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 almost every Christian. I’m going to use it in a generality, but but it’s across the board. And I have statistics to back it up. We we have this way of knowing scriptures, we memorize the scriptures, we we quote the scriptures, and then we ignore the scriptures and don’t give the second thought about it. Don’t even think about it. This subject of wholehearted faith is a case in point maybe maybe the biggest. We all know we should have a wholehearted faith, wholehearted trust in God, we know that. Without faith, it’s impossible. Praise God. We know that as in Hebrews 11:6. And yet there is a statistic that’s come out recently says 73% of all Americans in America are living in fear. 73%. And as it happens, the the study went in and asked a number of other questions. One of them was are you a Christian? Are you not a Christian? You know, the shocking thing is of those who reply that they’re Christian. Now, I didn’t say what kind of a Christian but those who replied they were Christian came in at a higher rate or are having more fear. If you’re living in fear, and most of you, if you admit it, will say that you’re, you’re living in fear, that’s not whole-hearted trust and that you know, Trust the Lord with your heart. You know, you know that, you know that it’s true. And yet you’re not doing it, how and you don’t even think about it, you’re just not doing it. And you don’t even have any conviction over about it. So, you know, I talked about sharing faith, I see of all the things in our Christian life, I look at links, okay. And the lead link being sharing our faith, it’s the Great Commission. Why? Because when you share your faith, it brings everything else in, 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 again, share your faith. So is it any wonder we’re not sharing your faith today? I’m convinced 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’s imploding. That’s why churches living in fear today we’ve we’ve lost we’ve lost this whole thing. And yet as we’re living in fear, we will all quote the Scripture just on all your heart you know. James 1 gives us a startling statement, go back there read that again. He said I’ll give you what you want, for pray for it. I’ll give it to give to you abundantly, but oh, wait a minute. You have to ask with unwavering faith. Because if you’re waiver, you’re like a wave of the sea 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 an entered prayers as you’re praying and worrying at the same time. So this whole issue of wholehearted faith is kind of important. And it’s all tied to sharing your faith. Who knew? If there was ever a time to have whole-hearted faith, it’s now I mean, when things, it was always important, when we lived in Mayberry RFD when everything was fine, but it’s not fine anymore. World was coming apart. And most Christians I, 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 and it’s bizarre is, I mean, it’s absolutely bizarre. It’s easy to get upset about that stuff. If You focus on this stuff and if your god is this world, you know, I have to say, stop watching Fox News. I like Fox News. I like Tucker. But Tucker does not move me closer to Jesus, he gets me upset about what’s really going on and I know what’s going on. But I don’t need a prayer just preoccupy 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 churches and it’s dying, okay. Hard times are not bad. They’re not a curse. They’re a blessing from God and that’s why we could have wholehearted faith because we know that we know of course, because it’s true. And because God told us we know every quote we need to start believing if we start believing scripture 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 a verse I meant more to me than anything else that stayed that way my entire life is Proverbs 3:5, Trust the Lord with your whole heart. And don’t lead into your unto your own understanding and all ways acknowledge Him in the good and the bad, some good habits. 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 thanking God in the midst of it, not for the problem with 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 shawdow of death, he’s gonna take you right through it. I’m right there with you and he always is. I, God inspired me to go into the retail car wax market. We were selling body shops and detailers 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 trusted God, I said, God, I don’t have a clue I do. And by the way, that this thing about trust you with my whole heart, and don’t dependent on understanding, is 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. And this case, I needed to find what the image of our product right, 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 and every package designer I talked to showed me by the way, they were foul language and smoke filled rooms and stuff and he didn’t want to work with it. But they’re, up to the last one they gave me space-age type futuristic type packaging ideas, that’s where you know you go through these moments in time and and that was the prevailing theme and it would have been very catchy for that moment I suppose. But there was there was a Jewish designer by the name of Craig Freytag and Craig came in and he says you know you’re you’re you’re missing the point how many family businesses been around since 1901? You shouldn’t just throw that away and space-age is not going to do that for you need to have a logo that speaks to the fact that you’ve been around since 1901 that gaurner trust. I realize you’re a family business since 1901 they can trust you and he brought me this I don’t know if you have ever seen our logo but it’s kind of scripted logo on a 45 degree angle and it seemed right to me. As wrong is it seemed to everything else was going on now mind you we threw everything away 1969 in America. There were antichi was not a factor, the term decoupage so you younger ones wouldn’t remember the decoupage came in after that. And then finally we started loving old things and values of old things started going up. Back in 1969 we threw all the old racecars away for all you car guys, we just threw them away. It’s now worth millions of dollars. So my point being to go back and strike back and give a logo or something it’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, they didn’t want me, they didn’t want to go retail. But I had some outside board members that bounced the vote. I usually won the board votes by one vote and and and they’ve they finally gave me a modest budget. I mean a modest budget. So I call that designer, I called Craig I said how much? Now mind you, Craig I and I knew we made you because I’d guy I want Craig, I want you to understand we don’t have a lot of money. We don’t have any money. He did the Ralph Lauren logo with a guy in the horse hitting up, 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 gonna have to kind of work with me here. So I called him that night and I reminded him of what I had 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 any understanding. And if I go with this guy everybody is just going to be against me, telling me I’m wrong. I don’t want to have any doubt about it. If he’s the right guy, would you have come in within that budget they gave me this morning. And if he’s the wrong guy, having come in above the budget, and then no matter what I will know, without doubt, I will just know that you God, I’m never gonna look back. I don’t care what anybody says, I gotta run, keep on running with that new logo, that new look. So he called me back. And the quote he gave was to the dollar, to the dollar. It was to the dollar of the budget they gave me that morning. And I told him how I prayed. He’s, that’s the second time I’ve been here with this Jesus thing today. It was so great. And when we hung up, I got my knees. I just said, God, okay, I get it. I’m all in. You’re not just there on Sundays and Sunday nights and Wednesday nights and all the 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 and everything, you direct my steps. And I got to trust you to direct my steps. That was 1969. Okay. I’ve been trusting him ever since. And it’s been what a ride! I mean, there’s no way I could possibly imagine where we did up because of that decision that and that logo is known. You read had to be close to know that’s one of our products now. It’s just it’s just really 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 at a reception up in, in Los Angeles, and I prayed I said, God bring somebody here to me that can help me. It was a, it was a marketing conference and I thought maybe there’s somebody there, give me a word. And a guy came up to me his name Al Atherton. And we started talking to hit it off. In fact, a, it happens so easily and we’re in a great conversation. And I said, Well, tell me about some other things you’ve done. And he said, Well, there’s an ad campaign going on now you may have heard of it said, Hey, you want to Hawaiian Punch Pow. And he created that campaign. And I tell him that I said I would love, he said I’llwork with you. I can help you. I said well, I don’t have any money. He said where do you live? Where’s your office? I said in Irvine, he’s been at Irvine next week I wanted 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 to come by on a weekly basis to have lunch with me because he had several clients down there that he was working with on a regular basis so he come by to have lunch with me, he would bring a brown bag with him and I gave him a coke and that that way it cost me a coke okay, and this guy’s all this knowledge I remember he bought a Ferrari during this period of time and he didn’t want to wait to have it come over boat, so had it flown over this guy was bucks he had a lot of bucks very successful, very nice man very generous with his time and God brought it right into my life. I trusted God I said by going into this retail market it’s going to eat me alive unless you give me wisdom I need, I’m relying on you. I trusted God with my whole heart you follow my point? Probably the most critical time I got a million stories and I don’t really know where to stop but I… The the the big box stores said they won’t put, I love you, love your products but I won’t put your products end unless you do an ad campaign. So I talked to family in 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’d love you or tell you almost every buyer of every major big box store told me the same thing. If if you if you go on national TV, we’ll put you in. So I went to the board and I told them this that I sold them the idea and by one vote with a family approval voting against me except for my dad, won the vote. 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 wax season, spring and summer you buy them in the fall. So you gotta 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 $3 million advertising campaign. At the time we’re doing about, I don’t know, maybe $11 million total. Okay. So I mean, it didn’t make any sense at all. But if it did, if all these big box stores bought our products that would all work out fine. And God was telling me to so I’ve, I feel good. I was confident I went in, I just sold away the board, they said, okay with the bank told the bank, and we’re off and running. But guess what? No one put our products in no one. That was not a good year for me. They always said you know, the, see yourself a buyer with the buyer has to go the Merchandise Manager and a committee. So the buyer is really a clearing house, and they takes it and then the the merchandise committee makes the real decision and the Vice President merchandiser being the most important person in that committee. And they all looked and said there’s no way that a little bit of company is going to spend that kind of money in advertising we don’t believe in 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 him 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 just was one of the worst moments of my life. So praying leading up to that next board meeting and looking at the financials and all, I prayed, I prayed. I said, God, you got me into this mess. That’s exactly what I said, because he’s listening to me, right? You got me into this mess. You got to see me through. What do I do next? And I just felt him say, you got to do it again. Do the same thing again. Are you kidding me? I gotta go back to the board and convince them to do it again? That’s that’s like taking all the chips. I’m not a gambler, but I take all the chips, I got the visual, you just put it on the table, 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 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 him what we needed to do. And by one vote, they said if you could sell it to the Bank of America, you sell it at the Bank of America we’ll do it. And so by funding behind me, the Bank of America, the manager of the bank had sold and he looked at me he says I had to be out of my mind but I they think you’re gonna pull this off. He gave us the loan to buy all that product to make all that product and get going. If he had not done that if I not trusted the Lord, we would be probably out of business today is a bigger part of that story. I’ll tell in another episode of how we had a whole warehouse full of products and I hadn’t sold one bottle or that do, that’s that’s a great story. But I just started to jump ahead into one last one. I I know you’re so many of you are in struggles right now. And you’re wondering 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 with with a joint venture partner that will really bring it home. It was amazing. When people share their stories, let me tell you where I was. I was 65 years old and my joint 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 I want my income is 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 and most importantly lost my testimony. If Barry Meguiar that he’s the car guy, he’s a guy that loves God and what happened to him? He lost his business this is where wholehearted faith is the rubber that meets the road. I had it and I had, I I have so many struggles you know you get smaller ones it’s I don’t know where you are in your walk. He, don’t necessarily get there all in one jump he keeps. If you survive one he knows, he’ll never give you more than you can endure and you survive what he’ll give you, get bigger one and the word for that he’ll give you a bigger one. This was a pretty big one. I went to bed that night. And as God is hearing me right now, I said God I asked 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 8:28 He says, if you live for my purpose, I’ll make everything work together for good. That’s not just a blanket saved for anybody. That’s, that’s, 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 continued every day. That’s, 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 went to sleep immediately, God’s my witness on this. I slept all night, I didn’t toss or turn. I woke up fresh. I went into my attorney’s office the next morning, to receive the conference call, everyone is in their own offices. And I’ll tell you this story in another podcast, but God totally destroyed my joint venture partner’s plans. In about eight minutes, it was the better I broke out laughing at it, God, I trust you. And you’re always there, when you have those experiences, nothing, nothing stops you, nothing can separate you from the love of God. And nothing can stop you from telling people. He’s real. It’s whole hearted trust. I used to go to Bill Gothard Basic Youth Conflicts and you should do that, I went like four times. Thank you, Bill Gothard. It’s so many things he said have stuck with me all my life, none more important than this. He said God is not nearly as concerned with what you go through. As he is in how you respond to what you go through your struggles right now, you 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 is and how you’re responding to the problem. Do you have whole hearted trust? We can’t develop that and 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 wholehearted trust. I mean, every time something goes wrong, Karen and I get excited. Karen always says, wonder what’s God 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 to Jesus. Praise God. See you next time.
