A Detour

In 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.

Soon 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.