I saw for the first time that all these years, I had falsely believed it was my hard work and intelligence that got me where I was. Never did I thank God once for my faculty position. 

I immediately bowed my head to repent, “I am so sorry!” I almost sobbed, “I will surrender my work to you from now on, and I will seek you in work as I have in other areas of my life.”

A few weeks later, I started to put together a grant application to NIH. As I was reading some old publications – which I had read many times – I noticed something I had never noticed before. I wrote an entire new grant application based on this new insight and submitted it in October 2016.

Months went by. On January 23, 2017, just a few days before the NIH would post the impact scores of the grant applications, I woke up from a dream. In the dream, I received a mailed package notifying me that I had received a research grant from NIH. I went back to sleep but had another dream in which I saw the scoring chart showing a fundable score. “Could this be a message from God?” I thought to myself.

On January 26, I gathered up the courage to check my impact score online. My proposal received a perfect score of 10 (my two previous unsuccessful NIH grant applications scored 50 and 42, respectively)! I shared this incredible news with a brother-in-Christ that evening. “Why would God show me the results in dreams ahead of time?” I said, “I would find out in just a few days anyway.” 

“I know exactly why,” answered this dear brother, “because He wanted to make sure that you know this grant comes not from men but from Him!” 

I’m not sure that everyone who prays for an NIH grant will receive one. I am not sure if I will ever hear Him again when I write future grants. What I am sure of is that He has a perfect plan for me, and I can step into that plan if I am willing to surrender whatever I have, including my career.