I am standing outside with a garden hose in my hand. It’s about 60 degrees and the sun is just peeking out of the east. I’m watering my lawn like I always do. This is my favorite time of the day. I have found this is when my best friend, the Holy Spirit, speaks with me. So, there I am recounting how hard it has been over the last year but especially the last couple months. It shouldn’t be this hard. I think, “Spirit why has it been so hard?” I hear him as clearly as I hear these words in my mind. He says, “You need to change the way you think.”

I need to change the way I think? I teach people how to change the way they think! I have changed the way I think? Again the Spirit says, “You need to change the way you think.” I think to myself, “I need to change the way I think…? Hmmmmm.” Again He says, “You need to change the way you think.” This time when He speaks, what I hear and understand in a blink of an eye is this: “Rob, You need to change the way you think because I cannot give you what you have asked me for if you continue to limit me by your thinking. You HAVE TO CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK for me answer your request, and to fulfill your heart’s desire. The reason it has been so hard is you are doing things I have not asked you to do. You are doing things I have asked your wife to do. Do what I ask and it will be easy. Rob you can know everything there is about building a skyscraper. You can have all the knowledge about the foundation, concrete, structural steel, permits, and licenses. But you will never build a skyscraper by yourself. I use people.” I feel like God has just derailed my rut. The funny thing about ruts is they are really comfortable but exhilaration, joy, and laughter overflow when you get out of one.

I stand there watering the grass and a huge smile breaks over my countenance. God almighty whispered directly to me! I heard him! I NEED TO CHANGE THE WAY I THINK. I need to put my hand to what He has asked and not to everything that is in front of me. I need to let my wife do what I know she can do and trust her and trust Him. I am excited. I drop the hose to go tell my wife what I had just experienced. Excited I rush into the house and before I can say a word she says, “Stop! I have to tell you this. I have known this for a month and haven’t said it. I don’t want to step on your toes. I don’t want to hurt you, but I keep feeling like God wants me to be in the front managing our business. You help me when I need it, then you can focus on the other things He has for us.” I smile and grin and almost cry saying, “I know.” I then tell her what I have already told you. God is good! The blessings and ease that came to our business was evident in less than 36 hours. It was like heaven’s gate opened and good things just happened and came to us.

I began putting my hand to what He had put in my heart. I started writing and developing what God had given me to share with His bride – the Body of Christ. Over my life and especially the last few months God showed me His purpose for my life. I was so narrow in focus. God turned my focus from me to Him and then I began to see His purpose for me here in this time and in this place. He’s anointed me to bring living water to dry ground – everywhere I go life springs up. I was too busy doing other good things but not doing what He asked me to do. This is evidence of what I put my hand to. I knew I had to share the message to help others if they need to change the way they think.

Let me step back and give you some background. This will be entertaining since you can read this knowing what God has already said and done to me. You see I help people learn from things that go wrong. For the last fifteen plus years I have been all over the nation teaching and leading people through investigations, to help them understand what happened and why it happened. Every single time people see that there was wrong thinking that directly led to some catastrophe – small or big. Why the gas plant blew up, or why the guy wire snapped, or why the car ran out of gas, or why the father missed a soccer game.

I learned, taught, and lived a process that helps you understand why things go wrong, what needs to change, and how to change it. I started off working with corporate America. The process is amazing. The more I learned, the more I taught, and the more I changed. What drew me to the process was the foundational, biblical truth that it was built on. Corporate America ate it up. This was the Sermon on the Mount without the book and verse annotation. His truth works anywhere.

The most surprising thing I learned is that people knew about all of the problems that led to a huge failure. All of them! I’ve performed hundreds of investigations and worked on failures all over the world and I always found the same thing!!! Unresolved small problems cause big problems. We call it the conservation of wretchedness, but I will save the details for a later time. People always knew things weren’t right but they didn’t think it would ever kill someone or lead to a catastrophe. A quick example is a little water spot on the ceiling of your kitchen. No big deal, but if it is ignored you’re not fixing a small leak on your roof now but you’re replacing your roof later. Tearing out sheet rock. Fighting a mold problem. All of this because you did not act on a little water spot. If you ever thought or imagined the pain and money of a new roof, mold abatement, sheet rock, and paint then you would have fixed the roof immediately with a nail, new shingle, and a dab of paint. People do not connect the dots to “see” what’s coming. This process enables people to “see” and understand.

I began to realize that this process and these truths are for anyone. You shouldn’t have to wait for your roof to collapse, or something to blow up, or burn down to learn these freeing truths. I always worked in the background searching for ways to share this process in all arenas of life. The value to learn this way of “seeing” before a marriage wobbles out of control, or before a bank starts to foreclose is priceless.

Continued next week…