Wholehearted Trust in God

Welcome back to another edition of Ignite. I want to talk to you about whole-hearted trust. You know, it's mind boggling to me how we, oh, it's difficult. I'm going to use it in generality, but it's across the board. And I have statistics to back it up. We have this way of knowing scriptures. We memorize the scriptures. We quote the scriptures, and then we ignore the scriptures. And don't give the second thought about it. Do you think about it? This subject of whole-hearted faith is a case in point. Maybe the biggest. We all know we should have a whole-hearted faith, whole-hearted trust in God. We know that. Without faith, it's a possible praise God. We know that. That's in Hebrews 11-6. And yet, there is a statistic that's come out, Reese says, 73% of all Americans in America are living in fear. 73%. And as it happens, the study went in and asked a number of other questions. One of them was, are you a Christian or are you not a Christian? You know, the shocking thing is of those who replied that they're a Christian. No, it didn't say what kind of a Christian, but those who replied they're a Christian came in at a higher rate or are having more fear. If you're living in fear, most of you, if you admit it or say that you're living in fear, that's not whole-hearted trust in that you know, trust the lower-thier whole heart. You know that. You know that. It's true. And yet you're not doing it. And you don't even think about it. You're just not doing it. And you don't even have any conviction over your guilt about it. So you know, I talk about sharing faith. I see of all the things in our Christian life, I look at me to the links, okay. And the lead link being sharing or faith. That's the great commission. Why? Because when you share your faith, it brings everything else in line. But you can't share your faith if you're living in fear. And over 75% of all Christians are living in fear. If you're living in fear, you don't have faith. If you don't have faith, you can't share your faith. So as anyone who are not sharing your faith today, I can convince that fear is perhaps Satan's number one attack on Christians, on you. Because when he puts fear in you, he sterilizes you. And by that, I mean you can't reproduce yourself. And we're not. The church is imploding. That's why. Church is living in fear today. We've lost this whole thing. And yet, as we're living in fear, we'll all quote this scripture just the lower your whole heart, you know. James 1 gives us startling, statement. You go back there, read that again. He says, I'll give you what you want. From pray for it. I'll give it to you. I'll give it to you immediately. But oh, wait a minute. You have to ask for the unwavering faith. Because if you waver, you're like a waver driven by the wind and tossed. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let not that person expect to receive anything from me. So it would be safe to say statistically that most of you are having unentered prayers as you're praying and worrying at the same time. So this whole issue of whole heart of faith is kind of important. And it's all tied to sharing your faith. Who knew? If there was every time to have whole heart of faith, it's now. I mean, when things, it was always important when we lived in Mayberry, R.F.D., when everything was fine, but it's not fine anymore. Or it's coming apart. And most Christians, I meet with and talk with and in groups or meals or whatever. They're overflowing with what the latest thing this politician did, and that's person that is bizarre. It's easy to get upset about that stuff. If you focus on that stuff, and if your God is this world, you know, I don't even know why you have to say, stop watching Fox News. I like Fox News. I like Tucker. But Tucker does not move closer to Jesus. He gets to be upset about what's really going on. I know what's going on, but I don't need to pray, just preoccupied my mind with all that stuff, but God, but God's in the middle of it. I've seen the persecuted church. I see it flourishing. I see the prosperous church that is dying, okay? Hard times are not bad. They're not a curse. They're a blessing for God. And that's why we have whole heart of faith because we know that. We know it, of course, because it's true and because God told us. We know it, we quote it. We need to start believing. If we start believing scripture, it changes everything, okay? This is not a new thought for me. I graduated from my Christian college, and I came out of that college with the verse, and it morts me to anything else, and stayed that way my entire life. It's Proverbs 3.5, trust the Lord with your whole heart, and don't lead under under your own understanding. And always acknowledge Him in the good and the bad. Something good happens. Thank you, Lord, but we should just as quickly say, when something bad happens, thank you, Lord, I know you're there. I don't understand it. It's killing me. I've been through so many of those situations, but always thinking, I'm not for the problem, but the fact I know he's there in the problem. You know, he didn't say, I'll take you around the valley of the shadow of death. He said, I'm going to take you right through it. I'm right there with you, and he always is. God inspired me to go into the retail corrects market. We were some body shops and details. Didn't know anything about retail at all. First I had to create a package, a logo, an image for our new retail products. So I just trust in God. I say, God, I don't have a clue on doing. By the way, this thing about trust you with my whole heart and don't depend on my own understanding. It's actually quite easy. I don't have any understanding. I don't have a clue what I'm doing. And I've stayed that way for 50 years. It's worked pretty well. In this case, I needed to find what the image of our pride, but the single most important decision I had to make. What's the image of our company going to be going forward? Now, mind you, it's 1969. We just landed on the moon. Every package designer I talked to showed me, by the way, they were foul language and smoke-filled rooms and stuff. If you I didn't want to work with it. But to the last one, they gave me space age type, futuristic type, packaging ideas. That's where you go through these moments in time, and that was the preventing theme. It would have been very catchy for that moment, I suppose. But there was a Jewish designer by David Craig Freitag and Craig Key to Eddie says, you're missing the point. How many family business been around since 1901? You shouldn't just throw that away. Space age is not going to do that for you. You need to have a logo that bespeaks the fact that you've been around since 1901. That or gender trust, they realize you're a family business since 1901. They can trust you. And he brought me this. I didn't if you ever seen our logo, but it's kind of scripted logo at a 45 degree angle. And it seemed right to me. As wrong as it seemed to everything else was going on. Now, mind you, we threw everything away in 1969, America. Antiquing was not a factor. The term decoupaging, some of you young ones wouldn't remember that. But decoupaging came in after that. And then finally, we started loving old things and values of old things started going up back in 1969 with you, old race cars away for all you car guys. We just threw away. It's not worth millions of dollars. So my point being to go back and strike back and give a logo or something that's old was against everything. And yet it seemed right to me. So I went to the board and the family board was some outside board members. The family board members were all against me. They didn't want me to. He didn't want to go retail. But I had some outside board members that bounce the boat. I usually won the board votes by one vote. And they finally gave me a modest budget. I mean, a modest budget. And so I called that design of it. And I called Craig. I said, how much? Now, mind you, Craig, and I knew we made you because I'd want Craig, you know, what you understand. We don't have a lot of money. We don't have any money. He did the rough Lauren logo with the guy in the horse and hitting the, you know, what I'm talking about. So this is a big successful guy. And I said, we don't have a lot of money. So you're going to have to kind of work with me here. So I called him at night and I didn't remind him of what I said earlier. And he said, give me 15 minutes. I said, okay, fine. So I prayed. And I said, God, I don't have a clue. I don't have an understanding. And if I go with this guy, where he's going to just be against me, tell me I'm wrong. I don't want to have any doubt about it. If it's the right guy, would you have him come in within that budget that gave me this morning? And if he's the wrong guy, I have him come in above the budget. And then no matter what, I will know without doubt. I would just know that you guy. I'm never going to look back. I don't care what anybody says. I'm going to run. Keep on running without new logo. That new look. So he called me back and the courty gay was to the dollar, to the dollar. It was to the dollar of the budget that gave me that morning. And I told him how I prayed. He's that's the second time I've been here with the season thing today. You know, it was so great. And when we hung up, I got my knee. I just said, God, okay, I get it. I'm all in. You're not just there in Sundays and Sunday nights and Wednesday nights and all that churchy stuff. You're involved in the affairs of man. And I can trust you with everything in my life. I can trust you with everything in my life. And when I trust you and I take no credit for it, I acknowledge you in everything. You direct my steps. And I'm going to trust you, direct my steps. That was 1969, okay. I've been trusting every sense. And it's been what a ride. I mean, where we are now. I mean, there's no way I got to possibly imagine where we ended up because of that decision that in that logo is known. You really have to be close to it to know that's one of our products now. It's just it's just pretty great. In that time, I needed some education. And I needed people to help me. And I relied on God to send those people. I was in a reception up in Los Angeles. And I prayed. I said, God, bring somebody here to me that can help me. It was a marketing conference. And I thought, maybe there's somebody there that can give me a word. And a guy came up to me as they were with Al Atherton. And we started talking and hit it off. In fact, it happens so easily. And we're in a great conversation. And I said, well, tell me about some of the things you've done. He said, well, there's an ad campaign going on. Now you may have heard of it. He said, hey, you want a Hawaiian punch? And he created that campaign. And I said, oh, man, I said, I would love, he said, I'll work with you. I could help you. I said, well, I don't have any money. He said, where do you live? Where's your office? I said to Irvine. He said, I'll be down to Irvine next week. I want to stop by and have a conversation with you. So he came by. And then he came by again, and again, and again. And he started coming by at a weekly basis to have lunch with me, because he had several clients down there. He was working with a regular basis. So he could probably have lunch with me. He'd bring a brown bag with him. And I gave him a coke. And that it cost me a coke. Okay. And this guy, all this knowledge, I remember, he bought a Ferrari during this period of time. And he didn't want to wait a couple of more votes. So he had it flown over. This guy was bucks. He had a lot of bucks. Very sick to have very nice man, very generous for this time. And God brought it right into my life. I trusted God. I said, if I go in this retail market, it's going to eat me alive. Unless you give me wisdom. I need, I'm reliant on you. I trusted God my whole heart. You follow my point. Probably that was a critical time. I got a million stories. And I don't really know where to stop. But I, the big box stores said they won't put, I love you. Love your products. But I won't put your products in unless you do an ad campaign. So I talked the family and doing a TV ad campaign and spot markets across the country. And that had almost no effect because they said to me, we're in all the markets. Not a few. You got to have a national campaign. We love you. I would tell you almost every buyer of every major big box store told the same thing. If you, if you, if you go on national TV, we'll put you in. So I went to the board and I told on this that I saw the idea and by one boat with a family pre-mold buddy against me, except for my dad. I won the boat and it was like, okay, but now we're talking on a national campaign. Now here's the picture. You buy ads for the car rack season spring and summer. You buy them in the fall. So you got to buy them before you get the orders because the orders don't start coming to you until December and January for the spring and summer market. Okay. So I commit to this, I think it was like a three million dollar advertising campaign. All right. And at the time we were doing it about, I don't know, maybe 11 million dollars total. Okay. So I mean, it didn't make any sense at all. But it did, if all these big box stores bought our products, they would all work out fine and God was telling me to. So I, I feel good. I was confident. I went and I just sold away the board. They said, okay, with the banks, sold the bank and we're often running. But guess what? Not one putter products in, not one. That was not a good year for me. They always said, you know, see, you sell a buyer with the buyer has to go to the merchandise manager and a committee. So the buyer is really a clearinghouse and he takes it and then the the merchandise committee makes the room decision and the vice president merchandise and being the most important person in that committee. And they all look and said, there's no way that little bit of company is going to spend that kind of money and advertise. We don't believe it. So we're not going to put them in. So they basically said that everyone in the same story in their own words, you know, we can't put you in this year. But if you do it this year, we'll put you in next year. So you can imagine what my family members thought when we didn't get any of those orders that were upside down and we've lost money for the first time in our company's history. One of our board members said, Bank of America now owns our business. It was one of the worst moments of my life. So praying leading up to that next board meeting and looking at the financials at all, I prayed, I prayed, I said, God, you got me into this mess. This is exactly what I said. Have you listened to me? I said, you got me into this mess. You got to see me through. What do I do next? And it just felt him say, you got to do it again. Do the same thing again. Are you kidding me? I got to go back to the board and convince him to do it again. That's like taking all the ships. I'm not a gambler, but they take all the ships. I got the visual and you just put it all the table and give it a spin, you know? And that's what he told me to do. As a 20, I think I was like 29 years old or something then. This is my 100 year old family business with my family against me. And I'm pushing them into this thing. And I went to the board and I told them what we needed to do. And by one boat they said, you can sell it to the Bank of America. You sell it to the Bank of America. We'll do it. And so my family behind me went to the Bank of America. The manager of the bank in so many bid and he looked at me and said, I have to be out of my mind, but I think you're going to pull this off. And he gave us the loan to buy all that product and make all that product and get going. If he had not done that, if I had not trusted the Lord, we would be probably out of business today. There's a bigger part of this story. I'll tell it in another episode how would we have a whole warehouse full of products. And I had a full one bottle. We're in that together. That's a great story. But I just tell you jump ahead to one last one. I know you're so many of you are in struggles right now. And your wonder where God is. Where is he? I'm in a mess. I'm in struggles. I have to talk to people that, you know, I have an incident with a joint venture partner that will really bring it home. It was amazing. When people share their stories, they were, let me tell you where I was. I was 65 years old. If I joined a venture partner, I found out they're going to throw me out of my business the next morning. They wanted to break the company into pieces and I was going to be a roadblock to that. So they're going to throw me out. It was a conference call board meeting the next morning. So the next morning, I'm, my income's gone, but I've lost my 100-year-old family business. I've lost my granddad's, I lost my dad's business. I lost my reputation. Most importantly, I lost my testimony. It's very required. He's the car guy. He's the guy that loves God. And what happened to him? He lost his business. This is where a whole hearted fate is the road that meets the road. I had it. I have so many struggles. You know, you get smaller ones and smaller. I don't know where you are in your walk. You don't necessarily get there all in one jump. If you survive one, you know, he'll never give you more than you can endure. You survive one, he'll give you a bigger one in the world. This is a pretty big one. I went to bed that night and as God is hearing me right now, I said, God, I ask you for nothing because of two things. You know I live for your purpose and I know you keep your word. So I'm good. I was referring to Romans 828 where he says, if you live for my purpose, I'll make everything work together for good. That's not just a blanket safe for anybody. That's a promise of those who love God and live for his purpose. And God knows I live for his purpose every day. I'm sharing my faith continually every day. That's what drives me every day. And because of that, I know he'll honor his word. He'll make it work for good. So I went to bed. I would just leave him immediately. God's my witness on this. I slept all night. I didn't toss her chair. I woke up fresh. I went into my attorney's office the next morning to receive the conference caller raising their own offices. And I'll tell you the story of another podcast, but God totally destroyed my joint venture partner's plans in about 8 minutes. It was in the air. I broke out laughing. God, I trust you. And you're always there. Well, you have those experiences. Nothing, nothing stops you. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. And another can stop you from telling people he's real. It's so hard to trust. I used to go to Bill Gothard's basic youth conflicts. Then you have to do that. I went like four times. Thank you, Bill Gothard. And so many things he said have stuck with the all of my life. None more important than this. He said, God is not nearly as concerned with what you go through as he isn't how you respond to what you go through. You're in struggles right now. You've got all kinds of problems. I mean, I can't imagine the problems of those who are listening to me right now. God's not as interested about the problem as he isn't how you're responding to the problem. Do you have whole hearted trust? We can't develop that in good times. You understand that? We don't grow in good times. We don't need God in good times. It's in the dark times. That's when we grow. I thank God for every bad thing that's happened to me because they've made me what I am today. And I have no bad days and I have no fear. Because I have whole hearted trust. I mean, every time something goes wrong, I get excited. Kiritzoy said, I wonder what God's up to now. It's wonderful that we never have a bad day. And you know why? Because our focus is to move everybody every day closer than Jesus. Praise God. See you next time.