Then, on the last night of the trip, all forty of us met for dinner right on the historic Panama Canal, where the huge cargo ships pass right by the outside seating at the restaurant.  During dinner, there were three older ladies sitting directly across from Larry and I (see photo above at dinner table, taken perhaps an hour or so before the prophecy was spoken to me, sitting on the left across from the three ladies). I could tell that these women were much further ahead in their relationship with God than I was.  I was not yet enjoying God’s personal guidance and daily presence as I do today.  One of these ladies was an attorney from Panama City Beach, FL, and after asking my permission to share, she said in a very matter of fact tone, “Michael, God is going to use you to touch millions of people’s lives for His kingdom, but there’s something important he needs you to learn and understand first.”  

The two ladies she was sitting with showed their immediate agreement with her words.  Naturally, I was excited about what she said, but I remained reserved, feeling even a bit skeptical, because I did not know who this lady was, or if she was legitimately hearing from God.  Perhaps she was just saying this because she was impressed with my talk or because she wanted to be known as a “prophet” who speaks for God.  There are many people who get carried away in their own ego and emotions, telling others, “God told me to tell you…. this or that,” when it’s really just their own corrupt imaginations speaking.  I cannot remember an exact time or example, but I have no doubt that even I have done this before.

But then, she went on to say, “Michael, your whole life you have been thinking about the outcome.  You don’t do anything without first thinking about the results.  God would have you learn to become obedience based in your thinking and leave the outcomes to him.” At hearing this, I broke down right there at the dinner table and started to weep in front of them all, because now I knew for a fact that God was confirming a very specific word to me through this godly woman.  Unknown to her, this subject had first come to my attention back in January of 2008, when I started noticing that God appeared to be speaking to me and confirming His words to me through a daily devotional I was subscribed to. 

On Monday January 14th, 2008, I received in my inbox a remarkably timely devotional entitled “Move On” and the verse that day was Exodus 14:15 which reads ..."Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the Israelites to move on." Incredibly, this was the same verse that our pastor had preached on the day before in church, and this when I was just sitting around waiting for the end to come with Revelations and not knowing what I should do.  I knew God was telling me to move forward with downsizing the business and to stop sitting around sulking, waiting for a miracle that wouldn’t come. 

The very next day’s devotional was entitled, “Obedience-Based Decisions Versus Skill and Ability”.  At that time, my skills and ability in sales and my always being focused on the outcome, were still getting in the way of me simply learning to trust and obey God, no matter what He said.  Since the time that devotional came in, my friend Larry Smith and I had both talked about this subject several times, and it had just come up again as a hot topic for me, just before I came on this trip.  Now, here I was sitting in front of a godly woman whom I barely knew, and she was confirming this exact same message.  I knew this was no coincidence.

While still eating dinner, in my peripheral vision, I had seen another man a few seats away, turned backwards from his dinner table, patiently waiting to speak with me.  Having not heard what this first woman said to me, this man shocked me by saying nearly the exact same thing.  Despite all the turmoil waiting for me back at home in the marriage, I was so encouraged because I knew God was speaking to me loud and clear.  When I look back on this, I can see that this message on obedience-based thinking begins to set in motion the promise which was given to me back in 2002, when that lady/angel said, “God will be magnified and glorified through your obedience.”

I can look back from here and see why Satan was fighting so hard through the antagonism of Keri to try to stop me from taking this trip.  So far, I had had the most remarkable prophetic dream I’d ever had, which was warning me of great spiritual warfare that was coming against me.  Then I had a most encouraging prophetic word spoken to me about God using me in the future to impact millions for the kingdom of God, plus an incredible confirmation of a word from God, regarding obedience, which I was to focus on. 

After all this, there was one more very unexpected experience waiting for me, and it’s an experience which was first shared by our Lord.  Right after Jesus was publicly anointed for ministry, and right after God publicly acknowledged Him in an audible voice from heaven (Mat 3:13-17), the Holy Spirit then led Jesus immediately into the wilderness, to face his toughest temptations from Satan.  In Matthew chapter four, we see first that Satan tempts Jesus to supply his own need for food, then to gain followers and fame by throwing himself off the temple, where it would have been publicly seen that God’s angels would have saved him. 

Finally, Satan tempts him to gain the authority over all the kingdoms of the earth by simply bowing down to him.  God had already prophesied in the Old Covenant that Jesus was going to be given all three of these things, but in His timing.  Now, here comes Satan to test him with a shortcut to His desires and God’s promises.  Satan is tempting Jesus to skip the waiting and pain of 3.5 years of humble ministry, discipline, suffering, persecution, and finally the cross.  Instead, Satan is essentially saying to Jesus, “There is no need to wait, and no need go through all of that, when you can have it right now!” I once heard a man of God say, “Many times, just before God opens a door in your life, the devil will come and throw a trap door right in front of it.”  No servant is greater than his Master.  Like our Lord, I too was fresh off receiving a public word from God, and being told I was going to be anointed for a significant impact in ministry, and like our Lord, I too was about to face my largest temptation ever. 

I had still been undecided about whether to walk away from my sales training career or not.  Unknown to me, there was a man in the audience during one of my presentations in Panama, who had been doing some research on me and my sales training programs.  He found out about me through the host of the meeting, who was a friend of his. 

He approached me after I spoke at one of the meetings and said he wanted to know if I’d be interested in meeting with him about a serious opportunity once we got back to the US.  His credentials were strong, and I was assured by the host of the meeting that this was indeed a legitimate once in a lifetime opportunity. However, he couldn’t tell me more until we got back to the States, and I had signed a non-disclosure agreement.  I spent the next three days with this man in the jungle and really enjoyed getting to know him.  He was very likeable, and we had a great deal in common, including lots of children, previous business failures, and most importantly our faith in Jesus Christ.  We hit it off immediately.

After making it through a few difficult weeks with Keri back at home, she agreed to come with me to hear about this opportunity, after I reminded her of all the pressure, she had been putting on me to build up my speaking career.  We arrived at his beautiful home right on Tampa Bay, where after a few hours of small talk around the pool, the wives went into the kitchen and he and I went to his home office, which was the size of a small home.  That’s when he said, “Ok, Mike, let’s talk business…perhaps this is what God has been preparing you for your entire life.  Opportunities like this don’t just get offered to anyone, but before I can tell you, I need you to sign this five-year non-disclosure agreement we talked about.” 

He pushed it forward and that’s when I saw it was on behalf of Peter Lowe and Get Motivated Seminars, the largest seminar company in the world.  They put on large business seminars around the country with some of the top business and political leaders in the world.  After I signed the agreement, which is now expired, he explained that they were interested in me replacing a well-known sales trainer on the circuit, who was getting older.  To my shock, he told me it was Tom Hopkins, the trainer of sales champions, that they wanted me to replace.  This was the man I had promoted years earlier as a National Sales Trainer, working for one of his promoters.  It felt like they were wanting me to replace my old boss.

He went on to say that they also realized that of the 300,000 people attending their seminars annually, nearly 150,000 were salespeople and they were looking for a new product to offer them.   When they looked at my Kickstart My Sales online training, and the results my clients were getting with it, they concluded it was exactly what they were looking for.  He explained to me that I would become a household name in the United States business world in one year, sharing the platform with the most recognizable names in business leadership, people like Tony Robbins.  They had statistics from 20 years in their business and they already knew how much they would sell the monthly subscription for, how many people would take a trial, how many would sign-up as a paid customer, and how many months the paid customers would continue with the program.  When he showed me my portion of the projected revenue share, it was a very high six-figure fee per seminar. I was astounded and afraid all at the same time.  This was bigger than big time.  I told him that I really appreciated their interest and the offer, and that I would pray about it and let them know something soon.

On the way back home to Orlando, my mind was in full brainstorm mode as I talked with Jennifer about this.  I was afraid because of the size of the opportunity, but I began wondering if this might truly be an open door from God, perhaps the greatest in my life.  I wondered further…couldn’t this be the ultimate redemption of all that failure?  Hadn’t I been trying to prove my value to Jennifer all these years and now one of the largest success companies in the world wants me to be on their team?  Didn’t that lady just tell me in Panama that I’m going to touch millions of lives for Christ?  Maybe that’s because I’m supposed to share my faith on that business stage.

I thought to myself, “Has it not been my desire for so long to get back to strictly doing sales training, the one thing I’m an expert at? Had not several of my clients compared my sales training with the best of the best?  I continued wondering; was it just a coincidence that several of my clients felt I was going to be the next Zig Ziglar, and that Zig became famous through Get Motivated Seminars? Was it a coincidence that he had just had a head injury in 2007 which was now preventing him from speaking for them?  Was it also just a coincidence that I had met Peter Lowe at Zig’s 80th birthday party?  The answers to these questions were making a very strong case that I just needed to have the courage to step into this opportunity and take it.  After all, this opportunity showed up right when I was in such need.  I wasn’t wise enough at the time to think or ask, “When did Jesus’ greatest temptation come?” It came at his most desperate time of need.

Despite all the pressure she had put on me in the last few months about building up my sales training and speaking business, from the minute we left their house, Jennifer stood strongly against this.  I was surprised at first, but then I wasn’t because this was the kind of hypocrisy I was used to seeing in her.  I have come to see that Pharisees desire power and control over people even more than they want material prosperity.  I believe she felt threatened by the size of this opportunity and that she realized this was going to remove all her ability to control me.  Get motivated seminars would now own me, not her.  She too loved money and had a high level of ambition for our obnoxious lifestyle, but even more important to her than material possessions, was maintaining her power and control of me.

Unknown to me, in her attempts to stop this, she went online and found some accusations against one of the guys from a past business failure, and then used this to justify standing against the whole opportunity.  She began treating this gentleman, and my client who introduced us to him, with such rudeness that my client later called me to say he had never had anyone talk to him, in all his years of business, as rudely as she had just done so. 

I can see, looking back, that just like my dirt bike accident came from God, so did her hard heart that was once again standing against me.  I was willing to make the decision apart from her liking, but I believe He was using her to hold back the horse in my heart and to give me some more time to slow down and think before I started running with this.  I wrestled with this decision like few others because I felt the weight and future consequences of this decision could not be calculated.  I didn’t know which way to go yet, but it was like God was drawing a line in the sand of my life, and I knew my life was going to be changed forever, regardless of which path I took. 

Part of me was afraid to even ask God directly about this, in case he said no.  I had wanted to prove I was a success for all those years and here was my big chance.  Finally, I became so exhausted from all the brainstorming and fears of making a mistake that I finally begged Father to please let me know what He thought about this.  It was late in April 2009, while sitting on our porch, when the answer came suddenly to my spirit.  “If you say yes to this, it will be the death of you, and you will no longer be useful to me.” He wasn’t speaking of my physical death, but rather of my spiritual death, which is the far more important death in the New Covenant.  Jesus first points out this new type of spiritual death in John 8:22, when he tells a man whose father has died, instead of going to the funeral, to come follow him and let the “dead bury their own dead.”  (See also John 5:24, 6:63, James 2:26, 1 Tim 5:6). 

As I mediated on what I had just heard in my spirit, soon came this additional insight as if God was saying, “You will become one of those professional speakers who stands on the broken glass of their own life, while telling others how to successfully live theirs.”  I knew exactly what He was talking about because I had already been around some of the most successful business leaders and speakers, and I had seen with my own eyes what the inside of many of their money loving lives looked like.  Spiritual death is a good description.

Jesus taught us the importance of partnering with God’s will through our own human choice in John 7:17, when he said, “If anyone chooses to do God’s will”.  I can see that God was giving me insight, but still allowing me to choose, and that He wasn’t going to close the door if I wanted to step into it, but I now knew exactly what the warning was.  I would be destroyed by my pride, and I did not have the character to be able to handle that kind of money or fame.  I would have been consumed by it, and no longer useful to the kingdom of God and Christ, who died for me.  Instead, I would be spiritually dead to God.

I was hungry enough spiritually that I was now more afraid of losing God, and His best for my life, than I was in missing this once in a lifetime opportunity.  Once I made the decision, I sent the email letting them know that I very much appreciated the offer, but that I felt God was calling me in a different direction.  I think that because Jennifer felt I was siding with her in such a major issue, that her fears of losing control over me subsided and once again there was temporary peace in the marriage. 

However, I did not make that decision for her, but for God and it became a defining moment in my future walk with Him.  It was one of the first times I had heard and consciously yielded to doing His costly will in something.  He perhaps helped me more than I should have needed His help, by making me afraid of what would happen to me spiritually if I took the job, but nevertheless, I chose to do His will in this part of my life.  In that moment, I broke the lifelong pattern of making outcome-based decisions and instead chose to obey the wisdom and will of God.  It also broke the pattern of being deceived into thinking I was doing God’s will simply by following opened and closed doors in my life.  As we can see in Matthew chapter four, the biggest three “doors” which were initially opened in Christ’s life were opened by the devil, not by God.  Despite what that man believed when he offered me the position with Get Motivated Seminars, this was not the once in a lifetime opportunity that God had been preparing me for my whole life.  This was a test from God to see if I would grab an easy counterfeit of the vision, He had just given me for my life, or if I would let it go, trusting Him to fulfill the promise, in His own time and through the long and difficult way.

It was in those days that my faith finally started feeling alive and valuable.  It wasn’t like with the Lord’s Gym disaster, where I just held on to my faith through a storm over which I had no control.  This was very different because I consciously chose to suffer loss, because of my faith, rather than simply holding on to my faith as I suffered loss.  Even though I still had so much to learn, and was still wrong on so many things, from this day forward, my faith felt like it had weight to it.  I had finally graduated from sitting in the pews at church or doing religious activities, and my living faith was now the most valuable and precious thing I possessed.  I finally had a faith which was honored in heaven, a faith that would allow God to move me into action, not just a principle I gave lip service to with others in church.  I felt such peace as well as the approval of heaven in my heart. 

By the end of April, I had sent an email to all our friends and family reflecting on the recent lessons learned and explaining that Keri and I were at peace, enjoying our simplified life.  I wrote about Keri being really focused on her triathlons and that I was still riding dirt bikes at least once a week, and often twice a week with the children.  We had finally launched the new website for Kickstart My Sales, but I mention in the emails that I no longer want to be known as a sales trainer because it was no longer my “fire”.  Instead, my focus had shifted to a project I was calling Kickstart My Life, where I was going to create a program about achieving “authentic success”. 

That word had become a new buzz word I grabbed onto after reading a book from a professing “Christian” author.  I thought, surely God wouldn’t mind me teaching people to be “authentically successful”.  This was still me being deceived by my own evil desires to love and save my life and by my perceived need to earn enough money to maintain our lavish lifestyle.  It was me still compromising, because the concept of “authentic success” is just a way of dressing up the filthy pig of human greed and evil desires so we can love and enjoy our life in this world.  You throw in some Scriptural principles, place emphasis on helping a few others along the way, and there you go.  Your conscience has been eased and you are now free to love your life and pursue the whole world and its treasures.  On the contrary, here is how Jesus’ defines authentic success.

John 12:25  The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

I was still feeling the pressure to make a large income and I was justifying this idea of teaching “authentic success” as being more pleasing to God than my sales training.  I didn’t understand the real promise and blessing of Matthew 6:33, because I had been so long seeking first money and success and simply trying to add God’s kingdom and his righteousness like a cherry on top.

I think I felt like I had just done the big surrender with the Get Motivated seminar opportunity, and now that I was good with God, I could keep going on with my life, but it just needed to be in a better direction.  After all that I had already been through in my life story so far, I still thought it was just about choosing a godlier career and doing whatever I wanted to do, in his name.  I still did not understand one of the most fundamental principles of the Christian faith, the need to absolutely surrender everything in my life to God, to share in the death of Christ to self, and to trust Him completely to guide me and provide for me, in accordance with His unique will for my life.

I remained very wishy-washy about my convictions to stop teaching the hollow and deceptive success principles of men because I felt trapped by my need to maintain the lifestyle.  If you are depending on the world for your income, you must sell what they are buying.  I again started putting a few more irons in the fire, as if trying to figure out what I could get away with spiritually in my work, such that it wouldn’t violate my conscience, and yet I could still earn a good living.

My thinking at the time was very much along these lines.  If God had given me a certain desire or ability in the world, then I should employ it at my will for his glory, rather than if I have this desire or ability, I should surrender it to His will.  I can’t imagine how many singers, writers, actors, athletes, professionals or talented entrepreneurs there may have been, where God asked them to give it up, rather than to employ it on His behalf.  There’s a big difference between our thinking and God’s thinking, just like there’s a big difference between natural gifts and spiritual gifts.  Peter could have easily kept his natural gift of fishing and kept doing it all for the glory of God, but instead God asked him to give it up.  I was naturally gifted in sales, and I could have just continued employing that gift in Jesus name, but instead He asked me to surrender it.  What if God has given many of us our natural talents and abilities, not so much to be employed on his behalf, but rather so we can have something valuable to surrender to Him, when He calls?

For months, I continued battling about what direction to go in my career and how to earn a living while trying to satisfy my growing desire to work in the kingdom of God.  In an email to my friend, Carol Ann Dykes on August 27th 2009, I write, “I’m finally caving into the pressure from Jennifer to get out on the road and do the thing, I’m supposed to be doing …speaking, and promoting the Kickstart brand.”

At the same time, I was feeling her pressure, I felt an even stronger burden to find some way to do kingdom work and I felt one of those ways was to produce another documentary type God story for my friend Brad Minns.  Brad was a former three-time world deaf tennis champion and one of the first winners of what would become the “Body for Life” physique transformation competition.  Most importantly, he had a powerful testimony about how Jesus Christ saved him and pulled him out of the world of fitness modeling. 

Jennifer and I had known Brad since we had the Lord’s Gym when we had hired him as our head trainer.  From that point forward, he and I had remained close friends and did quite a few things together.  From the first few times I met Brad, I felt like I was his biggest fan.  He was one of the most loving and humble Christians I’d ever met, and you could tell he really loved Christ and was so bold about sharing his faith.  Brad was an inspiration to me and I felt like His story could be so encouraging to other Christians, and that he needed to be out there speaking to others.  I couldn’t understand why people weren’t ringing his phone off the hook to have him speak.  I wanted so badly to help get his story out there.

It was going to take a lot of my time and work to produce the story, and Jennifer was very reluctant, but because it was Brad, she finally agreed for us to help him this way.  I ended up taking more time to produce the story than I had expected, and Jennifer once again became so critical of my work, telling me God didn’t need me to try this hard, and that I was wasting my time.  Jennifer and I had gotten into a bitter argument about it, just before I left to take them a finished DVD of his story.  They were so pleased with the video, that Brad unexpectedly gave me a check for $2000 for the video.  I was so blessed, because we not only needed the money, but I felt like God was validating the hard work and my obedience to do the work, even though it wasn’t paid work.

I was so mad a Jennifer from all her contempt and disrespect that by the time I came home, I slammed the check down on the counter top as hard as I possible could, while exclaiming, “How’s that for wasting my time?”.  Even though I was so angry and unlike Christ when I said that, I so hoped she would eventually feel remorse and be humbled, but of course that didn’t happen.  From here, things only got worse, until I once again could no longer take it. 

Immediately, I moved some of my clothes and things out of our room and into the movie theater upstairs, where I slept on a blow-up bed.   I was again so ready to end the marriage and was making my plans.  After only a few days of sleeping up there, she came to me in the sweetest manner that I have ever seen from her, and she softly pleaded with me to move back into our bedroom.  When I saw that she was still refusing to take responsibility for her part, I told her I was just going to stay living in the movie theater until we separated because I was finished.  That is when she eventually said, “I admit Michael, that I have not treated you like the gift you are, which God has given me.” As shocking as those words were to hear, and as badly as I wanted to hear them, I knew they were an absolute lie. 

Proverbs 26:24-26 NLT – People may cover their hatred with pleasant words, but they’re deceiving you.  They pretend to be kind, but don’t believe them.  Their hearts are full of many evils.  While their hatred may be concealed by trickery, their wrongdoing will be exposed in public.

I knew that this was once again all that same evil manipulation to keep me from leaving and ruining her image.  She was now counting on me to keep this lifestyle of ours going, because she loved it so much!  After this her heart became even harder and harder towards me.  She started standing against everything I did or said, including the books I read, the ideas I had, the clients I pursued, the friends I hung out with, etc. 

What I didn’t know at the time, was that after all these years of being so stubborn, so self-sufficient and trying so hard to deliver myself in all kinds of situations, I was now standing right on the edge of total collapse and brokenness before my God.  I do not say this to make myself sound more important than I am, but the Bible says we are all surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and I believe there must have been a significant audience in heaven, watching in great expectation of what God was about to do to finally break, the unbreakable horse in my heart.