Hello everyone. Some of you may remember that when I had been actively participating on here in the past, I had spent a long time asking for prayer regarding a new job and was waiting for God to allow me to move on. Well, my prayers have been answered!

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Here’s what happened:

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I had been coasting for years at what was at that time my current job. God had told me to stay, and the conditions he had laid out to me at first were these: don’t look for a job, but you can update your info on all the job boards. If anyone reaches out with a job offer, you can respond if you wish and if you like the job, you can take it. While I had several leads that looked promising during that time, none of them panned out. So I continued to do my job as I had been, but was really coasting along knowing that I could not advance there and could not move on yet. Well, my manager’s husband died of covid and shortly thereafter she moved back to her home state to be near family.

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During this time my older son had been encouraging me to switch to the King James Version of the Bible. He kept at me for months, gently prodding me and telling me what a difference it had made and how God had truly done many works in his life since he switched. I was hesitant to say the least – the KJV is a great version, but I just don’t “connect” with it when I read it on the page, only when I hear it spoken. Well he kept after me and spoke words of encouragement to me and I finally gave in. I told my wife “He’s so persistent. I’m afraid that if I don’t switch I will lose the close relationship with him that I have now. Not only that…what if he’s right?” I ordered a new KJV Bible off Ebay with Super Giant 17 pt. font print so I could read it easily. I had grown quite used to reading the Bible on my phone over the last few years, but I also tended to get distracted easily that way, so I wanted to kill two birds with one stone.

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I sent him photos of it when I got it and he was overjoyed. I video called him and he was just ecstatic. He asked me which article had convinced me (he had sent me 25 or 30 different ones at least). I told him “Dude, do you really think I didn’t already know most of that stuff? The history, the arguments for the KJV and against the other versions? The track record of 400+ years that the King James has as “the standard” for Bible translations?” He asked me what it was that convinced me to switch then? I told him “Dude, it was YOU. Your faith is the deepest, most authentic faith I’ve ever seen. You’re the real deal. You’ve got something I don’t have – and I WANT IT.” He looked away from the camera for a minute and said “Wow….I….I don’t know what to say.” I told him “Praise the Lord!! I don’t know if the King James is the difference or not, to be honest. But you’re telling me it is, and your life shows clear evidence of a deeper walk with the Lord. So I have to be humble enough here to admit that maybe I’m wrong. So…I’ve got a King James now, let’s see what God does!”

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And so my wife and I began to use the King James exclusively in our daily reading. I also began to look for the audio version they have on the YouVersion Bible app, the one read by Max McLean in Shakespearean English. I found an MP3 download for $12.99 and bought it. I downloaded it and unzipped the files, and…it was 1,191 separate, UNNAMED tracks! So I got to work and began over the next couple of months to rename each track and save it into folders for the books of the Bible. It is finally complete, and I have it on my phone so I can listen to it wherever I go. It is especially useful on road trips, because when we tried to listen to the app in the past, it would stop when we would get out in the middle of nowhere and lose the cellular data connection. Now I don’t have that problem.

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A few weeks after that, the plant manager (3rd in line after the CEO and CFO) retired and moved back to Italy with his wife. We got a new floor manager in, and he immediately started to be after me about every little thing. I still had gospel tracts on my desk at the time, and nothing was said about it, but he began to look for me every chance he got to see what I was doing and give me busywork to do and give me a hard time. I’ll admit I had grown pretty negative by then, and it was well known around the place that most of us did not like the management and thought they were not very good at running the place. Well, he called me into his office one day and sat me down. He gave me a “letter of discussion” that basically said that I was not doing a good job taking care of things in my department and managing my people (untrue) and that when presented with suggestions and constructive criticism on how to handle situations when they arose, I responded negatively and critically toward the person bringing the issue up and the company in general (true). He told me that I needed to straighten up my attitude immediately or else further disciplinary action would be taken. I was stunned. He didn’t want to hear any feedback from me whatsoever, so I simply signed the letter, asked for a copy, and went back to work, furious.

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I fumed for a couple of hours, not really saying anything to anyone. But then the Spirit convicted me and I realized that, at least concerning my attitude, he was right. I went to my car on break poured my heart out to God in prayer for about a half hour and repented of my negative attitude. As I finished and prepared to go back in to work, I heard God say, down in my spirit, “NOW you are free to leave and find another job. NO restrictions. You can apply to any position and pursue any job lead you want to.” I went home that night stunned, ready to find a new career and move on – FINALLY. (It really WAS all my fault)

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A few weeks later my wife and I went on vacation to visit our son and his family, which we had arranged in advance. While we were there we were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, as it says in Acts 2:38. I had been baptized before, but in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I’ve come to understand that the NAME of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is Jesus Christ, and so my wife and I allowed our son to baptize us at his church. Baptism is not optional for the Christian, as evidenced in the Scriptures. I wanted to be absolutely sure we got it right.

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When we returned, my first day back at work my manager asked me to stay back after the morning meeting. He told me that he was moving me to the night shift supervisor position in two weeks. Now I’ve been on day shift for the entire 12 years I was there, but I knew that the decision had already been made, so I kept my mouth shut and continued to look for a new job. I found something promising, interviewed and got the job. The following Monday I put in my 2 weeks notice at the end of the morning meeting. My manager asked me to work with my assistant supervisor to get him up to speed and teach him what he needed to know to take over. The very next day, he held me back after the meeting and told me I would be supervising a couple of guys from another department while they power washed the inside of some dumpsters. I told him “You know that [assistant supervisor] has a lot to learn before I leave, right?” His response: “I know, but I need you to do this.” Ok.

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So I could see that he was really just going to screw with me instead of passing along what I knew, since he also had my assistant supervisor doing other tasks instead of learning. So I decided that I just wouldn’t give him any more opportunities. I called my new boss and asked if he would be okay with me starting a week early, to which he replied yes. Then at the end of the day I gathered the rest of my stuff and left. I didn’t go back, but took the rest of the week to catch up on things that needed to be done at home. While it wasn’t the way I wanted to handle it, I didn’t want to end up compromising my witness further because I lost my patience, so I felt this was the lesser of two evils.

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I started the following Monday at the new job. The job was advertised as Warehouse Manager with a schedule of 8-5 Mon-Fri. He told me in the interview that I would be starting at 7 for a while until things “got under control”, which I said was fine. The place was a mess when I got there, with much more product in the warehouse than they had room for. It was also clear after the first week that my boss not only expected me to be there 11 or 12 hours a day, but also Saturdays as well. It also became clear that he wasn’t really happy with me. I worked my butt off for the guy, determined to change his mind. Every single person that I worked with complimented me on how hard I worked.

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But after a while I realized through several things that were said and some observations that were made by coworkers that it was really the fact that I was a Christian and didn’t “fit in” that was the problem. I was basically being used as salaried dock help, and was lifting a ton of 300-400 lb. copiers virtually all day long every day. My boss didn’t say much, but it was clear he wasn’t happy. A few days before my 2 month mark he came to me and basically confronted me on the floor, telling me that I wasn’t what he expected and wasn’t doing what he expected. It was clear he wanted me to leave but didn’t want to say so directly, as I had asked before for guidance and feedback and he never gave it even though I asked several times. So at the end of the day I packed up my stuff, handed him my key and told him “I hope you find what you’re looking for”, quit and walked out the door.

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I spent the next month looking for a job. I was hitting one dead end after another when I got a call, unsolicited, from a recruiter for a technology security company offering me an interview. I did the first one in person, and the following week I did two more virtual interviews. The next day I received an offer letter for the position with a salary that was more than what I had been making at the previous job! I did my drug test and got my onboarding tasks all taken care of and started there on November 1st. My boss is a super great guy that has been patient with me and helped me learn what I need to know to do the job. I work an 8 hour shift from 6 am to 2 pm Mon-Fri, and the drive is only about 5 minutes more than my previous ones. The work is light, mostly consisting of inventory and shipping/receiving duties which I’m familiar with already – the main challenge has been learning their ERP system.

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A few additional things I’d like to add:

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I am not a “King James Onlyist.” However, it was when I started using the King James that every single thing began to fall into place that I had been praying about. I am also stronger in my walk than I have ever been in the past. That cannot be coincidence. For those who wish to use other versions, you do you. I won't judge or condemn you. However, I know what the Lord has done for me through switching to the KJV and I plan to stick with it permanently. I have only my experience as proof, but it’s made all the difference in my walk. I highly recommend you give it a try for a year and see what God does in YOUR life.

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I shared the audio version of the KJV with my best friend. He drives fuel and chemical loads in the tri-state area and started listening to it while driving. He has experienced more growth during the last 6 months than he has ever experienced since giving his life to Christ, and he credits that to listening to the KJV nonstop over the last few months. He and his wife went in August to Lake Michigan and baptized each other as well and are living for the Lord.

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I’ve given up secular music completely and deleted about 2 TB of secular music from my hard drive, saving only some bootleg concert recordings to trade and share with the secular crowd as a hook to get a conversation started. I’ve been a metalhead since I was 8 years old, and this time the Lord helped me get rid of it and not look back. No more Metallica, Megadeth, Van Halen, AC/DC, etc. I’ve got a bunch of awesome Christian metal now and it’s the only music I listen to. This would have been impossible a year ago, but God made a way.

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God tested me and found me faithful, and since then I’ve been blessed with every single thing I prayed for. I have my life back – FINALLY – and a new perspective and a stronger faith and walk. I plan on returning to OYS this Monday and being far more engaged here in the coming months. Thank you all so much for your faithful prayers, advice and support!

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Chuck