Do You Believe? — first chapter

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my wife, Beckie, who has been by my side throughout this entire journey; without God bringing us together, I would have been a very different man. Thank you for the love, laughter, support, adventure, and joy you brought to our lives over the past thirty-four years. I truly thank God for you; you are awesome.

And to our three wonderful children, all fearfully and wonderfully made, with great plans that God has for you: thank you for the joy you bring to our lives. I hope this book clears up why your parents are crazy for Jesus in a good way.

To my father, who taught me the value of a life lived well through his unwavering consistency, his uncompromising integrity, and the limitless potential that comes from diligent hard work and perseverance: thank you for the solid foundation, Dad. It will be a joy to be all together in glory one day.

And finally, to my mother, who is still thinking about nurturing and caring for her children at ninety-four years of age, even while we all try to care for her: thank you for modeling love and caring, Mom.

Contents

• Introduction
• New Year’s Resolution
• Do You Really Want to Know?
• Prove It to Me!
• Roots
• Go Early
• Peace That Goes beyond the Circumstances
• Teach
• Hundredfold
• Dr. Joe John
• Keep Going
• Do You Believe?
• Bibliography
• Author’s Bio

Introduction

The single most important question of all time for all people, which can set life in a completely new direction, is also a question that every person who has ever lived has to answer for himself or herself. There is no question of greater importance, nor is it a question that anyone can avoid: Do you believe?

To the believer: this book will encourage you, strengthen you, and train you for your journey so that you will live your life to the full by living your life full of faith. To the seeker: this book will point a way forward to the real living truth. And to the unbeliever: this book will challenge you to identify and really answer the questions that are your barriers to belief.

What comes next is not just my story, my tiny drop of water in this massive ocean, but a small take at the full story God tells from the perspective of an average person (me) and many other people encountering the undeniable.

And just like a child playing in a mud puddle in the backyard, getting his or her brightly colored bathing suit dirty while waiting for his or her mom and dad to get everything ready to go to the beach, so we have an enormous spiritual beach to enjoy. Getting to the enormous spiritual beach requires finding out we’re not on the greatest of waterfront property right now, in the mud puddle, and we’re not enjoying what is fully and readily available to all, regardless of circumstances, origins, socioeconomic status, appearance, history, or anything. I suggest you read this and react appropriately not to miss the beach by staying playing in the puddle!

With the heart of a father, I pray this book encourages you, strengthens you, and trains you for your journey so that you will live your life to the full by living your life full of faith. That is, faith in the One who can impress you with something new, amazing, and great every time!

What I didn’t know then, but I know now, is that it begins with, it is infused throughout with, and it will ultimately end with love. So, I would be negligent not to tell you that here in the beginning. It is the most incredible and amazing story, and the one question that sets an entire life in a completely new direction and into an overwhelming part in this love story of the universe is this: Do you believe?

New Year’s Resolution

Looking across the flat water, I can see a boat three miles offshore, just sitting there. We’ve been in this house for over two weeks now, and it’s been there the whole time. We haven’t seen anyone come or go to the shore, and our view is right out across the water and beautiful—thank You, Lord!

It’s been quite a wild ride to get here, not just to this fantastic view on the water, not just back to Florida from across the country. Let me explain:

I’m working for Rockwell Semiconductor Systems as a sales engineer, and the purse of my wife, Beckie, gets stolen out of a McDonald’s playroom. She’s there with our special-needs daughter, and the purse is just suddenly gone. We reported it to the police, and eventually, they found a young teen who had taken it. A month or so previously, there was the first schoolyard shooting back then: not Columbine, this was Arkansas somewhere, and I had made a New Year’s resolution to do something about this horrible new kids-shooting-kids thing. You see, I grew up in New York City, so I’ve seen and experienced urban problems, let’s just call them, firsthand. But aside from a gang shooting, no one had ever gone into a school and just shot other kids. Kids shooting kids? Never!

Now, if you’re younger than I am, you might not quite get that, so let me repeat it. Never! It never happened in my lifetime that I had ever heard of! No kid would take a gun into a school and randomly shoot other kids. We may have had a lot of shootings since then, but you need to hear that this was the first. That’s why a strong something began inside my belly.

I didn’t normally make New Year’s resolutions, but we had the neighbors over on New Year’s Eve, and Pauline from next door asked, Who’s got a resolution? So, when it was my turn, I surprised myself and said something like, I don’t know what’s going on with this schoolyard shooting, but that is not good. Some things gotta be done, and I’m going to do something about it! I’m sure someone said something like, Good for you, and we all got another beer or champagne. Me! I was going to do something! Ha, I couldn’t do a thing. Oh, I tried, and trust me: I’m an overachiever engineer, so when I go after something, I usually go 110 percent. I only have two speeds: full-speed pedal to the metal or parked.

So, I went to work, trying to find out how to help kids. But everywhere I tried, I ran into a dead end. However, each time I tried a front door, a side door would open that I didn’t even think of.

I’ll give you an example: How do you help youth that are having such problems that it makes them want to steal some mother’s purse while she’s struggling to take care of a special child that needs extra care in many, many ways? Easy: you go to juvenile justice, right? Just try calling the local courthouse or the department of juvenile justice. I got nowhere but phone jail! I got answering machines, and I got put on hold, and I got push one for directions; push two for the administrative offices… Zippo!

But when they found the kid that took Beckie’s purse, they sent us a letter asking if it was okay for him to do community service instead of giving back the money. At the bottom of that letter were the name and number of a probation-officer type, someone from juvenile justice—side door! I called the number and got connected. Is there someone like me who wanted to help out juveniles? Am I allowed to help? They said, Of course! Boom, side door! Just like that, I went in through a side door, and you won’t believe what happened next.

The Department of Juvenile Justice, district five, had a group where people could help kids. There were so many of those you won’t believe what happened next experiences (side doors) that it’s hard to believe. The department had a group called the Faith Community Network, a group of people from different organizations. Some were church groups, and some were organizations with drug-addiction recovery services, and some were judges, and some were police officers, all trying to help. I joined them as just a guy who wanted to help. And after a short time, they ended up asking me to lead the group (side door). The Lord always seems to do that with me. He has given me a knack for organizing things at the highest level—I call it the framework—so that the organization or project is optimized for its goals. I don’t think it’s that difficult, but God keeps putting me in places He wants me to lead and colead (more on that later).

As the leader of the group and as an engineer, I needed to start with the entire-requirements list: to help youth, we needed to know the top items youth needed help with. I asked every person in our group for the top three, and one item bubbled up as a major contributor or root cause on everyone’s list: youth needed family help. I asked the people from the addiction services, What’s the top item? They answered, Their family. I asked the judge; he said, Family. I asked the arresting officers; they said, Family. Almost all troubled youth come from families that have deep, huge problems. A broken or terribly struggling family might lead to the drug problem or the desperation that led to theft, or the lack of love/support/guidance from parents might lead to gang support. Suddenly, I had a path to make a significant difference in the lives of youth: we just needed to create the right process that brings help for youth’s families. It may be that simple, I thought.

I wondered why no one ever thought of this. Quickly, I had a bit of a framework in mind to help. Somehow, the woman in charge of Juvenile Justice, district five (our district), asked me if I wanted to run my family-program framework idea by the assistant state attorney: she could set it up (side door).

The three of us sat in the Applebee’s on East Lake Road: Jill from district five, Juvenile Justice, and Barbara, assistant state attorney to Harry Lee Cole. I told Barbara my idea to help youth’s families.