John Hargrove Seeking Truth and Reality

There are seasons when I have relied more on what I could calculate than on what I could trust. As an engineer, I have spent my life reducing uncertainty. I measure path loss, calculate link budgets, design redundancy, and look for the single point of failure. Those habits have served me well professionally. They have not always served me well spiritually.

Peter Furler’s Matter of Faith confronts me with an uncomfortable question: Have I truly been living by faith, or have I merely been asking God to bless what I could already understand?

When I look back over my life, I see God’s fingerprints everywhere. He carried me through my career, opened doors I could never have forced open, blessed my marriage with Leisa despite my failures, allowed me to raise Joshua for eighteen precious years, and entrusted me with opportunities to serve my church, my community, and my profession. Yet I also see another story woven through those same years—the story of a man who repeatedly drifted toward self-reliance.

I know the language of faith. I have taught it. I have preached it. I have encouraged others with it. But God is less interested in whether I can explain faith than whether I actually exercise it.

The business struggles of Evergreen have exposed things in me that success concealed. Financial pressure has revealed fear. Disappointment with employees has revealed pride. Frustration has revealed impatience. Long hours have revealed my tendency to believe everything depends on me. I have often carried burdens as though I were the savior of the company instead of a servant of the Savior.

That is not faith.

Faith is not believing that Evergreen will survive. Faith is believing that Christ is worthy of obedience whether Evergreen survives or not.

Faith is not believing every problem will disappear. Faith is believing God remains good even if they do not.

Faith is not confidence in my plans. Faith is confidence in His character.

I have confessed before that I often resemble Judas more than John. That thought still humbles me. I know how easily I can honor Christ with my lips while reserving hidden rooms of my heart for ambition, control, comfort, recognition, or fear. My greatest danger has never been ignorance of Scripture. It has been believing that knowledge itself is evidence of surrender.

The Pharisees knew Scripture.

Judas walked with Jesus.

Neither fact guaranteed obedience.

As I approach the later years of my life, I feel the weight of unfinished sanctification more than unfinished projects. There are books I hope to write, communities I hope to help, networks I hope to build, and younger men I hope to mentor. Yet none of those will matter if I reach the finish line having accumulated accomplishments but resisted the deeper work of becoming like Christ.

The older I become, the less impressed I am with achievement and the more impressed I am with holiness.

One day my engineering drawings will become obsolete.

Technology will change.

Companies will close.

Professional licenses will expire.

My name will eventually be forgotten.

Only what Christ has formed within me will remain.

The question God continues to place before me is painfully simple.

John, do you trust Me—or do you simply trust Me when I cooperate with your plans?

That question reaches every part of my life.

Will I trust Him if the business fails?

Will I trust Him if my reputation fades?

Will I trust Him when prayers seem unanswered?

Will I trust Him when I cannot understand His timing?

Will I trust Him enough to surrender not only my sins, but also my dreams?

Faith has never been about seeing clearly. It has always been about following faithfully.

Perhaps that is why repentance is inseparable from faith. Every act of repentance is an admission that I have trusted something else more than Christ. Every confession is an invitation to return. Every surrender declares that Jesus is enough.

My prayer is becoming simpler.

Lord, remove whatever part of me still insists on being in control. Strip away my pride, my fear, my self-sufficiency, and my hidden idols. Teach me to depend on You more than on my experience, my intellect, my planning, or my reputation. Let the remaining years of my life be remembered not because I built impressive systems, but because You patiently transformed an ordinary, stubborn man into someone who increasingly looked like Jesus.

If my life is remembered at all, may it not be for what I accomplished.

May it be remembered that, after many failures and many returns, I finally learned that everything worth living for was, and always had been, a matter of faith.