The Hard Lessons

I worked in state and city jobs for several years before getting into state law enforcement. I found my work very interesting and I advanced quickly. But, once again my love of God had grown cold. The Lord, however, was faithful even though I was not. He just would not let go so I began to draw closer to Him. I was assigned several difficult investigations, one that the department had been trying to break for years and twice received written commendations from the Director of the State Department that I worked for.

It was while I was a Senior Special Investigator for the state that the Lord began to deal strongly with me. My job required a great deal of undercover work in night clubs and sleazy low class bars. I found this difficult to resolve with my faith. I began to explore opportunities in other departments and agencies but at the time most were cutting back. At the time I was serving as a church bus pastor on week-ends, going door to door on Saturdays, witnessing and arranging to bus people to church on Sunday mornings. The bus driver, an insurance manager, knew I was not happy in my work and convinced me I could do well in insurance. After a time I resigned and went into insurance marketing.

I worked in the insurance industry for the next twenty years. During that time I worked up to Agency Regional Manager, supervising over a hundred men and women from Redding to San Diego. My unit was number one in sales nationwide for the company. My staff included an attorney and a pilot. I was earning more money than I had ever dreamed. I was a part owner of a twin engine airplane. I was a church going, tithing Christian and life was good – or was it?

Although I was a believer I became proud and cocky concerning my accomplishments. I should have remembered what happened to Nebuchadnezzar when he became proud of his accomplishments (Da. 4:28-31). The parent insurance company, a “Christian” company began doing some careless recruiting and training and they made some very unwise acquisitions of other companies. Almost overnight this multi-billion dollar company was insolvent. Almost all management contracts, including mine, were cancelled. I found myself back at the ground floor.

One would think I should have immediately grasped the message God was sending, but I didn’t. I had built my business and my income from the ground before so “I would do it again.” My oldest son and my younger brother both worked with me so we formed a partnership and started marketing group medical insurance policies to employers. Within a few months we were able to get contracts with other insurance companies. We leased, furnished and staffed a new office. Over the next couple of years we were selling and servicing contracts with half a dozen national and international companies and processing millions of dollars in premiums. We were handling the insurance for nationally known companies and organizations in five states. Once again business was good, I was tithing off of my gross income, teaching Sunday-school, and enjoying God’s blessings. Nevertheless, I still had much to learn.

After a few short years of staggering success we hit a wall. One of the company representatives who we regularly dealt with at a major international insurance company that insured many of our clients, told us that his company was going to stop insuring association groups. This was a major part of our business. Even though the loss record for the groups we had insured though them was very good, the parent company’s overall experience across the nation was poor and they wanted to get out.

This was devastating news since most companies were not set up to handle clients like ours. He then told us not to worry because he had another resource for us. Since we had considerable past experience dealing with him – we trusted him and allowed him to move many of our clients into the new insurance program. A few months later when we began to get complaints of some claim problems we started to investigate. What we found was worse than we could have dreamed. He had formed a bogus insurance trust insured by a non-existent company. This man we had trusted had duped us! We soon had a Federal RICO investigator knocking at our door. We immediately opened all of our files and accounts for inspection and were cleared of any wrongdoing but it substantially damaged our business.

The economy was tightening and the insurance industry was going through a lot of changes by this time. After spending awhile looking for suitable opportunities my brother went to work for the Federal Government and my son eventually went into teaching. I continued to run the company for a time but the handwriting was on the wall. I no longer had the leverage and company resources to keep my clients in good insurance programs so I sold the company for pennies on the dollar to another agency that had the resources to provide coverage for our clients. The crook went to prison but our business went under.

I went to work marketing medical waste services for a start-up company. They had been in business for a few months and had a dozen or so small clients. The owner also owned a large ambulance company with numerous drivers and ambulances. When we discussed marketing strategy I was concerned because I realized that he had to; set up and staff the office, purchase supplies and vehicles, hire drivers, etc. and then provide service for at least thirty days before he could even bill the clients. The company would, therefore, incur a considerable start up expense before receiving any income. The larger the client list the greater this expense. Therefore, the faster new clients are added in a service business the more starting capital is required. He assured me that he was very well capitalized and that they would be able to handle as much business as I could bring in.

Everyone I worked with knew that I was a Christian although I was never one for “in your face” testimony. I believe unsolicited verbal testimony is a turn off to people, especially those close to us and that a non-verbal testimony is generally better. The Lord blessed my efforts from the outset and during the next few months I brought in hundreds of clients from central California to the Oregon border, including a number of large hospitals and clinics. My boss was ecstatic!

We expanded our operation. He built a new combined office and storage building, bought new trucks and vehicles, bought a plane and hired a pilot. However, after about two years I was terminated because they had too much business to handle and didn’t want more new clients. A few months later he called to ask me to come back but by then I had moved on. Ultimately he sold the business to large competitor.

I feel it is important to point out, here, that blessings and gifts are not necessarily evidences of spirituality. God gives gifts to whomever He chooses for reasons not revealed to us at this time. Nevertheless, we know from scripture and from life experience that God has given talents, gifts and blessings even to the ungodly. It is the fruits of the Spirit that tell us more about the relationship an individual has with our Lord.

You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Matt 7:16-19; NKJV (italics mine).

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Gal 5:22-24; NIV (italics mine).