In 1999, I co-founded a company with a few other guys with the intention of helping non-profits raise money online. Having lived in the non-profit world for all of my adult life (serving as a pastor), I was intimately aware of how non-profits had great missions and little money.
I was a bit of a romantic: the goal was to set aside 10% of our revenue to go towards church planting. Unfortunately, we made no money.
Shortly after shutting that down, I went to work for the first iteration of Christianity.com (now on its third or fourth owners). At the beginning we had all the Starbucks coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts we could handle. At the end, it was “bring your own coffee and napkins.” After a fun ride, I was eventually laid off.
After that I went into a period of doing contract work for a law firm handling the Chevron side of the Chevron-Texaco merger. It was steady income but long, long hours. Along the way I even learned how to identify and mark privileged material — and at a rate substantially lower than the junior attorneys on the job.
During this entire time, we had a house payment and two small children to feed. For two years we had lived off a “pastor’s savings.” I put that in quotation marks because it’s intended to be ironic 🙂
At one of my lowest points during this time, I found myself calling out to God for guidance. For reassurance. For anything.
That night I received this proverb in an email:
“The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.”
Good timing … just like God!