Good afternoon men I am thankful for the opportunity to share with you what God has done in my life.
When I was 5 years old my Mom and Dad got a divorce. It was a bitter divorce- my Mom had had enough and my Dad did not want the divorce. Be assured that my Dad was the major cause for the divorce. My Dad was a drinker and he was abusive especially with his mouth to my Mom and to all of us kids. At that time I was 5, my brother was 8, my sister was 11 and my oldest sister was 13. .
LOST ALOT
That day we lost our Father we lost our home our school and our friends. We left our new raised ranch home and moved into a small home in a rougher neighbor hood. We also in many ways lost our Mom. You see after we moved my Mom went back to school to finish her bachelor’s degree to become a schoolteacher and she had to work at Marshall Field at night. So, in a way, we lost my Mom too.
FINANCIAL HARDSHIPS
We went through some hard times both emotionally and financially. Due to the fact that my Dad was heart broken and angry he did not send the alimony and child support money that he was suppose to. We lived a very simple lifestyle. We did not have many toys, my Mom sewed some of our cloths, we didn’t take vacations and we ran out of food from time to time. The poverty that we experienced was not the hardship that many people think it would be. I can’t remember a day that I felt less fortunate than any one else because we didn’t have a lot of things. That was life as we knew it and for the most part we were content. My brother and I have many great memories of the games we would play with an empty basement and our imaginations.
FALSE GOD
This all changed for me one day. This was the day I began to worship a false god. It was like any other day, as far as I can remember, but it was a day that changed my life. I can remember it like it was yesterday. My Mom was sitting at our table and I may have asked her if there was any thing in the house to eat and my Mom just put her face into her hands and wept and wept. My Mom was very strong for all of us kids but this day she had had enough and broke down. The fact that we didn’t have money and things didn’t bother me but my Moms broken heart changed me. There is something when our Mom’s cry that hurts more deeply than we can describe. That day I came to believe that if I had enough money I could stop the tears. I believed that that was the key to making everything better.
PURSUING A FALSE GOD
So, from that day forward the journey began. The journey for money-the journey of worshiping a false god. Even at a young age I had cool aid stands, a club house with dues, I built a 3 wheel motorized go cart from parts I picked up on our neighborhood “junk” day and then charged kids to ride it. My older brothers and sisters borrowed money from me at least until I realized that they didn’t plan to pay me back. Anyway I was on my way making and saving money.
MOVE AND WENT TO WORK
When I was in 5th grade my Mom got remarried to a very good man and we moved into a very nice home on the North shore. The people that lived around us had a lot of money and a lot of things and they seemed happy which served as a conformation to me that I was on the right path. My Mom was also happy and I believed it was due, at least in part, to our financial situation.
At the age of thirteen my stepfather allowed me to get a job as a dishwasher and at the age of 15 I got a job at our local grocery store. This store was unique in that it catered to the wealthy. The store carried only the finest items. The customer would fill their cart with there items and bring their cart to the check out counter. Employees would then unload your cart at the check out, bag the groceries and then load them in your car. Some customers would just call in their orders and we would deliver them to their house. As the Mercedes, Cadillac’s, BMW’s even an occasional Rolls Royce drove through I was convinced that money and things made people happy.
STORE MANAGER
I worked hard at the store and was promoted quickly. I soon became the evening front store manager. This meant that all the bagers and some stockers had to report to me. I would schedule all breaks, dinners, who bagged, who stocked, who had to do clean up, sweep and mop the store at the end of the evening. Here was a kid who couldn’t even drive yet and had men twice his age working for him. I had a tremendous ego and managed with an iron fist. The management loved me but, with the exception of a few friends, everyone else hated me. But that didn’t bother me that was part of the job. When I finished high school management asked me to stay and they would make me a manager another huge ego boost but I had bigger plans!
OFF TO COLLEGE-OPS
I went to college but the first year didn’t go so well. I was not focused and partied with my friends. I was put on academic probation. That summer I went home and lived with my Dad. He informed me that I needed to decide what I want to do in life-school or get a job because my grades would not justify and help from him financially. That summer I worked at a machine shop 4 10-hour days and worked at my stepfathers company on Fridays and some Saturdays with my older brother. At the end of that summer I went back to school with a new focus I now knew what I didn’t want to do. I worked hard at school from that point forward. Someone gave me good advice, “ treat school like a job” go to campus from 8am-5pm and when you don’t have classes go to the library and study. I graduated college with a double major and a good GPA.
WELCOME HOME
I went to live with my father after college and as I was walking up to his house with my suitcases in my hand my greeting from my father was “I hope you have a job because your rent is $250. A month” Shortly there after I went to work for a major plastic machinery manufacture as a plastics engineer.
CAE DIVISION MANAGER
I worked very hard and within 2 years was in charge of my department and within 5 years was made the youngest division manager within the company. I was attending board meetings and divisional manager meetings with most men in there 40’s and 50’s and I was 26. I traveled to every state within the US and to China, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and to Europe. I was on a society speaker’s list and one year gave 17 society speeches in 17 different states I published a chapter in three different reference manuals for our industry and had articles appear in plastic trade magazines from time to time. I was making good money and I believed I was beginning to realize the goal I had set for my self at the age of 7.
MARY AND CAE SERVICES CORP.
My ego was getting too large for me to carry alone so I married my beautiful wife Mary to help me. Of all the places in my life that I experienced “God with me” it was the day He brought Mary into my life. After two years of marriage Mary became pregnant with our first child. When she was 4 months pregnant the company I worked for was sold to an investment-banking group who came in quickly and eliminated many divisions and people. I was called into an office and was told to fire all of my employees and then to fire myself. I don’t remember this bothering me. I went and met with the corporate president and informed that they had service contracts in place and they would be liable if they didn’t take care of them. I offered to take on the responsibility give up my sevrens take a few assets and a couple key employees. They agreed and I started my own company on May 8th 1988.
MICHELLE MATTHEW AND NATALIE
Mary and I had our first child on September 16th, 1989. And two years later we were expecting our 2nd and 3rd children yes twins. Mary and I then designed and built a custom home in St Charles. And life seemed to be going perfect! Just as I had dreamed! The company was growing. We lived in our dream home we wanted for nothing. We vacationed were ever we wanted and bought what ever caught our eye.
LOOKING FOR A CHURCH
As the twins due day approached we thought it would be a good idea to find a church. My wife was raised Catholic and I was raised Lutheran and we believed that church was something you had to do. We didn’t want to go to church it was an obligation. So we began to visit some local churches-first Catholic and then Lutheran.
One day my wife was talking to a member of the twins club and mentioned that we were looking for a church and this woman began to weep and said that we had to try her church. We couldn’t understand the tears but we figured we had to at least try the church. From the first moment we walked in we felt welcome. We brought the twins into the nursery and some women who seemed like angels came and took them and loved them we felt comfortable. And our first-born was with the toddlers having a ball.
LAST PEW
We sat in the last pew in the church, which is where we felt comfortable and where we could leave quickly if needed. This preacher was different from the others we had heard. The preacher didn’t talk about love he didn’t talk about peace and comfort he talked about sin. He said things like if we tell a lie even a little lie we were liars in the eyes of a Holy God and if we ever stole any thing even something small we were thieves in eyes of a Holy God or if we looked at a women with lust in our eyes we committed adultery in our hearts. He told us that God is Holy and that all sin is equal in his eyes. He also told us that the penalty for sin was death. You would think after that we wouldn’t come back but we did Sunday after Sunday. When we would leave and drive home there would be absolute silence in the car. With infant twins and a three year old that’s a miracle in itself. You see we were beginning to realize that we were sinners and that we needed to have God forgive us. Up to this point we believed we were good people going to heaven. We could always find someone that was worse than we were and of course those were the people destined for hell.
TURNING POINT
A major turning point in my life was one night sitting alone in my basement drinking a glass of fine wine watching a movie on my 9-foot home theater system feeling pretty good about myself. God revealed to me that I had been pursuing a false god. You see the dream I had at age 7 all came true I had the money I had the things but there was one problem the tears were still there. My goal was never the money it was just a means to happiness. But Mary and I were not happy in fact we were miserable. As I sat there alone I realized that I had become what I feared most a bad father and a bad husband. You see since the twins were born I would work late and then go out with the guys at least one night a week some times more. When I went home it was hard and Mary wanted my help but I was not there for her or our children. I justified myself in that I was providing for my family and that I was providing for our future. These were all lies that even I believed.
TOP AND BOTTOM
So I guess you could say I reached the top and the bottom at the same time. Mary and I both asked God to forgive us for our sins we both asked God to take control of our lives we asked God to give us a new start. And considering all that I had done and all of the people I had hurt and all the things I didn’t do He forgave me and He gave me a new start. I used to think the term Born Again was strange but now I know that I was born again in that I was given a new life with all my past forgiven.
DESIRES OF YOUR HEART
Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. This was true in my life. I started worshiping a false god with the desired to erase the tears and to be a good father and husband. After I gave control of my life to God this is exactly what he did for me. For the first 5 years after I became a Christian God led me and taught me how to be a husband and a father.
He taught me how to be a servant leader for my family.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love you wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
He taught how to love my wife in an understanding way.
Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
He taught me how to train and teach my children.
He also taught me how to enjoy my family in ways I never thought possible.
These were the TRUE desires of my heart not money not things.
FRIENDS CHANGED
I thought I had good friends but I now realize that I had good acquaintances. God has brought men into my life that truly love me and I them we are there for each other through the good and the bad times. These are friends that have earned the right to tell me when I am off course. These are true friends.
WORK CHANGED-GARBAGE BUSINESS
Philippians 2:3-4 Do nothing out of selfish ambition of vein conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
God also changed my work life over the past 20 years and allowed me to build life lasting relationships with many of my employees. He taught me how people are more important than profit. He has allowed me to lead some of my employees into the same relationship with God that I have and I have had the pleasure of watching them change and become better husbands and fathers. He taught me that vendors are as important as customers and that all people are made in God’s image and worthy of time and attention. I know now that the important things in life are GOD.HIS WORD AND RELATIONSHIPS. These are the eternal things.
I was afraid of what I may have to give up for God please here me that God replaced everything I once thought good with something better-much better. FAMILY FRIENDS AND WORK
MY PRAYER FOR YOU
I realize with that there is probably someone reading this who has had enough of going it alone. You may have the same false god that I did or a different one that you are worshiping. Perhaps your marriage has too many tears or your relationship with your children is not what it should be.
My prayer for you is that if you don’t have a relationship with God and you realize that something is missing I pray that you would turn from your sin and turn to God. I am sure you have herd that the reason God sent His only begotten Son Jesus Christ is so we would have the opportunity to have forgiveness and a new start. You see Jesus was tortured, beaten, spit upon and then crucified and died on a cross for you and for me. On that cross He took upon Himself the sins of the world that includes the sins of the past and the sins of today and the sins of tomorrow. Then on the third day He walked out of the tomb and he now sits at the right hand of the Father. If nothing else tonight I want you to realize that – first you are in need of forgiveness because we are all sinners before a holy God and second- that forgiveness is found no where else except through Jesus Christ. Please don’t put it off make a decision tonight to begin a new life a life with meaning and purpose a life with Christ. This is the greatest gift any of us could ever receive. The gift of life that God gave us wrapped up in the form of His Son. It’s this life, an abundant life that Jesus promised.
Amen!