Family Talk

Dr. James Dobson: Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It’s a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute, supported by listeners just like you. I’m Dr. James Dobson, and I’m thrilled that you’ve joined us.

Roger Marsh: Well, welcome back to Family Talk. I’m Roger Marsh. Does your faith feel separate from your Monday through Friday work life? Many Christians struggle with this disconnect. They treat their job as just a paycheck, while their spiritual life happens on Sunday mornings.

On today’s edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, we’re continuing a conversation that challenges that thinking. Our guest once again is Ken Eldred, entrepreneur and author of books like *God is at Work*. On our last program, he shared with Gary Bauer how he built multibillion-dollar companies by inviting God to be his business partner.

On today’s Family Talk broadcast, Ken Eldred will share practical wisdom about hearing God’s voice in the workplace, along with his meaningful partnership with our own Dr. James Dobson during this ministry’s early years. So let’s join once again Gary Bauer, our Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the James Dobson Policy and Culture Center, and his guest Ken Eldred on today’s edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk.

Gary Bauer: Ken, welcome back to Family Talk. You’ve shared so many great stories, so let’s get right back into it right now. Ken, fathers are so important in the lives of children, and particularly for both sons and daughters, a dad brings specific things.

We’ve got so many kids today that don’t have a father in the home, and we see the results of that with all the societal problems. But what about your own dad? As I recall, your dad had a great deal of influence on you.

Ken Eldred: My father had a huge influence on my life. When he was a child, he was an acolyte in a high-order church and walked away from all that. During the years before I committed my life to Christ when I was 30, by the age of 27, he had passed away unexpectedly.

He was the number-three guy at Hewlett-Packard and very well-respected. I’ll never forget that when we went to the funeral, they had a procession from the church to the cemetery, and there were 200 cars in the procession. I was just amazed. I respected him so highly, but this was an area that he knew very little about.

In one way, as capable as he was, he was never an entrepreneur. He came out of the depression and saw how difficult it is when you’re struggling. I think he said, "I don’t want to struggle, and I don’t want you to have to struggle."

I often wondered. We started this company on a prayer, really. It was the first one I did, and I probably wouldn’t have done it if he was still alive. The Lord knew what the timing should be. From my point of view, it helped me to go ahead and do something like this. When we started the concept of this business, I had business school friends of mine from Stanford saying, "This is a bad idea."

Gary Bauer: Isn’t it amazing how people will discourage those who have ideas and the will and are willing to take risks? There are always the naysayers.

Ken Eldred: One of the things, Gary, just backing up a little bit if I could. When I said to the Lord I wanted to do what He wanted me to do, but I’d really like to be in business, I continued doing what I was doing, wondering what it is that God wants me to do.

I’m learning and growing in my faith. A friend got me into teaching the Bible. I said I don’t know anything about the Bible. He said that’s the best way to learn is to teach the subject.

I’m sitting in a meeting with this friend of mine, and we tried to buy a company because I thought I’ll buy a company. I didn’t have any money to buy a company, but that never seemed to bother me. We failed in taking over this company. Licking our wounds, we decided we’d meet Monday morning because we met Friday with this company and found out we were too late.

But we found we worked well together. We’re sitting in a small room. There’s a door into the room behind me. He said, "Well, I’ve got a half-dozen ideas of companies we could start." I said, "I’m not interested in starting a company." He said, "Well, what else do you have to do today?" I didn’t have a job at that point.

He’s kind of going through this list. As he goes through this list, I hear a disruptive voice at about this level saying, "That’s it." I knew "That’s it" meant this is the company I want you to build and this is the way you’re going to do it.

I turned around to see who had said that, and there was nobody there. Then I looked back at him and I realized that he never heard the disruptive voice. I did. He never stopped; he just kept on going. I said, "Stop, wait, back up. That is the company we’re going to build."

I didn’t tell him that God said for us to do this, but I knew it was the Holy Spirit. It had taken me a few seconds to figure that out. There were so many things over the life of my experience with God that indicate His partnership.

God wants to partner—here’s the good news for business people that are listening all over—God wants to partner with you. Whether you’re running the company or whether you’re inside the company in some location, God has a role and a plan for you.

The plan that He has for you is that you’re going to do your work, but He is going to provide times where you can do the things that He’s called you to do if you know what they are. The danger of not knowing what those are—I mentioned that He’s got a plan for every person.

If that person doesn't stop and say, "This is it," and describe it, just as Paul did in chapter 15, verse 16b, he says to be a minister to the Gentiles, holy, acceptable to the Holy Spirit. That was the most incredible single mission statement. He had multiple assignments within that mission statement, but that was the mission plan.

Each person has one. If they will understand that, that is the antidote to getting tied up in physical things so deeply that your spiritual life is ended.

Gary Bauer: Which is exactly the opposite of what God wants for us. Ken, you really—there’s a theme through everything you’re sharing with us that your heart’s been open and your ears have been open to hear God’s guidance for you.

So many people that are listening to our show are so busy and they’re running around and they don’t pause to hear the voice that so often you heard and that bore great fruit in your life.

I’ve found as I’ve been doing Family Talk the last couple of years periodically that people love to hear how somebody met their spouse. We’ve all got a story. You and Roberta have been together over a half-century. How did God bring the two of you together and nurture this marriage all these years?

Ken Eldred: Well, I knew her when she was 16. I hated her. I hated her and she hated me for different reasons. It turned out that her aunt—my father got divorced and he married her aunt. She went up to live with her aunt. So anything dealing with that woman, I hated. That was the way it was.

Over the years, we got to know each other. It was a revelation that I really like her. First day of our honeymoon sitting in Cabo San Lucas, I said to her, "I have to tell you something that's really bothering me." She said, "What's that?" I said, "I don't know that I can do this. I mean, a lifetime, the rest of my life? I’m not sure I can do this." She looked at me and said, "Neither am I, so let’s just have a good time and enjoy each other and let the chips fall as they may." Well, almost 55 years later, we still love being around each other.

Gary Bauer: Today, there’s a lot of concern because so many young Americans are not getting married. People are arguing, is it economics? Is it a cultural malaise or a theological faith malaise that people are not taking that leap of faith and pledging to spend a lifetime together?

Of course, Ken, as you know, if God’s not at the center of the marriage, it won’t work. It’s always filled with challenges, but marriage is a man and a woman and God. I know you and Roberta have understood that all these years.

Ken Eldred: What’s interesting, Gary, is that in the beginning, our marriage was extremely rocky. We didn’t know anything about each other. We knew the superficial things, but that was about it. A couple of years had gone by and I thought, I can’t divorce her and leave her on the East Coast. That’s just not fair. We’ll take her home, we’ll get her established, and then I’ll get a divorce.

That’s really where we were. At that time, the Lord called on us. She was off in a retreat. I was at the church. We’d made a plan to look at church. We’d try the Christians, we’d try the Buddhists, we’d try the synagogue. We’d make a plan.

Well, we never got past the Protestant Presbyterian church where I was raised. She was Catholic by background, but she said, "Okay, we’ll go there and then we’ll go to the Catholic church." We’re going to do them all. What we didn’t understand was the warmth that we felt when we went to that church was the Holy Spirit. We didn’t understand that.

Long story short, one weekend I encouraged her to go with the women on a retreat. She went on this retreat and I’m back home taking care of the kids. My mom’s there with me. I went to the men’s Bible study in the morning trying to get to know more about God.

That morning, after the struggle I’d had making Him God, making Him Lord, I went into the sanctuary and just bawled my head off. She’s off for the weekend. She comes back into the house and I said, "Roberta, I have to tell you something. It’s really bothering me. This weekend, I committed my life to Christ." She starts laughing.

Gary Bauer: That’s not the reaction you expected, is it?

Ken Eldred: Not at all. I thought, that’s crazy. Why is she laughing at something that I’ve done? Is it that foolish? She said, "Oh no, that’s not the issue. So did I this weekend."

Gary Bauer: What a story, Ken. That is incredible. What are the odds of that?

Ken Eldred: Think about that. We saw this as the triangle of God where she’s over here, I’m over here, and as we looked at God and said, "I’m going to count on God to make this relationship work. I’m not counting on her. I’m counting on God." When we put our relationship on the rock, that’s when the rocks of disaster disappeared. It changed our lives completely.

The thing is that what’s happened to me is not that unusual. I’m nothing special. I’m special to God just like every human being is special to God. Thinking about every man, every woman that’s out there saying, "I’m involved with business. Can I do this? Do I have a relationship with God or not? Do I need one? No, I don’t need one. I’m going to do this on my own."

Well, if you want to be successful, partnership with God. If you’re already a Christian, God has some requirements. One of them is that He’s not going to reward you for living as a pagan in a Christian world when you’re supposed to be His witness. Why would He do that?

God will just take us down a notch and He’ll deal with us. His objective is not to have you happy. His objective is to have you committed to Christ and more like Christ so that when we come to heaven, we’re there, we’re part of, we fit into the community. We’re not going to be perfect, but we’ve been forgiven.

We turn to Him, we partner with Him. He knows the beginning from the end, the truth from the non-truth, and we need that. I can tell you there are many times I’ve said, "Okay, I got this now, God," and I’d go off and get myself in trouble and say, "Forgive me, Lord, help me, what do I do now?" I would come back.

That’s gone on off and on in my career, but it’s always been back to God, back to the Lord. I think about David and the things that were in his life. He loved the Lord, but there was sin in his life, but it was back to God, back to God. That’s what we need to do. There’s no person out there listening to my voice that can’t say, "God forgive me, I want to get back to You, I want You to be in charge of my life, I don’t want to be in charge of my life."

Gary Bauer: Ken, you’ve made it clear the role faith has played in all this and how God directed your life. I know you’re also a patriot. We’re blessed to live in a country like this that was founded on the idea that liberty came from God.

It’s a country that’s provided more freedom and more opportunity for more people than any competitive system of government in the world. I know you share the belief that Dr. Dobson did that America is not going to be great again unless it’s godly again.

It’s important for Christians not only to have faith in the workplace and in their families, but Christian citizens need to stand up. I know you’ve done a lot of work over the years in trying to get godly people elected to office and to get folks to get off their butts and get into the public square and defend these important values. Could you share a little bit about how you feel about that?

Ken Eldred: To begin with, I want to thank you for your letter. I read it every day. It is the one thing that I do regardless. I may be two days behind; I’ll read the last two days.

Gary Bauer: Well, thank you, Ken.

Ken Eldred: It’s one of those things that I marinate in your writing. I literally don’t want it to be ended. It’s gotten longer and longer as you’ve gotten older. But because there are so many things to talk about.

The thing that struck me was that clearly God is interested in business. He’s interested in every aspect of life. How could God create a universe and not be interested in some part of it? It makes no sense.

Yet the church, it’s not done what the Ecclesia was called to do. The Ecclesia, which is the word that Jesus used, at least that we’ve got it in the Greek, it means the called-out ones. People that are called out to do the work, getting out of the church.

The church has kind of got itself into this where we’re going to isolate ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard so many times pastors say that the gates of hell will not prevail against our church because we’re inside and we’re locked in and we’re going to be okay. They got it wrong.

He got it just exactly the opposite. He said they don’t have the power to overrun us. There’s a verse in Genesis chapter 24, verse 60, and it’s about Rebecca. Rebecca, as you know, she’s a type of the church because Isaac, who she marries, is a type of Christ.

What is God saying to her? He says to her, "May you be blessed among women. May you be the mother of many, many women, tens of thousands and tens of thousands, and may your descendants possess the gates of your enemies." I thought, what is that, Lord? What are You saying?

That is the role of the church. It’s taken me years to think about and try to understand what the role of the church really is, and I don’t think the church fully understands this. Many do and many don’t.

But the idea that we have to possess the gates of our enemies and we need to go after those. What are those gates? Those gates are the enemy set up so they control us from going in or going out.

The perfect example of taking a gate is Jesus came and died so that He could open the door that no man can shut. Nobody could open that door to God except Jesus. So He took that and today He’s sitting at that gate, communicating using the authority that He’s been given to accomplish the objectives that He has in mind. We need to be taking those gates. You do this. You’ve been focused on it for years. Today, I’ve never seen a more open opportunity for us to go out there and change things.

Yet the church, for many parts of it, are sound asleep. They don’t really want to get out. They don’t think that God has anything to do with business or any of these other areas of life. That’s just not the case. He’s interested in all of it.

The thing is He’s a partner. He’s a partnering God, and if we’re not going to partner with Him, He’s not going to partner with us. It’s very simple. Why would I do that? I made you, I’ve created you, I’ve given you these gifts. What are you going to do with them?

Gary Bauer: Ronald Reagan used to say that if we aren’t one nation under God, we’ll just be one more nation gone under. I think that’s true.

Are you an optimist about the time we’re living in and our ability to turn the country around? There just seems to be so much turmoil and I know people are worried that we’re headed to the edge of a cliff. But of course, as men and women of faith, we know how it all ends, but I sure would love America to be around when it’s all coming to God’s conclusion.

Ken Eldred: Likewise, likewise. The Lord says that we are to occupy until He comes. What is He talking about? He says we’re to occupy the gates. That’s what we’re to occupy.

This is the role of the church and we need to understand what are those gates, what are our authority. The obvious and simple example is a school board, the independent school boards. Those people, if we have Christians on those boards, you get good education. If you don’t have Christians on the board, you get bad education.

We have to occupy that role. The sad part is people are saying, "Hey, let’s pack our bags, God’s coming." He says, "No, no, no, get out of your closet and get out there too and change the nation, occupy these places we’re supposed to be." To the extent that the church does this, we’ve got a great future. To the extent that it doesn’t, God is saying, "Why would I save you if you’re not willing to save yourselves?"

Gary Bauer: That’s a great summary, Ken. This has been a real treat for me to have this time with you. Your story of sacrifice and success and outlining how God directed you through so many decisions that ended up being key in your life, it’s really an inspirational story.

I don’t believe retirement is one of the words in your vocabulary. If it is, I hope I can dissuade you from that because we still need your voice. I just wanted to take this time as we’re wrapping up to thank you for all that you did in Dr. Dobson’s life and the generosity you showed to him and to this ministry.

It’s a great comfort to all of us at the James Dobson Family Institute that you still love this ministry and care for it and hope that it continues to be used by God in these important times we’re living in. So God bless you, my friend.

Ken Eldred: I’d like to just leave with one thought and that is that we are called to do this. Oftentimes, Christian thinks, once I’m a Christian, my life’s going to be easy and perfect, and that is hardly the case.

If Christ died on the cross for us, how much Christian can He be? Yet He paid an extraordinary price, but it said for the joy that was set before Him. I’ve had my problems, I’ve had my setbacks, and they’ve been painful.

I haven’t had time to really talk about those, but I thank God for them because He taught me so many really important things because He was ready to advance me to something bigger. But He can’t advance us until He’s dealt with the problems that we already have. So if we’re having problems, it says we’re on the right track.

Gary Bauer: That’s a great way to summarize your philosophy and I think what is actually the truth, Ken. We love you, love all that you’ve done, and look forward to continuing to partner with you in the years ahead.

Ken Eldred: Gary, I just want to say again, I thank you so much for all the leadership that you have provided. I love your posts, I love the material that you write. I marvel at your ability to take the time to get it done because it’s critical. I think you’re training a lot of people out there, me being one of them.

Gary Bauer: That’s music to my ears, Ken. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. God bless you.

Ken Eldred: Bless you and Carol. God bless you guys. Thank you.

Roger Marsh: When God becomes your business partner, rather than just someone you visit on Sunday morning, every decision, every challenge, and every success takes on eternal significance. You’re listening to Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk and the conclusion of Gary Bauer’s conversation with author and entrepreneur Ken Eldred.

Over the past couple of days here on the Family Talk broadcast, Ken has shown us what it looks like to truly integrate faith into the workplace. Now, if you missed part one of this conversation or if you’d like to share both parts one and two of Ken’s story with a friend, visit JDFI.net.

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I’m Roger Marsh, and from all of us here at Family Talk and the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, thanks so much for listening today. Be sure to join us again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love.

Voiceover: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.