Embracing God's Promises

By Dean Collins

I went to a memorial service last Saturday. It was for a man I met sometime around 1994-95. At that time, I sensed God calling me to a new adventure. I had founded a faith-based counseling center in 1989, and it had grown to have five sites across metro Atlanta and employed a psychiatrist, a couple psychologists, and several marriage and family therapists and professional counselors. While the center was helping many, I sensed that God was calling me toward something different. One of my visions was that I would be able to work with executives and influence the development of better cultures that would hopefully have a positive influence on individuals, marriages, and families.

In the early 90s, I had been approached by two business owners of growing businesses and had begun to see some traction in helping executives who were struggling to manage life, family, and business. I was also serving as somewhat of a corporate chaplain for a software company in Norcross after their weekly bible study leader had died in a tragic accident. 

Emma Morris, a Christ-follower and successful business consultant, introduced me to Tim and thought it would be good for us to spend a couple days together and brainstorm about potentially working together. The company where I served as a chaplain had a hotel, so I hosted the gathering. I also invited my clinical supervisor to join the meeting. Tim and Emma were a little older than me and had far more business experience. I had been a university campus pastor and a therapist/director of a counseling center. While I had started both nonprofits, I was lightyears behind Tim and Emma in helping businesses with culture and strategy. I enjoyed the two days and learned a lot, but nothing came of the meeting.

About two years later, the new CEO of Servantis, the company I helped as a corporate chaplain, challenged me to consider that God might want to use me to do something different than run a counseling center. I was nervous about considering what Robert challenged me to do but knew that I was in fact being led in a different direction.

After resigning from my position as president of the counseling practice, I began to do what Robert called “executive coaching,” a term I was unfamiliar with. I quickly realized that executives tended to resist therapy but were quick to embrace “coaching.” I have lots of thoughts on that but will save them for another day.

This is a devotional and not my life story, so I will move on! Through a series of events and with strong encouragement from three executives at Servantis, I accepted an offer to be the senior HR leader. I accepted the offer, took myself off the payroll of the counseling center, and began working with the staff to either help them start private practices or merge the entity into another practice. 

Three weeks before I was to start my new job, I went on a mission trip to India. When I returned two weeks later, I learned that an offer had been made on Servantis and my job offer was rescinded. I wasn’t sure what I would do next, but the executives at Servantis suggested that the acquiring company use me as a consultant to help with merging the two companies. I agreed to accept this temporary assignment, though I had no experience doing what I was being asked to do.

Sixty days later, the CEO of CheckFree, the acquiring company, asked me if I would stay with the company as the senior HR leader. To tie this back to where I started this story, Pete is the younger brother of Tim, whose memorial I attended last week.

Working for Pete was a life changing experience, and as I listened last Saturday to friends and family members of his older brother, I found it interesting that I had never worked for Tim but had worked for his brother. Tim and Pete are both brilliant leaders. They have some of the same skills and some that are very different. 

It turns out that Tim wrote daily devotionals just as I do. He was a very good writer who often integrated biblical principles into his consulting work. I sat there wishing that I had known him and at the same time honored to have worked with his brother.

Tim died at age 71 after a long battle with cancer. Every speaker at his service spoke of his character, his courage, his love for his family, and his love for God and the scriptures. Tim lived fully even as he realized that his sickness was terminal. As I listened to the description of how Tim lived his life, I began to think about Isaiah 46.

Isaiah spoke of how many chose to follow the false gods of Babylon, and the prophet called the children of Israel to remember what God had promised to provide if they would simply follow his promises. The prophet reminded Israel, and he reminds us, that God is with us at birth and will be with us as we age, even until we die. Isaiah declared that God created us and sustains us and that all his promises are trustworthy. 

Tim believed in and followed the wisdom of the Lord all through his life. Sitting in the church and seeing those he had impacted, revealed that his legacy was not only significant, it is eternal.

One of Tim’s sons spoke of his father’s dry humor and of a certain thing he heard his father say hundreds of times. He expected that his dad had said it thousands of times. We have all heard the question from our server at the end of a meal at a restaurant. The server asks, “Was everything good”? Apparently, Tim’s standard answer was, “Well I didn’t have everything, but what I had was good.”

Tim’s son mused that when his father arrived in heaven, someone might have asked him, “Tim, was everything good while you lived?” He believed his father would smile and say, “I didn’t have everything on earth, but what I had was good.”

The scripture is clear that God is good. The story of creation tells us that all God created is also good. We also learn that since the beginning of time man has stubbornly tried to ignore God’s plans, thinking that their ways will somehow bring the greatest satisfaction. But man’s rebellion in the garden resulted in sin entering the world. God’s perfect system was infected by sin and the results are all around us. Hatred, disease, selfishness, shame, and injustice of every kind.

But our good Shepherd Jesus paid the price for our sins and is moving toward a final triumph when he returns in glory and renews and restores all that is broken. Those, like Tim, who are now with Jesus see fully what God has been doing and what he has planned for his creation. Those of us who remain are offered an opportunity to live in God’s kingdom now, partnering with God in the work of restoration until the time we also join God in heaven or meet him when he returns.

The pastor who spoke at the conclusion of the memorial service shared that Tim’s favorite verse of scripture was John 11:25 which says:

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”

Tim’s life reflected that he understood what John said in chapter 17 as well. When we accept Jesus and follow him, we begin our eternal life. We live in such a way that we truly understand that God is good and that what we have in this life is also good because our Father in heaven goes with us through all we have. Then, in a twinkling of an eye, he one day brings us to heaven, where we once and for all not only see the good we experienced on earth, but we see all of God’s goodness and experience him in all his glory.

Tim isn’t resting in peace. He is living fully, experiencing everything God has to offer and then some!

Sitting there last week gave me a new passion to enjoy the life God has given me now and to embrace the suffering I sometimes experience because through it my life connects with God’s eternal purposes, and in some small way I am being used to help encourage the transformation of others.

Father, help us today to trust you and your promises and to live our lives fully as we seek to serve those around us who you love and died for. May they see Jesus in us. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Your Time with God’s Word
Isaiah 46:3-5, 8-11 ESV

Photo by Diana Vargas on Unsplash
To receive daily posts delivered directly to your inbox, complete the form at the bottom of our home page.