God sent this Sooner to Austin!

     Like Jonah to Nineveh, God sent this die-hard Sooner to Austin, home of the hated 'Horns, seeking a job. I mean, for me this was absolutely the very last place I'd ever want to seek my future.

     But when God calls ...

     He laid my path straight south through "God deals" with our best friends. I worked with James who preceded me to Austin. My wife Ellen and I had worked closely with them in ministry at Foxfire Apartments in Amarillo. And when all other employment doors were closed, God had our friends beckon us deep in the heart of Texas.  

     But doors were shut there, too. Confused and beginning to lose faith after a year, I cried out to the Lord, and He inspired me to post this seemingly insane classified ad with the Texas Press Association:

     "You've tried man's way, now run your newspaper God's way and be a success."

     I had no idea how I was going to back that bet, but I knew by then to trust and obey His call. That led to me and my spiritually minded wife hitting the road to rescue a series of failing weeklies around the state. I did it without pay, asking in return for a place to stay and licensed software needed to produce my own newspaper one day, another crazy task I later was called to attempt. 

     We'd stay long enough to train a staff how to rightly include God throughout their editions and start bringing their paper out of the red. Then we would pack up and journey to the next. With His help, we turned around a series of five papers back in the '90s. Like the editor in "In His Steps" of WWJD fame, we'd first drop ungodly advertising, worsening economics. But people were starved for Godly content, and each paper enjoyed amazing success.

     One newspaper previously had won the Texas Press Association's sweepstakes trophy as the best weekly, and the publisher raised its price from a quarter to 50¢ an edition and now was deep in red ink. I was hired to win back the honor to justify the hike.

     The staff and I worked 60-plus hours a week toward that goal -- until the publisher threw a flag, because we were only reporting 40 to the state. That's dishonest and a sin, he said, and limited us to 40-hour weeks with no more than 10 of overtime. 

     The prize now seemed out of reach, but each morning we prayed and found what was impossible with man is possible with God. Somehow we worked significantly less and got a lot more done. I stayed until the day our contest entry was submitted. I later learned the newspaper did win sweepstakes again. Mission accomplished. 

     Meanwhile God called me to pastor a church without seminary training, and we were off on another crazy Holy Spirit adventure.