Rod Laughlin
10 min read ⭑
“The one resource that provides all we need is God, knowing God. It is not a book, any other person, a mantra, or an app on the phone. Just God. We need to believe Scripture, believe that God loves us, and understand that love always does the best for the one loved.”
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?
Every Saturday morning, Becky and I go to Homer’s Coffee House, six miles away in Overland Park, Kansas. Every week I express my love for her by buying her favorite breakfast, a latte and a scone. I don’t do any writing or publishing work at the table. We read the news together, discuss things, and focus on each other—sipping, munching, and eyeing one other. We sit for two or three hours, just enjoying light food. Sometimes we meet others and encourage them, or we might even fall into some puzzle work—meeting, softly, over coffee. Then we buy the next week’s groceries—perhaps at the farmers’ market, always at Aldi. We spend the day together. Fifty-eight years together and more in love than ever; 58 years and still wanting a full day together!
We moved to Kansas City because Becky fell in love with it as a child. She grew up in dry Albuquerque and brown El Paso, but she spent each summer with her grandparents in green heaven—Kansas City. We started our marriage in my domain, around New York City, but I saw the light and followed it with her to Kansas City. We enjoy the trees, the uncrowded communities, and the no-backup streets and highways, yet we have professional sports, arts, and lots of churches. The slow pace outside helps us relax while we rush through life.
A few weeks ago, our son Tim called me: “Hey Dad, the Super Bowl is the day after your 80th birthday. How about I take you and Mom to celebrate?” Talk about a meal! Now that was a “bowl” we’ll never forget, served with a win for Kansas City. The best meals may not have any food at all.
Cristina Anne Costello; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So, what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activities do you love and help you find spiritual renewal?
I have loved golf since I was a child. I was junior champion at our golf club, but I knew that I’d never make it through college if I played golf. I disliked school so much that the golf course would be too tempting a distraction. So I stopped playing.
Then I got married and didn't play even when I could afford it as I knew it would take too much time from the family. When the kids went to college, we bought a house on the 13th hole, and I started playing again. I love being on the golf course. God’s creativeness and his love of color jumps out at you.
In 2004 God sent me to Afghanistan to help a Christian ministry. I came home and looked at the golf course, and I realized that I'd just funded a school for children in Kabul for no more than I spent in a year on our club membership. So I decided that I'd quit golf. My family and friends said, "You can't do that." They were right—I could not. But God could enable me to do it. I quit, and, to my amazement, I never missed it.
I went back to Afghanistan and spent the next year’s membership money on turning a run-down building into a beautiful medical clinic in a rural village. After a 10-year hiatus, I am playing again—on public courses for a tenth of what I used to spend—and I’m enjoying it 10 times as much!
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness. Every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?
I want glory, praise, and honor from others. Or do I? Yes, I think I do. No, I really don’t. Oh well, what can I say? I do want it, but, go figure, I don’t want to be praised by others. It embarrasses me. I never know how to respond when someone says, “I love The Readable Bible translation.” I kind of deflect such comments by saying, “I’m glad it is being a blessing to you.”
People think I must be very smart because I translated the Pentateuch, Psalms, and the New Testament alone before I added others to The Readable Bible team. But I know I’m not so smart. Or am I? What does it matter? If I am, it is not because of me; it's just what God put in the top half of my head. When I read Scripture, I don’t see any reference to brains, to smarts, to ability to do things. It seems that God is primarily concerned with what our thoughts are concerning him and with how we respond to those thoughts in prayer and in actions with and toward others.
Why am I concerned about whether or not I am smart? Who cares? What difference does it make? Does it make a difference? I’ve owned several companies, and in every case I checked the men’s and women’s bathrooms at the end of each day (I was usually the last to leave) to see that they were clean for people in the morning. I think God is more concerned with whether or not we leave the bathroom clean than whether or not we are smart.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?
I spend my mornings on publishing ventures and my afternoons on evangelism and discipleship. Up until lunchtime, I do whatever needs to be done for The Readable Bible team: mostly preparing for and doing interviews and improving The Readable Bible for the next printing. In the afternoons, I do personal evangelism, work on helping pastors and churches engage in evangelism and follow-up discipleship, and disciple young believers. Personal, group, and mass evangelism—sharing the gospel and asking people to make a decision to follow Jesus—is God’s method to build the church. He instructs us to do it; he tells us to “go make disciples, baptize them,” and “teach them to observe everything” that he has commanded. The church tends to expect people to come; it does not encourage baptism and all the rest of a life of obedience. It entertains and asks members to participate in functions, but it forgets about the importance of obedience.
We all need to work to learn how to reach others. When we lead people to Christ, we need to meet with them regularly, teaching them the life of Christian discipline, the life of obedience to the commands of Jesus, and the life of obedience to the active leading of the Holy Spirit day to day.
It is so easy to be content attending church and group meetings. It is hard to make yourself seek out the lost, to share the wonderful life Jesus gives us, and to meet one-on-one with believers and teach and encourage them. We need to share our testimonies to tell about what he did for us last week or the week before and to encourage others to seek his guidance and help to be obedient to him every day.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it's God when it happens?
“Invigorate?” How does God, through his Holy Spirit, give strength and energy to my work? Two ways in particular. First, by giving me an almost insatiable desire to see people come to Jesus. It keeps me on the hunt; it keeps me always looking for prospects for Jesus. Every time I am talking to strangers, I’m looking for ways to share what Jesus wants to do for them. And the Holy Spirit almost always gives me a way to transition to the subject of salvation.
Second, he constantly adjusts my schedule and makes things happen that I never expected. Yesterday, I was to introduce a man I recently led to faith in Christ (a man out of the illegal substance and addiction trade) to a friend with a prison ministry. My plan was for the new believer to hear from the 40-year-saved believer (who was a major drug dealer) so that he could get a vision of what God can do in his life. But I got a text an hour before the meeting that my disciple was just getting out of jail and could not make it! When I went to meet my friend, I found him with two other believers he wanted to introduce to me.
Currently I’m in the midst of an effort to get churches to give each of their members a gift edition of The Readable Bible Gospel of John to give to a lost person sometime during the week before Easter. On the way to the meeting, I saw a large church that I had never seen before. I thought, “I’ll go call on them after the meeting.” But at the meeting, God introduced me to a man who goes there, who said he’d show the gift edition Gospel of John to the pastor and promote the idea. Then he told me that he had a ministry to the homeless and would like to start including the gift edition Gospel of John in all his packages for the homeless. That excites me. God knows what I am doing in my attempt to follow as he leads. And he does the unexpected to make my work more fruitful.
I am anticipating my next meeting with my parolee, excited to discover why God put him back in jail and how that is going to help him get out of his criminal rhythm into a Jesus rhythm.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied actions that open our hearts to the presence of God. So spill it, which spiritual practice is workin’ best for you right now?
I experience God and talk with him as I serve him—at the restaurant teaching someone, talking to a waiter about the Bible I put on the restaurant table, or driving somewhere. I’m on the go, and God is with me.
Recently, I attended a conference where we were told to come in on Saturday morning one hour later than on the printed schedule. We were instructed to take that hour and get alone before God, get rid of the “noise” of what we usually were asking of God in prayer by praying for a few minutes, and then sit quietly and just listen for words from God.
I had not done anything like that for a long time. I’d been spending early morning time in prayer by talking, not listening. How nice it was to listen. Suddenly, I was hearing from God. I had to grab a piece of paper and a pen to write down what he said.
For years, it has been my practice to commune with God while doing other things. After all, I commune with my wife as we work around the house, eat meals, and do other things. Why not with God as I’m going about living life? I think I am in the midst of modifying my approach to God, opening my heart to him when it is not available to anyone else.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources—lots of things that have truly impacted our faith lives. But you know about some really great stuff, too. What are some resources that have impacted you?
I come from a family with a history of mental issues—depression, bi-polar, etc. Shortly after I became a believer, I learned, “If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has passed away … the new has come.” I sensed God telling me that I did not need to worry about mental problems if I walked with him and let him control my thought-life and emotions. So I looked for help in understanding how that could happen. Two books met my needs.
Charles Solomon’s Handbook to Happiness helped me understand the theology of crucifixion and burial of my old self and of the newness in life we have in Christ.
On the practical side, Happiness is a Choice by Frank Minirth and Paul Meier taught me practical principles that changed how I perceived life and walked through it with God.
A third book keeps me centered on the fact that, though many mourn the decline of Christian faith in America, we have an incredible life of freedom. The government incursion into the life of faith, the battle we fought, and the price we pay as believers is nothing compared to what believers incurred in the past. The One Year Christian History by E. Michael Rusten and Sharon O. Rusten brings this into focus like nothing else. For 360 days, you discover what happened on the day you are reading, and you rejoice that you live in the United States today.
We all have things we cling to to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name one resource you’ve found indispensable in this current season—and tell us what it's done for you.
Total surrender. Absolute total and complete surrender to whatever God is doing at the moment.
On January 20, 2019, I was lying on the x-ray table in KU Medical Center. My hemoglobin count, which should be at least 13, was 5.0—a dangerously low level that could cause heart failure or death. Somewhere I was bleeding inside. In amazement, the x-ray technician blurted out, “My, you have a big tumor in your colon.” My first thought was, “God, what are you up to now.” I was at peace, just curious. The one resource that provides all we need is God, knowing God. It is not a book, any other person, a mantra, or an app on the phone. Just God. We need to believe the Scripture, believe that God loves us, and understand that love always does the best for the one loved.
Then we understand that the best life is found through surrendering all our desires to him, through doing what he wants us to do, and gratefully accepting the life he brings upon us. He is our indispensable resource, and his Word is his primary instrument through which we learn what we need to do—how to think and act. His Son, Jesus, lives through us. We just need to surrender our will to his and let him live through us. In that way, we find unspeakable peace and joy. God has given that to my wife and I and millions of others.
God waits for everyone to come to him, to cling to him in the rough times, and to enjoy his presence all the time.
QUESTION #8: dream
God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
Recently, I sent Fidelis Publishing the manuscript for The Anointed One: The Complete Biography of Jesus Christ. It has everything in the Gospels presented as one chronological life of Christ with maps of his travels. Old Testament prophecies that Jesus fulfilled are brought into the text, and some dialog is added to make the text flow. It reads like a secular biography, but it is actually over 98% Scripture. My hope is that unbelievers will be drawn to read about Jesus, discover who he is, and come to him.
Perhaps my most exciting work is Gospel Challenge Foundation. We are developing evangelistic products to help believers and churches spread the gospel. Our first product is a gift edition of the Gospel of John. We teach people how to give it to their lost relatives, work associates, friends, and neighbors in an easy, non-confrontive manner (see the one-minute video at gospelchallenge.org). We started with a print run of 2,000, and they were given away by individuals last year. This year, we printed 4,000 copies, and to our surprise, churches have already ordered 2,000 of them for distribution the week before Easter. Our hope is to double our outreach every year and give away a million copies by 2030. We are going to create a gift edition of the Gospel of Luke this summer for churches to give away the week before Christmas.
Rod Laughlin’s passion to see people come into a relationship with Jesus and surrender their lives to the loving care of the Father is contagious. Rod reminds us that leading others to salvation is a way of life and that total surrender to the love and purposes of God creates the most fulfilling life we can imagine. How is God inviting you into a surrendered life today?
Rod Laughlin became a Christian when he was 28 years old. Desiring to know more about the Bible, he earned an M.Div. at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. After serving the Lord as the pastor of two churches and in many other ways for 37 years, he sensed God’s call to put the Bible into modern formats. He has spent the last 14 years leading a team to create The Readable Bible.
