I am probably one of the most unlikely people you could ever meet who ended up in seminary, received graduate degrees, got ordained and then became active in ministry! This effort has manifested itself through founding a non-profit chaplaincy organization, teaching the Bible for more than a quarter of a century and filling pastoral duties for friends and fellow pastors when they need someone to care for their flock during illness or travel. And then starting and writing Christian posts for TBTB for the last 14+ years. Even as I find myself semi-retired from the corporate world, I still am passionate about my work in ministry.
But it wasn’t always that way. I was highly competitive in the corporate world and was blessed with early success in my career. I came to believe that it wasn’t really all that difficult to lead a highly profitable enterprise. But, at least in my situation, things changed. Dad died, I left the family business (which I had significantly grown) and Janet, the kids and I ended up moving to Carmel, Indiana in the fall of 1982. To cut to the chase, it was much more difficult to start another company than I was prepared for.
We were running out of money, had three mortgages on our home, things were incredibly tight and I was looking for ways to stretch our finances as far as I possibly could. We had $21,000 in cash advances on our personal credit cards and each Thursday I went to the bank to charge our staff payroll on a business credit card. Go ahead, call me a serial entrepreneur – it’s the truth.
By the grace of God, we survived with, as the song says, “a little help from our friends.” My closest friend, Bob, cobbled together a gift of $15,000 from his retirement savings, in addition to his wife and in-laws contributing to our cause. It made the difference between total financial ruin and turning the corner, the beginning of a rocket ship ride that landed us on the cover of Inc. magazine in 1988. We were recognized as one of the 500 fastest growing privately held companies in the U.S. in our first eligible year. And we have made the list two additional times since then…
At some point, the pressure became overwhelming and I ended up turning to alcohol in the hopes that it would dull the pain and reduce the constant drive to do better and better in the corporate arena. I just couldn’t pedal any faster and I was headed for the realization that my pace was unsustainable. I couldn’t find a formula that would allow me to continue our financial success and by 1998 or so, I knew my way wouldn’t work any longer. I finally realized that alcohol wasn’t the answer and I quit cold turkey on March 24, 1993 – 32 years ago Monday.
I needed a better model, and although I continued to try new ways, suffice it to say that I was driven to my knees. Janet and I prayed about it and I was convinced to try it God’s way… Please hear me… I just didn’t think that there was any other way… I don’t even know that I was willing. I kind of felt like Jonah, trapped and on a mission from God. There was no way out..
I was accepted into seminary and the rest, as they say, is history. Even my entrance into school was the result of having taken two obscure classes in New and Old Testament during my studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago as electives my last year there. I needed some undergrad Bible to be considered for seminary… who knew? While the first day of class I thought that I had made a monumental mistake, within weeks I felt myself changing; beginning to love seminary. There is no question that God was working in my heart. I had come to believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior when I was a young boy, but this was a wholly different level. The Scripture really came alive and my seminary experience was pure joy – like nothing I had ever experienced in college or anywhere else. I was in school for close to ten years, developing strong friendships along the way. We studied Greek, Hebrew and many theology classes together.
Greek was my favorite class. I wanted to learn the languages so that I could read the Bible as it was originally written. To be fully transparent, languages were difficult for me and while I studied three years of Greek, and then a book translation study after that, Hebrew was even more difficult for me.
Tonight’s verse comes from the apostle Paul and was actually a verse that we had to translate as a class for one of our final exams. We were to work together, translating, then picking out the verbs and participles, making an outline and then delivering a sermon on the selected verses. I was elected to deliver the sermon for our group of five students – four of us were older students who had come back to school after years separated us from our college years. I was forty seven when I went back to seminary. Since all our work in school was done in the King James Version, I thought it appropriate that I use the exact verses we had to master and translate in our exam.
Paul tells his church at Ephesus, and us, in Ephesians 5:18-20, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…” (KJV)
My encouragement this evening is that God speaks to all his people in various ways. Whether it is through a whisper in the middle of the night, or even through the reading or translation of a verse in Scripture, God has the means to reach us. My prayer is that we will be receptive to the call of God on our lives, even if we are unlikely ambassadors, caught up in ourselves, or think we are unworthy. God can overcome all that, as I have seen in my own life… Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace…