Clarity vs Trust

Cal Zant: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. We want to welcome you to the Kingdom at Work webinar. I’m Amanda Bullen, and I’m the manager at Kingdom at Work. And so we want to say good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are joining us from. One of the missions we have at Kingdom at Work is to ignite, inspire, and equip leaders to find their why.

So before we dive into today’s content, Let’s go over a few housekeeping items to ensure a smooth and productive session. First and foremost, we want this webinar to be as interactive as possible. So please feel free to use the Q& A feature or, um, down at the bottom of, um, the presentation. We would love to hear your thoughts, questions you have.

We value your participation. Now about the questions. We will have a dedicated Q& A time at the end of the presentation. [00:01:00] Where we’ll address many of the questions that you’ve submitted. So if you have burning questions, don’t worry. We’ll address as many as we can. And if for some reason we can’t get to those, um, during the Q& A, um, if it requires a more in depth response, um, fear not.

We’re committed to providing valuable content, um, and some answered questions. They might be featured in our upcoming blog post. Keep an eye on our blog for more insights and answers there. Lastly, um, this webinar will be recorded. And the recording will be available to you, um, for you to review or share with your colleagues.

Um, we’ll send out an email later today with the recording link. So, let me introduce today’s speaker. We, um, have Cal Zant. Cal is the president of Beat Bow Homes. And he started his career with Beat Bow in 2006 as a programmer. Over the next few years, he built a team that designed custom [00:02:00] software to automate many of the company’s processes.

After joining the executive team in 2012, Cal was charged with leading the ministry team and became involved in the strategic operations of the company. And in 2016, Cal was knighted as the president of Beaton Bow Homes and has grown the company From 600 closings, um, annually to more than 2000 annually, setting new records for profitability year after year.

He is a passionate student of leadership and his favorite thing has become developing people and helping them stand up and who God has created them to be. Cal lives in Lubbock with his wife, Davida, and their two daughters, Joey and Hattie. So let’s introduce

Hey friends. I am so excited to be with you today. Honestly, I’ve given a lot of talks on all kinds of subjects over the years [00:03:00] and I can honestly say I, I feel like I’m more excited right now about the message I’m about to share than anything I can remember. Um, the Lord has really talked to me about this a lot, and I even feel like giving me fresh insight and revelation over the past week into this, and I feel like it’ll help a lot of people, so I’m excited about it.

Uh, before we dive in, why don’t you guys pray with me? Lord, I am so grateful for all the men and women that took time out of their day in the middle of the work week to learn more about what walking with you looks like. Thank you that you care about our lives. Our lives at home, our lives at work, the whole us.

Thank you for being in them. Thank you for working alongside us and through us teach us more what that means today. I pray that you speak through me, help me steward all the things you’ve taught me and help me explain it in a way that [00:04:00] can connect with other people. We want to hear from you. We don’t want the wisdom of a man.

So be with us in this time. May your Holy spirit fill all of us in Jesus name. Amen. All right, friends. So. I often ask God for direction or clarity, like on a particular issue in our business. Uh, and honestly, I, I sincerely want to know what he wants us to do instead of just doing whatever we think is best and then asking him to bless it later.

Uh, and sometimes I’ll, I’ll admit, I just flat out don’t know. What I’m supposed to do. And I need his help. Like, like Amanda said, my background is programming, not leading a home building company. So I really don’t know sometimes. And I even admit that I occasionally like fantasize about how easy this would be if God would just email me like a bullet point list of what I’m supposed to do next, so it’s [00:05:00] clear, um, that’s why when my pastor shared this story from Brennan Manning’s book, Ruthless Trust, it hit me right between the eyes.

Here’s what he shared. When John Kavanaugh, the noted and famous ethicist, went to Calcutta, he was seeking Mother Teresa and more. He went for three months to work at the House of the Dying to find out how best he could spend the rest of his life. When he met Mother Teresa, he asked her to pray for him.

‘What do you want me to pray for? she replied. He then uttered the request. He’d carried thousands of miles. Clarity. Pray that I have clarity. No, Mother Teresa answered, I will not do that. When he asked her why, she said, Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of. When John, uh, Kavanaugh said that she, Mother Teresa, always seemed to have [00:06:00] clarity, the very kind of clarity he was looking for, Mother Teresa laughed and said, I’ve never had clarity.

What I’ve always had is trust. So I pray that you trust God, you know, as leaders, as business people, uh, and maybe just as humans, we all desire clarity. Uh, knowing something with absolute clarity is so alluring. Uh, you know, not long after my pastor shared that Mother Teresa story, I was at my daughter’s ballet performance.

Uh, Jason Gray, a popular Christian music artist was actually there and played live as they did this choreographed ballet, uh, to the songs and in a break between songs. Jason said something profound. He said, I used to think the opposite of faith was disbelief, but I’ve come to understand it’s all, it’s something altogether different.

The opposite of faith is certainty. You see, faith [00:07:00] isn’t necessary when you have certainty about something. It’s only in uncertainty that faith can manifest and grow. Marcus Murphy, a friend I work with here at Beaton Bow, uh, taught us in a Bible study that often we seek God’s provision, but God’s presence is his provision.

The next week, Rick Beaton Bow and I were talking about that, and Rick shared with me the first time he really understood what that meant. It was with his granddaughter, um, who he and Holly love to keep once a week. He said, when that baby is with him, she wants for nothing. Just like a grandparent would say, right.

But if she has any need, they quickly run out and get it. It’s not that the baby has within her possession, everything she would ever need, like she has a bank account that’s unlimited, or she has all the resources. But when she is with Rick and Holly, she has anything she could possibly need. There is nothing they’d withhold from [00:08:00] her.

You know, Deuteronomy 11 is sort of a landmark passage for many of us at Beaten Boat Companies. It is God trying to describe to the people of Israel who had only ever known slavery in Egypt. What this new land was going to be like that he had for them. And here is how the NIV translates it. The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden.

But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land that the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it. From the beginning of the year to its end. So if you faithfully obey the commands I’m giving you today to love the Lord, your God, and to serve him with your whole heart and with all your soul.

Then I will send rain on your land and it’s [00:09:00] season both autumn and spring grains that you may gather in your grain, new wine and olive oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle and you will eat and be satisfied. What a beautiful picture that is. Uh, this new land won’t be like Egypt, where it’s up to you to like manually irrigate the fields where you had to.

Make it happen with the sweat of your brow, where it was up to you, really, to be the rainmaker. This land’s very different. The Lord watches over it in a special way, He says, and it drinks rain from heaven. And God doesn’t just send rain. He sends specific rains. It says, I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains.

So that you may gather in your grain, new wine and olive oil. It’s exactly the right kind of rain in exactly the right season. And through that, he says, I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle and you will eat and be satisfied. Rick told me [00:10:00] when he read that verse and it says, I will send rain, he said that sounded funny to him, uh, and wondered if that was an accurate translation.

So he went and looked it up and it turns out a more literal translation of the original Hebrew text is I will give rain or I will provide rain. Even I will bring rain, not sin rain. Uh, here are several other translations that, that are more, uh, uh, a literal word for word translation. You can see the NIV there says sin rain, but the ESV says give rain.

Another version says provide rain. Another version give you the rain, provide rain. It’s not as if God’s presence is off somewhere else, and He is air mailing them supplies. No, He’ll be there with them in this new land, and He’ll directly provide for their needs, just like Rick with his granddaughter. It will be very different than what they experienced in Egypt, [00:11:00] where they had to irrigate their land by foot and by the sweat of their brow.

It’s so different, it is hard for them to even have context for it or understand, and I get it. Uh, like the Israelites, I’m learning that how we dwell and lead in God’s kingdom will also be very different than what we’ve known before. We aren’t the rainmaker. Um, God won’t send us instructions for how to make rain.

It’s not up to us to know the plan or have clarity even, but to know the rainmaker and to trust him. I’m learning that this should, it shouldn’t just be praying to God for answers, but clinging to God because we know he is the answer. That’s very different. And while clarity gives us something to run to, trust gives us someone to run to.

You know, the, the product of clarity, if we, if we instantly receive [00:12:00] clarity, then the product of that is a decision. But the product of trust is a relationship, which is more valuable in the long run. And Voskamp’s observation is this. Too often we want clarity and God wants us to come closer. You know, is it possible that God allows a season of waiting to deepen our relationship with Him?

Those times where we’re really asking for clarity, that God’s asking us to come closer. He doesn’t want to just give us the answer. He wants a deeper relationship. In my experience, uh, God is typically, uh, going to ask us to be obedient without knowing the whole plan. Uh, in one of my very last conversations with Rick before he passed away, uh, he told me that God rarely answers questions of when or why, only what and how.

And Rick even added that, uh, when he [00:13:00] answers those questions, it’s mostly in the context of what do you want me to do right now, Lord? Or what should my very next step be? I feel like a big part of what is so rare about Abraham and why God chose to build, build his chosen people out of this one man is that Abraham would be obedient without knowing the whole plan.

In Genesis, it says this, the Lord had said to Abram. Go from your country, your people, and your father’s household to the land I will show you. You know, he’s saying, leave everything you’ve ever known and go somewhere that I will show you. But he doesn’t give him clarity on the destination, does he? But look at Abram’s obedience without clarity.

Just a couple of verse later, it says, So Abram went as the Lord had told him. The author of Hebrews, uh, in the New Testament actually wants to make sure we didn’t miss that exact point. Here’s what Hebrews 11 says. [00:14:00] By faith, Abraham, when called to a place, He would later receive as his inheritance obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.

And it also adds the part, for he, Abraham, was looking forward to a city with foundations whose architect and builder is God. He didn’t just want what he’d experienced before. He wanted to experience something different. What if God was the builder of the city? I settled in, not just the city where my dad settled.

He didn’t want to stay where he was, even though it was comfortable in all he’d ever known, because he wanted to see what God could build. And here is a new revelation on this topic. I feel like God just showed me this week. You know, Abraham trusted not only when he didn’t know the whole plan, but also when he did know the plan.

And what God asked him to do seemed to be in the complete opposite direction. Uh, just a few verses later in Hebrews, it says this, by faith, Abraham, when God tested him, [00:15:00] offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son. Even though God had said to him, it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.

So, he had already made the promise of Abraham, I’ll make you the father of many nations, your descendants will be like, more than the stars in the sky, and it’ll be through Isaac. And then later he says, I want you to kill Isaac, I want you to sacrifice him to me. What do you think Abraham is thinking? Like, how could that be true, and this also be true?

But he went anyway, Abraham never had clarity, but he did trust God. You know, that mother Teresa story about clarity versus trust. And then the Jason gray lesson about the opposite of faith being certainty. And then my conversation with Rick about God’s presence being his provision and recognizing that I often go to him for, for answers instead of knowing he is the answer.[00:16:00]

The whole thing about Abraham and the obedience without having the whole plan, you know, was God wearing me out about this stuff or what? Like all of this stuff was like sequential. Uh, like God just kept talking to me about the same thing, but I haven’t even told you the first time God started talking to me about this topic.

And it was April, 2019 after a breakout session at kingdom at work, uh, at one of our workshops, a friend who was attending CC Massey, uh, told me about a book he felt like I’d enjoy, uh, called spiritual walk. Or Spirit Walk by Steve Smith. Uh, CC was wrong. I did not enjoy this book. Um, it was extremely challenging.

Um, the most impactful part for me was a distinction it drew between surrender and commitment. And here’s a portion of what it had to say. The opposite of control is surrender and surrender is not the same as commitment. Dr. Adrian [00:17:00] Rogers told of a conversation he had with Joseph, a fellow pastor from Romania, Dr.

Rogers asked Joseph of his impression of American Christianity with some reluctance, Joseph shared this. The key word in American Christianity is commitment. The word commitment did not come into great usage in the English language until about the 1960s. In Romania, we do not even have a word to translate the English word commitment.

In fact, if you were to use commitment in your message tonight, I would not have a proper word to translate it with. Joseph continued, when a new word comes into usage, it generally pushes out an old word. So, I began to study and found the old word that commitment replaced. The old word that is no longer in vogue in America is the word surrender.

Joseph, Dr. Rogers asked, what is the difference between commitment and surrender? [00:18:00] Joseph said this, when you make a commitment, you are still in control, no matter how noble the thing is that you commit to. One can commit to pray, to study the Bible, to give money. or they can commit to making car payments or losing weight.

Whatever he chooses to do, he commits to it. But surrender is different. If someone holds a gun and asks you to lift your hands in there as a token of your surrender, you don’t tell that person what you’re committed to. You simply surrender and do as you’re told. We love commitment because we are still in control, but God is asking for complete An unconditional surrender.

And that makes us pretty uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. Commitment can be self centered or cause centered, but fundamentally commitment’s still about me. How strongly am I devoted to something? But surrender is all about the other person. I relinquish my rights and I [00:19:00] give up control to someone else.

You know, think about the way God acted with Abraham in Genesis 22. He told. Abraham sacrificed his son, Isaac, and as hard as it was, Abraham listened and obeyed. He took off. Undoubtedly, this was a test of Abraham’s faith and surrender. As Abraham climbed the mountain with Isaac and the stack of wood on his son’s back, he kept listening to the voice of God.

As he laid his son on the altar and bound him, he kept listening. He had full surrender in his heart, and as he raised the knife to slay his only son, he kept listening. God cried out and his servant obeyed the knife dropped from his hand and he unbound his son, their surrender. How tragic if Abraham had acted on the first word of God, but then stopped listening every step, every moment full surrender, you know, commitment is [00:20:00] a, is a good thing when it marches us from a point of surrender, like with gritted teeth, teeth and hearts full of faith.

Towards God’s plan. It’s a good thing there, but for it to be surrender, our ears must continually listen for his voice to guide, turn, and direct us along the journey. And you know, it’s just super easy for us to live committed to a word that God spoke years earlier. It’s a noble thing to stay committed to that until God gives us a fresh word.

Here is some scripture, uh, super meaningful to me that I actually came across this week, Isaiah 50. It says, Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of his servant? Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God. But now all you who light fires and [00:21:00] provide yourselves with flaming torches, go walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze.

This is what you shall receive from my hand. You will lie down in torment. God asked us to keep walking forward in times of darkness. And we must be careful to not kindle our own flames and come up with like human thoughts. And this is so hard for me that allow us to escape or negotiate what God has clearly spoken.

Commitment to God’s leading is a good thing. But on the other hand, when God does speak a fresh, we must be ready to say yes, just as quickly as Abraham did. Otherwise, our lives dissolve into Agendas and plans shaped by what we think God wants us to do, which we later ask God to bless, and that is not surrender.

It is totally different. Surrender is like this. In your morning quiet time, God [00:22:00] prompts you to take out a blank sheet of paper, and with anticipation, you pull it out and grasp your pen. You are ready to write for God is speaking. Next, he says, My child, this is the contract for the day. Sign the contract at the bottom of the page and you look at the blank sheet and you nervously respond.

Okay, father, I’ll sign it. But what are the terms of the contract? The page is blank. Just fill it out and I’ll sign it. And your father pauses and then his gentle voice says. My child, I will not tell you ahead of time, just sign it. And then I will fill in the details. How scary of a thing is that for a business guy?

Uh, total surrender does not include negotiations. If you sign the blank paper, you are surrendering to God. But if you wait for God to write in the terms of the [00:23:00] contract so that you understand it, and then you can adjust it with your negotiations and then sign it conditionally, the focus is still on yourself.

But making evil by making even like subtle changes, you’re moving closer to commitment, but further from surrender. Okay. I am a practical guy. Uh, so what in the world does all this look like? application in, in the middle of a business. You know, sometimes, uh, there’s people who tell stories like, you know, I just trusted in the Lord and everything just worked out even better than I could have imagined.

That’s not what it feels like to me that that’s not even helpful. A lot of times, uh, that might all be true. But I want to try to explain what this feels like on a day to day basis. I’ll walk you through a real scenario. And I have a million stories, but I want to stay right on the [00:24:00] timeline of when God was talking to me about all this stuff.

It started in the April workshop, like I told you, when CeCe shared that terrible book with me. And then my pastor mentioned the Mother Teresa thing, and then the Jason Gray statement about faith at my daughter’s dance performance, and then that friend from work, and me and Rick talking, and that was just some of it.

Honestly, I felt like God was on repeat. Um, He just kept teaching me about the same stuff over and over, even if I asked him about something else, hey Lord, what should we do here? He’d be like, Cal, let me tell you about, you remember we were talking about that clarity thing, I have one more point, and I’d be like, oh my gosh.

I started to wonder what I was missing. I was like, okay, God, I feel like I’ve got this one and we can move on. And I was asking him about all kinds of other stuff. He kept going back to the same thing. And then I began to wonder if I wasn’t applying it somewhere, or maybe I wasn’t sharing it with someone I was supposed to.

So on January 7th, I [00:25:00] emailed all the leaders across Beatonville companies and shared the majority of what I’ve shared with you today. I also shared it a week later at our, uh, annual in person like all company event where all our employees are gathered along with their spouses and family. Honestly, I was just ready for God to move on.

If I miss sharing this with somebody, I now shared it with everybody. Uh, after my email went out to all the beaten bow leaders, my, my good friend and longtime coworker, Michael Horton. Sent me this reply and I’m going to show you the real email. Uh, Michael said, dang, that is so good. I’ve been praying for the past several days now that the Lord would give me clarity regarding these recent changes and provision of what software looks like in the next year, Michael’s a software development manager at the time.

I want to know it and visualize it every step to get there. Thanks for sharing, because I instantly realized I’ve not stepped back and just said, I trust you, Lord, just give me the next right thing to do. And I’ll obey. [00:26:00] So there is a great application for Michael. Uh, that is precisely the shift we’re talking about, setting down our own desire to know every single step to get where we need to go.

And simply asking the Lord, what is the next step? And I’ll do it. You know, Michael is actually one of my closest friends and like a brother. So when I replied to him directly, I felt comfortable trying to share more of what I was feeling, although I was still honestly trying to struggle to like, put it into words.

Um, so this is my reply to him and I’ll, I’ll just skip down to the highlighted part. I said, I definitely feel like God is about to do something that he’s helping me prepare for. I kind of feel like he’s trying to help me build muscles that I haven’t used much before, if at all. And if I’m a hundred percent honest, it kind of feels like I’m in training for something, but I’m not sure what.

I know that probably sounds weird, but it’s the best way I know how to explain it. It’s both [00:27:00] exciting and seriously scary at the same moment. I remember that feeling. I do know adventures ahead and at the end of it, we’ll have good stories. You know, unfortunately the Lord did not relent, and for another two months, he continued to take me deeper on that same subject.

And actually, as I was preparing for this talk, I had over 90 minutes of content at one point. Uh, don’t worry, I won’t go into all that. Uh, it just feels like the Lord has, like, forced me to earn a doctorate on this subject in particular. Um, and I’m not sure if you noticed, but the date on that email was January, 2020.

You guys remember what happened, uh, just a few weeks later than that. The whole world seemed to come apart, like school shut down, businesses had to close. There was so, there was more uncertainty worldwide than any time in recent history. And for us at Beaton Bow Homes, we also faced the same uncertainty other businesses did.

Uh, we weren’t [00:28:00] sure if we’d be forced to shut down for months or if we’d be considered an essential business. Um, here’s what we did know. We had record cancellations. Many of our customers were losing their jobs or like being put on furloughed and can no longer qualify for a mortgage. And for others, just the fear of the unknown, not knowing was ahead, simply made them want to like postpone a big purchase, like buying a home.

Most people felt like they should conserve cash or invest in toilet paper. Y’all remember that? That was like a weird season. Uh, it was then that I recognized God had been teaching me for a full 12 months. To prepare for that moment.

I still to this day, get emotional thinking about that. The creator of the universe, the one that set everything in motion had [00:29:00] come to help me personally. He became like my personal trainer for this 12 month bootcamp. I couldn’t have imagined the level of uncertainty I was about to face. Uh, so he was helping me develop new muscles and a new mindset for such a time as this.

He wanted to help me prepare so that I didn’t get injured, but also so that he could work through me in a way I wouldn’t have believed if he would have told me. I’ve been praying for God’s leading in our business for years, but those prayers became more intense in 2020. However, I can honestly say that I didn’t ever feel, feel anxious or worried.

I had a strange sense of peace. It wasn’t fear ever. I remember first praying for our team. I saw so much fear and worry in our teams. Because of all the change and many of their friends or even spouses were losing their jobs. I personally hoped we [00:30:00] could give them some reassurance or like commitment to calm their fears and give them peace.

But I didn’t just say that without asking the Lord if I could say it. While I felt like taking care of our people was what God would want, I didn’t want to assume we could make that promise without asking Him specifically. I didn’t know what the future held, but He did. After a couple days of praying, I did feel like prompted from the Lord that we could say that.

We could, we could say specifically that even if we shut down for up to six months, we would continue to pay every single employees, even, even if we didn’t have any closings, we would commit to that. I brought that to the rest of our board and together we all had peace to make that commitment. So that’s what we did.

And on March 30th, 2020, I sent out a video to all of our employees, making that commitment to them, telling them that. But the truth is we continued to have more cancellations than sales. The big question was this, [00:31:00] should we continue starting homes? The largest and smartest home builders in the country had already pulled back or completely stopped starting homes, but we believe the Lord is the answer.

So I asked him and I asked the senior leaders on my team, uh, to join me in praying for direction, the right next steps. I didn’t want to pull back out of fear or from our own idea of what seemed best. And all three of us, uh, me, Gina Roach and Corey Lusk had peace that we were supposed to continue starting homes.

I will say that made us feel a little crazy. Seriously, all of the smartest builders I knew were in conserved cash mode, but we felt the Lord’s prompting to continue starting homes even without buyers attached to them. And I want to help you, uh, see what we felt and what we were looking at in that season.

I want, I want to explain what it felt like on [00:32:00] the inside. Like in a practical example, what did this feel like to follow God’s leading in uncertainty? Um, so I’m going to go through a few charts, uh, to show hard data and facts, what we were looking at at the time. So this is a chart showing, uh, the, the green area on this chart shows the trend of single family housing starts for the entire U.

1. For the two years leading up to 2020 also overlaid beaten boat homes. Total starts by months, uh, as a black line. And you can see, we largely follow that national trend up through January 2020, which is when I sent that email to Michael, the rest of the leaders. Uh, But look at what happens in March. The total U.
2. housing starts declined sharply. But we hang tight. Look, our black line, we’re still up there. And now April. Uh oh. By the end of April, the U. S. housing starts were down [00:33:00] at least 35 percent compared to just 60 days prior. It is a sharp cliff. The homes other builders were still starting were virtually all homes that had buyers attached and were likely well down the road of starting before COVID hit.

And, but by the end of April, beaten bow Homes had over $18 million in spec home inventory like homes. We’d already started that don’t have a buyer attached to ’em or the buyer already fill out $18 million. A couple of the top 10, uh, biggest builders in the US had stopped starting homes for one month already at that point, and at least one of them continued.

One of the top 10 builders. an all stop for three consecutive months. You know, that is likely what Harvard business professors would teach is the right move, uh, for, for a business in these risky market conditions. Definitely don’t continue blindly into the unknown, right? [00:34:00] So we continue to pray, Lord, are you sure about this?

I admit that often what might actually come out of my mouth was. Lord, are you sure about this? Hey, I know you’re in control and I feel like you’ve given us like direction and peace. But did you know if this doesn’t work out, this could sink the ship and all these people are going to blame me, not you.

But I know you’re faithful and trustworthy. You’ve proven that in the past and I’m going to believe it’s true right now too. So just show me what I’m supposed to do here. What’s the next right step this week? It felt like walking in the dark, like I’m trying to make my way through a pitch black room and I’m, I’m worried I’m going to hit walls or furniture and he continued to give us peace as a group that, that we were supposed to start homes, continue doing that, despite what the market was [00:35:00] saying.

And I’m going to say by this point, we, we really felt like crazy people. So we continue to start homes, but that also means every day we continue to write checks. To our trade partners and suppliers that are doing work and delivering material to those homes. So at the same time we were writing the checks, cash was not coming in from closings at the same rate.

So our over several weeks, we’re eating down our cash reserve. In fact, it started going below what it would take to fulfill our promise to our employees that we would, we would continue to pay them even if we didn’t have closings for six months. So we went back to the Lord and we said, Hey, didn’t. Didn’t you say like back there, I know you said, well, I’m pretty sure you said we can make that commitment to our people.

You know, if the music stopped right now, we wouldn’t be able to do that. Lord, you aren’t going to leave us high and dry here. Right. [00:36:00] And the only thing we felt like he responded with was that we were supposed to continue starting homes. So honestly, we couldn’t see how both things could be true at the same time.

Uh, very similar to how Abraham was struggling to reconcile how God’s promise of descendants. Would be fulfilled through Isaac. And God also said, I need you to kill him,

but we chose to be obedient and surrender to whatever his last word was. And here’s what may look like. Oh, still low. Uh, very slightly up from April, but look at us. We’re, we’re still hanging out in empty space by ourselves. While, while us housing starts, we’re up in may, uh, that cancellations were the highest.

Remember this chart. That peak, that’s May, that’s May. By the end of May, our cash reserve was extremely low. We are a very cash intensive business. Up [00:37:00] to this point, we had typically averaged around 20 million in cash in our operating account, which is why, since in one week, we’d often pay out like 4 to 5 million to our trade partners and suppliers.

In one week, 4 to 5 million. In May, our cash balance dropped below 5 million a couple of times. That meant if some of our homes didn’t close that were scheduled, We might not have enough cash to pay our trades another week, much less our people. At one point, our board had a conversation, and we decided that if someone didn’t get paid that week, it would be us.

That’s how real this got. My prayers in that season were, Lord, we’ve been trying to follow your plan here. We’ve tried to be faithful to that. Even though it’s not what we would do, I wanted to remind you of that. Uh, I know you have like a lot of things going on with this pandemic, but you haven’t forgot about us, have you?

We don’t have a plan B here. [00:38:00] We’ve gone too far to hit the eject button. So we’re counting on you to show up. We need a miracle here. And of course, today we know the rest of the story. We didn’t then, but here’s what happened over the next couple of months. We entered into the largest housing boom in U. S.

history. There was a higher demand for housing than any time in U. S. history. What COVID did was make a lot of people work from home and they spent a lot of time in their house, and like their dissatisfaction with their home grew. They also weren’t spending money on vacations or going out to eat. Which meant they saved up some cash.

So by late 2020, many people wanted to move and had money for a down payment. And guess who was the only builder in the country with a ton of inventory on hand that was ready to go. Guys, it looked like we called it in less than 12 months. Our cash balance was over 50 million, which I couldn’t even understand.

That’s more than double what we had ever had [00:39:00] before. It honestly was hard to believe. It felt like one of the miracles you read about in the Bible. Um, God made us appear to be the smartest person in the room, but I’ll tell you the truth. Behind the scenes, we felt crazy and naked most days. It was like we were trying to walk through a dark room blindfolded, and the guy, the Lord was guiding us one step at a time.

Okay, take a step forward. Wait. Now go left. Perfect. Perfect. Now step with your left foot. That’s what the experience felt like for us. And it was lots of questioning. Lord, are we following, are we doing this right? I think you said there was uncertainty in it, but that’s where faith exists. It’s only an uncertainty.

We couldn’t have called this. It was a hundred percent direct result of one of the biggest faith walks. The Lord has asked me to take with him today. And I say one of, because honestly, the Lord has blessed us with a lot of stories like this, but every one of them made a super uncomfortable, [00:40:00] but God would use it to teach us to faith a little longer before we completely freaked out.

And progressively we saw his faithful faithfulness and he grew our faith and we started to trust him more. Here’s the truth. Faith is oftentimes spelled R I S K. It did feel like, uh, you were walking, you were trying to walk in the dark and we could have chosen to light our own torch at any moment. Would we trust God or would we feel like we need to take it into our own hands?

You know, this little bridge over the gap was absolutely faith walk. It reminds me of that Indiana Jones, where he was crossing that invisible bridge over a bottomless pit. Like you had to just believe that that bridge was there. And what I learned is increased trust is infinitely more important and more valuable than the divine blueprint for what [00:41:00] to do.

If we did let fear logic drive our decision and pulled back or stop completely, what have that. What have that would have done to all of our trade partners and suppliers? You know, for many of them, their work for other builders had already gone away, gone to zero. And some of them only work for us. So, if we have stopped, their income would instantly drop to zero immediately.

What would have happened to all of their employees? They’d have let them go. My estimate is that maybe up to 10, 000 people could have lost their jobs if we would have done that. And would we have been able to continue to pay our people if we wouldn’t have followed the steps that God gave us? I’m not sure.

Maybe, maybe not. And I’m not saying that’s why we did it. Like, we thought through all this and wanted to do it for them. It’s only in retrospect that I can look back and think about the implications of why God might have led us to do [00:42:00] that. He never gave us the why. Honestly, the only reason we did it was because we genuinely felt God’s leading and collectively, we.

as senior leaders at Beedonboe Homes and the board had peace about it. While it did look crazy based on any way you want to look at it, it did result in us caring for all the people around us in a unique way. The Lord used us to bring peace and stability and even prosperity into a season that looked anything but those things.

You know, God has been so abundantly faithful. In my personal life and our business that this should be easy, but I admit it’s still a struggle for me, which thankfully the Lord still been on helping me with. So now I’m asking God more for trust instead of clarity and for faith instead of certainty. And I pray the same for you guys.

All right. I say we take some questions.[00:43:00]

Thank you, Cal. That was so, so powerful, man. So many. My notes look like they’re on fire right now. Not a lot of things. I’m sure a lot of people feel that way. Hey, if you missed at the beginning, we love to answer live questions. It is cows most favorite thing. So please try to stump him. And if you see down at the bottom of the webinar, there’s a Q and a feature.

Feel free to add in any questions there. Um, we’ve had some great comments. We really appreciate that you guys. Um, let’s jump into some questions. You ready, Cal? All right, question one that we have that someone had asked. When you shared about the statement that the opposite of faith is certainty, are you implying clarity and certainty are the same?

Um, not exactly. Uh, to some degree they are similar. Uh, [00:44:00] I think what we mean by, I really want clarity on this is I want to know all the details of it. And oftentimes that does include like with absolute certainty. And that’s not a bad thing. You know, I was praying for clarity on what I needed to speak about today.

And the Lord didn’t say, cow, now he’s probably going to keep teaching me about this, but he wasn’t mad at me about that. What I meant is I want to share what you have in mind, not what I have in mind. And maybe I should have just said that oftentimes when we’re, we’re asking God for clarity is. We want him to tell us exactly what’s going to happen, because then we would be back in control.

That’s how it feels to me. Um, and then I can control it, and I can drive us there, and I don’t have to have dependence on him. I don’t have to be in that uncomfortable [00:45:00] spot where I don’t know what’s coming next. And that’s, when you get to that point, that is the opposite of faith. In a lot of ways, when you get, get okay saying, Lord, just tell me what I need to do next and I’ll do it.

That is the opposite of clarity. Uh, so in some ways it is, I guess.

Thanks, Cal. All right, next question we have, um, thank you guys for adding these in. Appreciate that. Any questions we do not get to, we will look at adding into our blog post. But the next question we do have, when you shared, um, earlier about one of your stories, do you think obedience and surrendering are codependent?

Meaning one cannot exist without the other. Hey, McGuire, that’s a good question. You always have good questions. Uh, [00:46:00] do obedience and surrender, are they codependent? I think it’s similar to the other question, honestly. Yeah, I think surrender takes the shape of obedience. So if the Lord asked me to do something and it’s not what I would do, then I surrender and then I’m obedient to it.

But if I wasn’t obedient to it, then I really never surrendered. So yeah, I think largely those two, if there, if there’s no obedience, then there wasn’t surrender. And if there is surrender, then there should be obedience. Yeah. So I do think those, those are highly related and really there can’t be one without the other

next question, man. I think everybody’s thinking this and wondering this has God ever walked you down a path that led to result. You did not want. [00:47:00] What was the growth from that experience? If so, yes. Absolutely. Honestly, if, if you don’t end up somewhere you wouldn’t have gone, then you might’ve been the one leading the walk, um, to Lord.

Yeah, absolutely. You know why God doesn’t give us absolute clarity sometimes? Because we wouldn’t have gone if he would have told us where we were walking to. And I’m not saying that he, he was trying to trick us. It’s just sometimes all I need to know is the next step, because I can’t even imagine what this is going to be like.

But both in level of difficulty, like I might not understand the hard things I can do, but God knows I can and he wants to show me that, but also where he’s leading us, you don’t even have a vision for, you know, Rick’s vision when he started beating Bo Holmes was we, we could build 50 homes a [00:48:00] year. That was his big vision.

And he always said, I’m sure glad God gave me his vision and not mine. He never had a vision for this. He really didn’t, but it’s what the Lord was doing. I think oftentimes the Lord answers prayers in a way that is not what you were hoping for. Some of that is like, it’s okay to wrestle in your faith.

Like, Lord, this is not how I would have done that. It’s okay to be honest in your faith. And that’s a big part of what I wanted to share with you guys. I feel like a lot of business people are trying this. And oftentimes you wonder if you’re doing it right. Do y’all wonder that? I wonder that a lot. Like.

Is this supposed to feel like this? Like, is this just me not having enough faith when I wonder, did the Lord really say that, or is he going to show up or yeah, that actually means you are doing it. There’s uncertainty there and you’re choosing to believe [00:49:00] despite the uncertainty that that is faith.

You’re doing it right. That’s what this feels like. If you don’t feel that tension, you’re probably not leaning into it. Yeah. So I hope, hope that’s helpful. Now, that’s a really good example. You know, it’s kind of like soreness means things are changing when you go to the gym. So if you don’t feel it, like, are you really walking in it?

Are you really pushing yourself? So a question along the lines of kind of where you were just at, there are some times that God leads us to take a foolish risk and we surrender that, um, by faith. There are other times that we’re tempted to take foolish risks out of our own need. For the thrill of risk taking.

I got a lot of leaders on this webinar. I’m sure you understand. How do you tell the difference? I absolutely understand. I am a risk taker and honestly, anyone who’s leading a business probably is a risk taker as well. [00:50:00] Uh, so I totally get what you’re saying. Just because something is uncomfortable or risky doesn’t mean God is behind it.

Now, I will say it is the M. O. of God to ask me to do something uncomfortable. So, but sometimes that’s my own ambition. And I actually have some filters I run through in my own head for like discerning if that’s a voice of God or not. But we also practice this together here. There’s a group of us that I talk out loud with.

It’s a safe place to say I feel like the Lord’s. Leading me, or I get the impression that he is trying to say we should do this. Let, can we all pray about that and see if he brings us all to the same place. And, and that takes the pressure off, you know, really you having to be sure your antenna is [00:51:00] perfectly working in that moment.

Hearing from God is an art and, but gets better with practice, but we do that in a group, which helps us to discern whether that risk is us. And I have some other ways to figure that out. If it’s my own ambition, uh, I believe one of those, like, when do we expand our business? Well, I always want to expand our business.

Uh, I am very growth oriented and love a challenge, uh, ambitious person. I believe God owns a cattle on a thousand Hills. That’s what scripture says. Uh, if he’s behind it, I believe he’ll fund it. We won’t, uh, that means we wouldn’t have to go get a loan from a bank to go fund it. I believe he could, he could give us the money to do it.

I also believe he would send the people to lead it. So if I don’t know the names of the people, the two, two primary people, Jesus sent them out [00:52:00] two by two. So that’s our principle to the two people who are going to go start that up. If we don’t have the money to do it, or I don’t know the name of the two people that will go start it, then that likely is my own ambition.

That’s a, that’s a way that the Lord can keep me in check. But also just the discernment of the group here. Here’s what I feel. And, uh, yeah, and, and we, the Lord would lead us all together to the same place. He’s not going to divide us. So I feel like there’s safety in counsel. Proverbs says that. And so we try to live that out here.

So the next question, I’m going to combine two here, um, because I think you can answer them in regards to the example you gave from the story from 2020. Um, number one, someone asked, uh, uh, were there any dissenting voices in the midst of this and how did you handle it? And then the other [00:53:00] component, um, within the question is when you and your team got on your heart that the Lord would provide for the staff during 2020.

How often did you share with the entire Beat and Bow team to keep the faith, even though the world shared such a different message? Great question. You know, this was another conversation me and Rick had a lot over the past couple of months. Uh, was there ever a time, the first one was like the descending voice in the midst of it.

Was there ever a time where we, I was trying to remember a time where it felt like one person in our group felt like the Lord was leading us this way? And everybody else felt this way, or we were split. And I honestly can’t remember a time that’s happened, which is crazy. You know, we are all like very passionate about what we do.

Uh, and we all have different opinions, strong [00:54:00] opinions. Uh, me and Gina don’t see the world the same way. Corey, he’s very different than us. Like everybody. And we bring that we don’t withhold that. Or just go, okay, yeah, that sounds great. We’re not, yes, man. So for the Lord to do that is a miracle. I can’t remember a time he’s ever led one of us down a path that he didn’t bring us all along on.

Um, now I believe you have to have humble hearts because we all have opinions about how things should work. And are you really submitted? Like, are you really open handed enough that the Lord could lead you to a different conclusion than what you do yourself? And if you can’t get to that point of surrender and submission, I would bet you do have descending voices.

But among the group that the senior group of leaders here that I work with, we’re all committed to that. So I can’t remember a single time. I know that’s a very clean answer. I just don’t have an [00:55:00] example of when, when that happened. And I don’t know that it would happen. Like if, if the Lord was leading me to do this in my marriage, I don’t think he would lead my wife in a different direction.

I don’t think he would do that. But that takes both of us being submitted to the same God. I think he would lead us in the same direction. And I’m sorry, what was the other question? I forgot. You, you pretty much answered it. It was in regards, did you share, um, kind of the faith message and what God was putting on your hearts for trust with the team?

Yeah, totally, uh, frequently and often, especially in that season, you know, I actually had to go back, uh, to like my YouTube, we published all these videos on YouTube during COVID, like all the time, video updates. And I still do that a lot, had done it before then, but I actually went back to see what day for, for sharing it with you guys.

I didn’t want to misspeak. When did we say, Hey, we commit that even if we have [00:56:00] to close, have no closings for six months, we’ll continue to pay for everybody. I went back and watched the video. And I had to go through a lot of videos because I would say every three or four days we would send out an update.

Here is what we’re seeing in the, in the data, in, uh, sales. What is the latest, but also here is what we feel as a group. The Lord is leading us to here. Here’s what we feel like the next right step is. And we just had this constant loop of communication and the Lord never told us what we were going to do for the next month.

It was always like a day by day, week by week thing. So we couldn’t communicate past that. Which everybody would have loved us to like, here’s where we’re going, but we didn’t have that. So we didn’t fake it. And so we just constantly said what we did know what the plan was and tried to bring peace to the situation.

Um, which I think was the Lord’s heart in that season.[00:57:00]

So last question. And I think this is really good to end on because we all want, you know, some sort of action items. Like if I’m not hearing from God, Where can I start? Um, and so one of the questions asked, what was your go to prayer, maybe Bible verse or verses during that difficult period of time?

I, I really said what my literal prayers were, like that really, what I shared, that really is. Literally what I was saying to God, Lord, are we still supposed to be doing this? I, this is what you give, gave us peace to do, but are you sure? Uh, some of that he was using to soothe my own heart. That’s what prayer does.

Like I, I, I was getting aligned with God’s heart. God just wants you to talk to him. He wants you to be real with him. Those prayers I was praying, you can find some that are virtually identical in Psalms. [00:58:00] David had the same prayers. He wants you to be honest with him, bring your problems to him and talk to him about it.

And he can use that to shape your own heart. And so through those prayers. It might sound like I was worried, I wasn’t fearful, but there was uncertainty. I don’t, I don’t know. It’s hard to put words on it. I never was afraid of the future. I was actually comfortable in the unknown, but I, I just wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing, that I wasn’t leading us somewhere.

God wasn’t going with us. And so God was using that to align my own heart. That was my prayer. Uh, there was scripture that the Lord brought me to, um, particularly in Exodus. Uh, so it was when Moses, uh, was leading the people out of Egypt and, uh, you know, they got out to the Red Sea and the Egyptians thought better and they came after him with chariots and army and now they’re cornered and, you [00:59:00] know, Moses has to be like, well, Lord, what now, you know, and, uh, the Lord told Moses.

What to do next like literally physically what to do next, but then he also Uh, told him to calm the people down and to tell them that the Lord would fight for them. And lots of translations have it, uh, you need only be still, but actually I was reading through the Tanakh, which is like the Hebrew interpretation of the same scripture, the Old Testament scripture.

And it had a different way of translating it, which was more literal. And it said, you hold your peace, you know, be still and hold your peace. Might mean the same thing to some people. That’s not the same thing. One of them is do nothing, be still, motionless. The other one is an active role. Like, your role in this, you do have a role, [01:00:00] God’s not doing all of it, God is going to fight for you, that’s his role.

Your role is to hold your peace, don’t let go of it. And so the Lord used that to center me again and again and again. And you know, when he showed me that there’s a blog post on this, you could go check the date. It was like March 14th, 2020. Honestly, it was another one of those lessons. The Lord’s just relentless talking to me the same thing over and over and over.

So that was me just trying to share it. So he would move on. I still was like having the same mindset, but that was one of the scriptures. Really great. So practical, Cal. Thank you for sharing your heart. Hey, just so y’all are aware, we actually chose this webinar topic, um, several months ago and Cal was not even supposed to share it.

Um, but through the way that God is involved in every detail, he worked it out and today was so profound. Found. Thank you for the comments and for the questions that you shared with us. If [01:01:00] we didn’t get to your questions, we are going to look at those and add them in. Cal will review those questions. He’s probably giddy thinking about all the questions we didn’t get to, and we’ll have him look at the blog post.

But one of the things we want to invite you to is our webinar next. Month. I am so thrilled. Corey Lesk, who is the vice president of operations for Beaton Bow Homes, is going to be sharing February 21st over stewardship. God’s resources, your responsibility. So if you would like to join us for that, it will be, um, right there on your screen and you can go ahead and get signed up.

The other thing I would love to invite you to, if you are a CEO, a business owner, We would love to have you join us at any of our upcoming Kingdom at Work Leadership Workshops. Um, that is going to pop up on the screen. We have three of those this year and one of them is coming up in two weeks, February 6th through [01:02:00] the 8th.

We have a few more slots available May 7th through the 9th and October 1st through the 3rd. We appreciate you guys taking time to join us. Have a blessed day. Talk to you soon.