Author Archives: Eric

ONE MAN’S STORY (Part Two): A Revelation and Commitment to Change at Masada

Healing Through Grace

The Book of Common Prayer 1990 edition cr

While all this turmoil was happening, I kept reading the Bible I had bought in 1987. I began attending church and Bible studies, then, on February 13, 1991, I discovered the two-year lectionary “hidden” in the back of The Book of Common Prayer. From that day on, I immersed myself in readings from the Old and New Testaments every day, even though I knew that my understanding of what I was reading was partial at best.

In addition to all of this, I returned to the mountains and trails I had loved as a child. I hiked and climbed all the four hundred footers in New Hampshire; I climbed a few 14,000 footers in the west and in 1996, I returned to the Appalachian Trail, which I finally completed in 2011.And I rebuilt my business. But it wasn’t what I did that mattered; it was the grace of God that entered my life at a critical moment and guided me through the wreckage and then, through the power of His Holy Spirit, God began to prepare me for the future. My recovery had started through God’s grace. What was next for me could not have happened without the healing of my heart, mind and soul.

Eric on KatahdinFor most of my life I had been a nominal Christian. I had adopted the world’s values wholeheartedly and acted on those values. But eventually I ended up bereft. What had been sold to me ended up being so many grains of sand slipping through my fingers. And while I was moving in the direction of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I still kept at least one foot planted in the world I had always known. I was not fully willing to cast off the line that kept me tethered to a world that continued to reject and revile Jesus.

A Change In Direction

In 2012, in the desert of Israel at the base of the rock fortress known as Masada I made a commitment that would lead to a new purpose for my life. I came from a culture that knew Jesus’ name, but not very much else. In the world in which I grew up, Jesus was considered peripheral at best. He had become another “historical” figure, or a “good” teacher or a fictional character made up by a group of desperate followers. In the world I lived in, he certainly was not “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” But even though I did not understand what was happening to me at the time, I actually did encounter a Jesus who performed miracles, who healed the sick and fed the hungry. What had been a tiny speck in my own universe became a huge presence that grew to the point where I desired to get to know the Jesus I had known in name only. I felt God’s call to do more than just learn about Jesus. I wanted to really know Him and then to use that knowledge, and with the help of many others, to make Him known. This was a call I felt compelled to pursue—wherever it might lead me.

masada

One Man’s Story (Part One): A Sudden Detour Changes My Life

A Detour

St._Bartholomew's,_New_York._Interior_View_detailIn April 1987, I turned from my usual path on my way to work in New York City and ducked into St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue. I knew something no one else seemed to know: My life had gone haywire and I was in danger of slowly being sucked into financial ruin. I found a seat in the empty church and sat there silently. Then, almost involuntarily, I uttered a plea for help in the form of a prayer. Shortly after that, I left my momentary sanctuary and headed back down the crowded city street to my office and the crisis that was sucking the life out of my company and my dreams.

My early career had been all about youthful success. I kept climbing to bigger jobs on higher floors with better offices. Then in 1981, I decided to leave the big-time to start my own company. I believed I was ready to take on the world as an entrepreneur, but, as it turned out, I was not ready. Now I was barely keeping my company going and time was running out.

Hitting The Wall

The answer to my prayer seemed very strange to me at the time. In fact, it seemed like no answer at all. One early afternoon at the office a few weeks after visiting the church, I suddenly experienced a strong and distinct desire to go to a bookstore to buy a Bible. Given the fact that my business problems were dismantling everything that I had built, common sense might have suggested that I really needed a viable business plan. How could a Bible save me? Yet I was not “disobedient to the vision.” That very day I left the office, walked down the street, found a bookstore and bought a Bible. That seemingly insignificant step changed the whole direction of my life.

Young Eric KampmannSoon enough, though, the financial crisis overtook me. My company fell into bankruptcy and total collapse seemed inevitable. It was like hitting a wall at high speed. Yes, I did hit a wall, but rather than being crushed, I passed right through as if the wall of rock had transformed itself into a wall of water. From the perspective of twenty-six years later, I can now see that by entering that church and uttering that prayer, I opened my heart and my life to the Holy Spirit. As I was disappearing below the surface, salvation was there in the depths waiting to rescue me from the fate I deserved.

The turmoil surrounding my company settled down by the end of 1991, but I was exhausted and needed time to recover my footing. Before this period, I had lived as if my life, my ambitions, and appetites were the sole reason for existing. From the time I uttered the short prayer and later bought the Bible to the bankruptcy and beyond, I experienced miracle after miracle that guided me through the wreckage scattered all around me. As one blocked door after another opened, I would push through again and again, always marveling that I was still able to toil on, day-by-day, crisis-by-crisis. And then there were no more doors and I was free.