245. Stories Series: Miracles Big and Small with Dr. Rob Rienow
Matthew 18:3 (NIV) "And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
Questions and Topics We Discuss:
You have experienced some special miracle stories of God's provision in your life. Will you take us back to your childhood and share some of your early experiences with God?
What were significant ways God showed up in your teenage and young adult years?
How have you preserved these stories and passed them along to the next generation?
Dr. Rob Rienow married Amy in 1994 and they have been blessed with 7 children. His most important ministry is loving his wife and leading his children to know God and love Him. Rob’s mom came to Christ shortly after he was born so he was blessed to be introduced to Jesus at an early age. His parents divorced when he was in high school and God used that painful time in his life to give him a heart for young people and families going through dark times. He attended Wheaton College, then completed an MA in theology at Wheaton College Graduate School, an MDiv from Trinity International Divinity School, and a Doctor of Ministry in Christian Leadership from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.
Rob’s life dramatically changed in 2004. God brought him to a place of deep repentance over the fact that he was disciplining other people’s children, but not his own. He was a spiritual leader at church, but passive with his family. Through that time of repentance, God turned his heart to the ministry of his children and his wife. God then led He and Amy to launch Visionary Family Ministries, a ministry designed to inspire parents and grandparents to disciple their children, to help couples create mission driven-marriages, and equip churches to build Bible-driven ministries. Their mission is to build the church through a global reformation of family discipleship.
He shares the biblical message of family discipleship at national and international conferences for parents, couples, and church leaders. He partners and consults with numerous churches, encouraging them to accelerate evangelism and discipleship through families.
Continue Learning from Dr. Rob Rienow:
Books and Resources by Dr. Rob Rienow
Other Episodes on The Savvy Sauce with Dr. Rob Rienow:
87 Visionary Parenting and Grand-Parenting with Dr. Rob Rienow
Special Patreon Release: Discipline that Disciples with Dr. Rob Rienow
230 Intentional Parenting in All Stages with Dr. Rob Rienow
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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”
Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”
Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“
Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“
Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.
Laura Dugger: I am thrilled to introduce you to our sponsor, Winshape Marriage. Their weekend retreats will strengthen your marriage, and you will enjoy this gorgeous setting, delicious food, and quality time with your spouse. To find out more, visit them online at WinshapeMarriage.org. That's WinshapeMarriage.org. Thanks for your sponsorship.
Dr. Rob Rienow is my returning guest today. He and his wife, Amy, run a fantastic ministry, and they write books and resources. God has just gifted Rob with so much to offer. I'm going to link his incredible previous episodes on The Savvy Sauce in the show notes, and I know that you're going to really enjoy what he has to share today.
He's going to recount miracles he's witnessed in his life, as he excitedly gives glory to God by willingly sharing his story. [00:01:23]
Welcome back to The Savvy Sauce, Rob.
Dr. Rob Rienow: Thank you, Laura. I've been looking forward to continuing our conversation.
Laura Dugger: Well, I have as well. You are no stranger to the podcast, but in case anyone has missed your previous episode, would you just introduce us to your family and current phase of life?
Dr. Rob Rienow: Sure. Well, Amy and I are coming up on 30 years of marriage this summer, so we're going to celebrate big. We've been blessed with seven kids, ages 26 to 10. We've got four boys and three girls. Our eldest two are married and off the payroll. Our third child's getting married this summer. And announcement, announcement, we've been blessed with two grandbabies, Lissy and Bond. Our daughter and her husband have a one-and-a-half-year-old girl, Avie. And then they had a Christmas baby, December 28th, Ernest, our first grandson. So we've got this big growing family, a lot of happiness and a lot of problems. [00:02:25] When you put this many messed up people together, you get a lot of mess. So we are very much dependent on God's grace and mercy every day.
Laura Dugger: That is relatable. And just something I always appreciate is that you are full of joy and also full of truth and very candid. You've experienced some special miracle stories of God's provision in your life. So will you take us back to your childhood and share some of your early experiences with God?
Dr. Rob Rienow: Sure. Well, the first miracle was in my mother's life. When I was born, neither one of my parents were Christians. They came both from a very broken, difficult background. My mother was my father's fourth wife. My father was my mother's second husband.
When I was three months old, my mom was incredibly depressed. In fact, didn't even want to live anymore. On one of these days of depression and despondency, she was actually thinking about putting me and my older brother in a car and driving us off a cliff together. [00:03:30]
And on one of these days of depression, she called a friend and told her friend what she was thinking about, these dark thoughts. And her friend said, "Angie, don't move a muscle. I'm coming over to the house." Her friend came over. My mom was in her early 30s and she heard something from her friend she had never heard before. She heard who God was, how much God loved her, that God had proven his love for her by taking her sin and dying on the cross and rising again from the dead. And the grace of God worked in my mom's life and she repented of her sins. She put her faith in Christ, and as the Bible says, she was born again.
So when I was three months old, this was the first miracle in my life, which was the conversion of my mom. She gave her heart and her life fully to Christ. My dad, though, was an atheist and a secularist and he thought my mom had become a crazy Jesus person and he doubled down on his secularism and on his atheism. And even though then my mom was trying to follow Christ, there was this great gap in their marriage. [00:04:37]
Laura Dugger: Wow. So what was that like in childhood then, especially from the influence of your mom? How did you see her live out her faith that kind of transmitted to you and your siblings?
Dr. Rob Rienow: One of the things that my mom did from the very beginning was she kind of became an instant prayer warrior. Some of that was from the brokenness of her own background and just a tremendous neediness and desperation for God's power in her life. And that translated into, I'm going to say, a lot of childlike prayers. When I say childlike prayers, I mean that in a good way. You know, Jesus says, unless you have the faith of a child, you can't have a relationship with God.
So in some ways, when it came to my mom's prayer life, in some ways, she didn't know any better. In other words, like if we were sick, she prayed for God to heal us. If we needed finances, she prayed for God to provide, just like a little child would.
I remember one miracle story. [00:05:37] I was 11, 12 years old, springtime, and I had been given the task to go out in the yard and move some wood. I grew up in Connecticut, in a rural area in Connecticut. So move wood, spring project. And I pick up a couple of logs, I'm walking across the yard, I trip and fall, and the logs in my hands fall down on some logs on the ground, and my right index finger, I'm looking at it right now as I'm talking to you, got smashed between the logs falling and the logs on the ground. And I stand up — I had my gloves on — and I then take my glove off and look at my finger. And I don't know if you've ever overcooked a hot dog in the microwave before, but it was split from the top to the bottom. All the innards are now the outards. And at this point, I freak out. Up till now, I've been like, Ow, ow, ow. But then I'm screaming. I run into the house. Obviously, mom wraps it all up, off we go to the doctor. And it is broken, and they stitch it from the top to the bottom. [00:06:41]
This was, for me, as an 11-year-old, a crisis. This is a Tuesday. The crisis was that upcoming weekend, on Saturday, I had a baseball game to pitch in, and on Sunday, a piano recital to play in. Okay, Laura, I mean, Renaissance childhood, right? The sports, the music, the whole package.
As an 11-year-old, those are big deals. So I'm going to bed that night. I can still picture... You know, I don't have tons of childhood memories. I think everybody's wired up a little bit differently. But the ones that I have are very vivid. One of the memories I have is my mom just kneeling beside my bed that night and I'm going to sleep, and my finger's all splinted and wrapped up and stitched, and she says, "Well, Robbie, I'm going to pray for God to heal your finger because I know how important these things are to you this weekend." So I say, "Okay, mom."
I go to sleep, and my mom's praying there. I wake up the next morning, and my mom is still there. And she's kneeling beside my bed. [00:07:44] She had prayed all night for God to heal my finger. Now, I don't know, Laura, if this makes me an unspiritual person but I don't think in my life I've prayed all night. Maybe I've prayed late into the night or woken up in the middle of the night and prayed but I haven't prayed all night.
I wake up in the morning, and my mom says, "I've prayed for God to heal your finger. Why don't we unwrap it and take a look?" And I say, "Okay." So we unwrap the thing. And I want you to imagine that you went to the doctor right now, Laura, and you said, "I want you to put stitches in my finger from the top to the bottom." Now, nothing would be wrong with you, right? But just put stitches in. He could do it. The doctor could stitch up a normal finger.
We looked at my finger, and it had completely scarred over. I mean, I do have a nasty scar running down my finger now. But it had completely scarred over. And it was a little misshapen because it did get flattened. But it was healed. Like, it had completely scarred over. I could bend it. I didn't have any pain left. [00:08:51] And it was a real miracle.
Now, we don't in our family think, well, if you just pray all night for your child, then God will heal them, or every single time you pray in faith for healing, you're going to get a miracle. We don't believe that. But we would say this. If you never pray and ask for a miracle, you're probably not going to see very many of them. Right? So, I mean, sometimes God answers yes or no, but He encourages us as little children to come to Him and pray with childlike faith. And that was my mom. And that was one of the stories that I look back on and say, okay, I really saw God show up in a powerful way.
Laura Dugger: I love that so much. I've sat under your teaching before through your Visionary Parenting course. We even went through recently, our church did a Sunday school class with you teaching through that course. My takeaway was something simple to remember that comes to mind so many times, especially when our children get hurt. [00:09:53] You had recommended, it's great to go to the physician, but go to the great physician first.
Dr. Rob Rienow: Amen. Again, we're very pro-doctor and we're very pro-stitches and splits and all of that. But like you just said, having that childlike faith that when we're sick, when we're hurting, when we're in need, we go to God and we ask for His help and we ask for His miraculous work in our lives.
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Laura Dugger: You were a Christ follower then. Were there significant ways that you remember God showing up in your teenage or young adult years? [00:11:53]
Dr. Rob Rienow: Well, the big one was during my parents' divorce. My parents divorced when I was 15. They had a difficult marriage. It was not all one-sided. But my dad traveled for business Monday through Thursday most weeks, and turns out that he had mistresses in different cities where he was traveling and basically wanted to keep his mistresses and stay married to my mom. My mom was not cool with that plan.
So, when I was 15, sophomore in high school, my parents got divorced. My dad's bad behavior and my parents' divorce was the big wound and trauma of my life. Part of what we had to do was to move, right? I had grown up in the same house my whole life, and my parents are getting divorced, and so it's, you know, sell everything, split the assets, all of that kind of stuff. [00:12:53]
My mom had not worked outside the home. She had worked some part-time accounting jobs while I was growing up, but she didn't have a career of her own, so she didn't have, like, assets of her own to fall back on. So, basically, they were going to sell the house, and my mom was going to get half of the proceeds of the house, and she could use the half that she got from the house to go find another place for us to live.
So my mom, in her childlike faith, set out on a prayer journey for where God wanted us to live, and the Lord put it on her heart that she needed to pray for some very specific things in our next house. So, she kind of wrote this prayer list: God, here's what I'm praying for in our next house.
She prayed for, I think, a certain radius, like three or four towns around where we lived. Part of that was that we were a part of a church, Valley Community Baptist Church in Avon, Connecticut, which was very important to us. We didn't want to be too far away from church. She prayed for a three-bedroom house, one bedroom for her, one bedroom for me, one bedroom for my brother. [00:13:56]
There were a couple weird things on the list. She prayed she wanted a house that had a walk-out basement, so it would be built kind of on a little hill. Connecticut's very hilly. So there's a lot of those.
And then the weirdest one was she wanted a house that faced south. The reason for that is that if your house faces south, your front and backyard both get sun, so she could have flowers in the front and the back. She was a gardener, and being in the garden was her place.
We needed to have a house signed and committed by April 15th, because we had to be out of our house by June 15th. Back then, it took two solid months from sort of closing day to move in. Sometimes that happens a little faster now, but back then it was two months.
So time's going by, and we're not finding a house. Sometimes we would find a house that maybe would have five of the six things on the list, and Mom would be like, Oh, we'll take it, but then somebody else would swoop down with their bag full of money, and it'd be gone." [00:14:56]
Finally, it's April 14th. This is the day before we need a house. I was actually on a mission trip in Washington, D.C. with my youth group, but a family from church called my mom, and they said, "We hear you're looking for a house, and we're going to be selling ours. Would you like to come take a look?"
So my mom comes over to this house about five o'clock in the afternoon, and it is lime green, Laura, lime green. But my mother had not specified color on her prayer list, so God cannot be held responsible for the color of the house. As you can imagine, she gets the tour, and everything she's been praying for is on this list. So she's getting more and more excited. My brother was there with her.
Then they start talking price. The asking price that these folks had was $30,000 more than my mom had. She really wasn't in a position to be negotiating or saying, "Well, I can do this. I can do this." She had what she had. [00:15:57]
So she's like, thank you very much. Really appreciate you showing me the house. She goes back home. Eight o'clock that night, phone rings again, and these folks want her to come back and look at the house again. So she's like, well, maybe they painted or something. I don't know. So she goes back, they look at the house. It was really weird. They gave her a tour again. She just had a tour three hours ago, but they give her a tour again.
She explained the story to me because I was away, she said, "I was standing there in the kitchen with this man and woman, this husband and wife with your brother Mark, and the man's wife hands him a note, and he reads the note." And then he says to my mom, "The world would have us get every penny we can get out of this house, but we think God wants you to have the house for whatever you can afford." Now, Laura, this is a three-bedroom house in rural suburban Connecticut. Is this a wealthy family? [00:16:58]
Laura Dugger: It doesn't sound that way.
Dr. Rob Rienow: It doesn't sound that way, right? They're not a wealthy family. And $30,000. So basically, they just gave us $30,000 is what they did. But this was like miracle part one. They were moving to Florida. And by giving us $30,000, they now no longer had the money they needed to fulfill the contract they had signed for their new house in Florida. So this was a big deal. This was a leap of faith for this family to basically be generous with us.
Three days later, their real estate agent from Florida calls them and says, "I don't know what happened, but the price of your house just went down $50,000." Laura, it was a miracle. And for me at 15 years old, it was God saying, "Rob, I haven't forgotten about you. I haven't abandoned you."[00:17:56]
Because when your parents are going through something like this, you have this fork in the road where you really only have two paths. One of the paths is to just hate God and harden your heart against Him, that if you're allowing this to happen, I want nothing to do with you. Maybe you're not even there. The other path is to basically lash yourself to Christ and to say, God, I have no idea why you're allowing this. I hate this. I have every kind of emotion in the world, but I'm just going to lash myself to you and you're going to have to get me through this storm.
But that miracle of this house that God provided for my mom was this moment for me that for so many years after that and continually, when now Amy and I get to places that seem dark or you really are asking the question, where is God? Has God forgotten about us right now? The Bible tells us over and over again to remember, remember, remember. Go back to the times both in Scripture and in your life where God has shown His might and power to you and you cling to those moments, those truths while you're in the darkness right now. [00:19:11]
Laura Dugger: That is so powerful. And so many thoughts swirling through my head after that, just thinking God delights in giving us rewards. Even though we know He's our ultimate treasure, He's still not opposed to giving us rewards here on earth.
The way that that couple listened to the Holy Spirit and sacrificed, really, their finances and were so generous and then what came, I love even the difference in money that your mom got a $30,000 discount that made it possible and theirs was even more. 50.
Dr. Rob Rienow: Yeah. And their family, and I've lost touch with them, but I'm sure they tell that story as a miracle provision for them.
Laura Dugger: For all of it. It just makes me think of Malachi 3:10, where it says, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it." [00:20:20] So thank you for bringing that scripture to life in a real way that God met your family.
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I'm loving these stories. Do you have anything else that comes to mind? Because I'm assuming you have quite a few to share. [00:21:22]
Dr. Rob Rienow: Yeah. As I shared, parents got divorced, dad is unfaithful. It took God a lot of years to bring me to a place of forgiveness for what my dad had done. My youth pastor walked me through an intentional forgiveness plan, not just wishful thinking or time heals all wounds, but really making a choice in my heart to forgive my dad for what he had done. And then I began a daily prayer, which was very simple. It was, God, heal my heart of the anger, bitterness, and hatred that I have for my father.
In other words, I had made the choice with my will to forgive him. But Jesus says to forgive your brother from your heart. And I didn't have any power over my heart. You know, anger, bitterness, hatred, and resentment are not like little light switches that you just go down and you turn those off or give them to Jesus one day and they're gone. So God has to do a real heart miracle for you. [00:22:21]
So I spent six years doing that daily prayer, "God, heal my heart. I don't want to have any hatred, anger, bitterness, or resentment toward my father." And then one morning, junior year of college, I had a crazy early class at like 11 a.m., and I was getting ready to bolt out the door, I'm in my bathroom, and I was just thinking about my dad, and I don't even know why, but thinking about my dad, and I was flooded with a very different emotion.
Normally, if dad was on my mind, it would be a coldness or a bitterness or an anger. But flooded with compassion. And all sorts of things about my father's life came to mind. God brought them to mind. My dad was born in 1918, the pandemic of 1918, and his mother died in childbirth with him. We don't know the whole story or the whole history, but his father already had two sons, and his father wouldn't take him or couldn't take him. We don't know exactly what happened. [00:23:30]
So his mom dies, and his dad wouldn't take him. He also was a preemie baby. He was born at seven and a half months. Back then, that was a major, major life-threatening situation. So he spent the first year of his life in the hospital at the University of Iowa. And thank God for those nurses who took care of him. But, boy, you've got four daughters, Laura. I mean, you know that first year of life, so important for that little baby's heart and spirit.
Babies don't need nurses. Thank you, nurses. We love you. But they need a mom, right? They need a dad. They need grandma. They need grandpa. They need that family at home to be nursing that little spirit.
So my dad didn't have any of that. He then got adopted. He got adopted by his aunt and his uncle, who were brother and sister. So aunt and uncle, brother and sister, not incestuous or weird. They lived together, this single man, single woman, brother, sister. [00:24:33]
So he was adopted, never saw a marriage, never saw a family. His adopted father, Robert Rienow, who I'm named after, was the dean at the University of Iowa. He was an educator, and he was an atheist, and he was a secularist, and taught my father many things.
I remember growing up, my dad worked from home a lot in addition to his travel. So he had a home office, and he had his big man desk in his office, and I had the little man desk in his office. And I'd spend a lot of time with him there. And I remember a number of times growing up, he would stop working, and he'd turn to me, and he'd say, "Bobby, let me tell you the number one lesson that the dean taught me." So he referred to his adopted father as the dean, which is creepy. "Bobby, let me tell you the number one lesson that the dean taught me." I'm eight, nine years old. You look at your dad, and this is obviously going to be important, so I'm going to listen up. He says, "Number one lesson that the dean taught me was Jesus was just a man." Most important thing he taught me: Jesus was just a man. [00:25:36]
Now, Laura, your mom dies, your dad doesn't want you, you spend that first year in the hospital, you get adopted into this home. Where do you go to get wounds like that healed?
Laura Dugger: If you can't turn to God, I don't know what you do.
Dr. Rob Rienow: Correct, exactly. You're either turning to Jesus or not. Like, it's a one-stop shop. Jesus is the only one who's going to be able to heal wounds like that. And so his adopted father tells him the only person in the universe who can't help you is Jesus. My dad spends his whole life looking for women to love him. Married four times, lots of other relationships, dies with a picture of his mother on his dresser. How do you feel about him? Isn't that just sad, right?
In that scripture, Matthew 9:36, Jesus looks out at the crowd of lost souls. It says He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. [00:26:36] This was a real miracle in my life of God shifting... It doesn't mean my dad's not responsible for the things he did. It doesn't mean there's not boundaries and consequences for all that bad behavior. But it really shifted my heart toward him and enabled me to enter into a new chapter of ministering to him and trying to care for him and help point him toward Christ.
Laura Dugger: Wow. I had never heard all of that backstory before, Rob. But I also believe that's not where the story ends. So would you continue?
Dr. Rob Rienow: Yeah. We're going to fast forward. So now it's summer of 2008. My dad's 90 years old and we get a call... This was June. We get a call that he's been diagnosed with advanced cancer. I was speaking at a conference in Arizona when the call came. Amy was home with the kids. So Amy's home and she says, "We're going to sit down and write some cards to Papa Bill." [00:27:39] Our oldest child was 11 or 12. So crayons and markers and all this.
A little backstory. My dad had forbidden our children from sending him any cards with Jesus stuff in there. Like he was very hard-hearted toward God. I don't want Bible stuff. "I don't want Jesus stuff in my birthday cards, etc." Well, Amy sat down with the kids and she's like, "Well, he can pound sand. We're going to send a lot of Jesus stuff in these cards."
So my daughter, Lissy... I actually have scans of all of these. My daughter, Lissy's card, again, with the crayons and the markers, "Dear Papa Bill, we're praying for you. John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life."
My eldest son, this is my favorite card, he said, "Dear Papa Bill, we're praying for you. Here is a verse for you. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I hope you enjoy this verse. Love, R.W." [00:28:37]
Laura Dugger: That's amazing.
Dr. Rob Rienow: It's awesome. I wasn't home for any of this, right? I'm away speaking. And I'm like, If I had been home, I probably would have massaged that card a little bit, the messaging there, just from the standpoint of, like, card to dying grandpa, right?
But the Lord did teach me something very important and clarified something for me about the gospel. We talk about the gospel as good news, but it actually starts with bad news, that we're separated from God because of our sin, and no amount of being good can clean us up and welcome us into God's presence. We can't cover up our sin with our good deeds. In fact, there's great judgment awaiting us because of our sin. That's really, really bad news. But then we have good news, that God proves his love for us in this, that while we're still sinners, Christ died for us. [00:29:30] So these cards that went off to my dad were filled with bad news and good news, which is the gospel.
So then you go forward to August 10th, 2008. My father is in the hospital, and my mother and her husband go to visit him. Five years after my parents divorced, my mother got remarried to a godly man named Jack. My parents were cordial post-divorce, so I guess that's a good thing. Better to be cordial post-divorce than not.
So my mom went to visit him in the hospital with her husband. So your fourth wife and her husband come to visit you. My dad says to my mother and Jack, "Is there anything I can do for you?" Which is a weird question. He wasn't rich, and he's dying. My stepfather, Jack, says, "Yes, Bill, there is. Trust Christ. We want to be in heaven with you." My dad says, "I have been thinking a lot about that lately." [00:30:32] And he points over to his hospital room window where there are four cards, crayon and marker, taped there and he says, "Bring me the card. I want to read those again." And they bring the cards over, and they read, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" and "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." And my mom shares the gospel with my dad for the 1,552nd time and says, "Bill, are you ready to repent and trust Christ?" He says, "I am." And so he prays to put his faith in Jesus with his fourth wife and her husband.
My mom gets home that night. It was a Sunday night. My mom gets home from the hospital, calls out to us here in Illinois, tells us what happened. We have the party to end all parties. We've been praying for decades for my father's conversion. My mom goes back the next day to make sure that it wasn't like a drug-induced stupor. In other words, he's dying, he's got cancer, maybe he's just crazy. [00:31:34] So she goes back the next day, "Bill, do you remember praying with us yesterday?" "Oh, yes, absolutely." "Well, can we read the Bible with you?" "I would love that. Yes."
Now, the backstory there is many times in my parents' marriage, my mom had said, "Oh, I wonder if I could read the Bible here at dinnertime or something," and my dad would just become enraged and would have nothing to do with it. He was a new creation in Christ. He was born again. The old had gone, the new had come. He had a brand new heart and a renewed mind.
I have never seen a greater miracle. We're talking about miracles today. I've never seen a greater miracle, hands down, than the conversion of my 90-year-old dad.
We get in the car, we drive out to Connecticut, I spend three unbelievable days with this new man. He asks forgiveness for the affairs. Now, I had forgiven him years ago, but our relationship could not be fully reconciled until he asked for that forgiveness and received that forgiveness. [00:32:33]
He passed away, then, September 2nd, just a few weeks after that. I can't wait for heaven. I want to be home with my Lord and Savior Jesus, but I only got three days with my new dad. And we're going to have forever together without any sin in our lives. And I can't wait for that.
Laura Dugger: That brings a lot of tears. Yes, we cannot wait to be with Jesus in glory forever and all of the loved ones who have gone before us. I think you give so much hope. That's why the Bible says to share our stories, because it's His story of work in our lives. And it is so encouraging, even if we're praying for someone right now, and the enemy wants to tell us that they're too far gone or it's never going to happen. It can, and in his case, it did.
Dr. Rob Rienow: And you asked the question, and one of my questions for Jesus is, why was it the 1,552nd time that my dad heard the gospel that he repented? [00:33:35] Why not the second time? Why not the third time? You simply don't know when the Holy Spirit is going to soften someone's heart. Let me tell you one of my favorite bedside moments with my dad. He said to me, "Bobby, I've got a new life verse." Now, you're like, wait, time out. I didn't think he was a Christian. He wasn't, but he did have a life verse, it just wasn't from the Bible. Like verse, prose, poetry. It was a poem. And the poem was Henley's Invictus. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it or not, but you probably know the most famous line in that poem.
So again, back to my growing up years with my dad at his big man desk in his office, he had his life verse on a plaque on his desk, a little plaque that sat in front of him. And the verse was this, "It matters not how strait the gate, nor how charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul." [00:34:36]
Translation, "If there is a God and if there is a judgment day, I'm in charge, like I'm the master of my eternity." So that was my dad's life verse. And so he says, "Bobby, I got a new one." I said, "That's good, dad. We definitely need a new one." And so he says, "My new life verse is this: There by the grace of God go I." Now, that's not in the Bible either. That's a 17th-century German guy. But I didn't think it was time for a Bible lesson. I thought it was a fantastic improvement. I'm sure Jesus will sort that out with him on the other side. But I'm just so grateful to the Lord.
I'm glad you asked some of these questions today. I know one of the things that God was doing in allowing a lot of seasons and years of pain and trauma, every chance I get to tell my dad's miracle conversion story, I do it because I think it just makes God look so good. [00:35:38] I think it highlights His love and His mercy and His grace and His power.
An answer to the question, why was the 1552nd time? It's because God is... He's getting a lot of glory for what He did as that story gets told over and over again.
Laura Dugger: Wow. I love your willingness to share this story. Even in this series, one of my side prayers for every guest is that it's also cathartic to go back and to relive some of this and remember, because the Bible oftentimes asks us to remember the goodness that God has displayed in our lives. And He didn't just do that in Bible times. He's still doing that with each of us today. So I think it also reminds us to pay attention.
Laura Dugger: And I've wondered with all of these stories, how have you preserved them and pass them along to the next generation? [00:36:37]
Dr. Rob Rienow: Yeah, it's a great question. We're actually instructed to do that. In Psalm 78, it instructs parents and grandparents to tell your kids the great and glorious deeds of the Lord and the wonders He has done. That is a combination of the great and glorious deeds that He has done in Scripture, but also the miracles he's done in your life, these special moments.
These sorts of miracles we're talking about today are not daily, weekly things. These are powerful moments in our life, unique, special moments where God shows up. So I just would ask you, do your kids know your conversion story? Do your kids know these special moments that you look back on where you know God showed up and proved himself to you?
Now, maybe you say, well, I don't have a conversion story. I grew up with Christian parents and they had Christian parents and I came to Christ when I was a little kid. You know, I have a terrible testimony. That's just boring. Well, I want all of my kids and grandkids to have that terrible testimony. [00:37:40]
Dr. Rob Rienow: I just want them... That's a phenomenal testimony. It's tremendous. Tell your kids what a miracle that is, that God has worked generationally in your family. Take whatever opportunities you have to tell them those stories, to write them down if you can.
One of the things that Amy and I did a few years ago, and we actually have to do an update now, but we've had our kids interview... like set up the video camera and interview the grandparents just about their life and about their stories. Amy's parents are believers. She grew up the same as I did, though. Christian mom, non-Christian dad. Her dad came to Christ after we were married and has had an incredible testimony. And then my father's home with the Lord, but my stepfather Jack is a believer.
So sitting down with grandparents, turning the video camera on, having the kids interview them, get their stories, and zeroing in on that question. How have you seen God work powerfully in your life? What stories do you want us to remember? [00:38:40]
Laura Dugger: I think that's a great encouragement for each of us, something that we can apply. Okay, Rob, so you said you're coming up on 30 years of marriage and you and Amy have seven children. So I'm assuming God has done a lot in marriage and parenthood. So what stories come to mind there?
Dr. Rob Rienow: One of the stories would be a marriage miracle for us. We're coming up on 30, but when we got married, even though she was a Christian and I was a Christian, I'll speak for myself. I was really clueless about what Christian marriage was all about or even what the purpose of marriage was all about.
The Bible says in Genesis 2:26, "For the purpose of marriage, a man will leave father and mother, cleave to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Well, we did the first two. We left father and mother, and we cleaved to one another, and we became one flesh physically, but spiritually, not really. [00:39:45]
What I mean by that is I really didn't have any vision to spiritually care for her or spiritually connect with her. One of the ways that evidenced itself was we hardly ever prayed together as husband and wife. In fact, for 13 years of our marriage, we hardly ever prayed together. We prayed at meals. We prayed in crisis. And I've shared this story before. At the 10-year mark, we started praying as a family. I was really neglecting the kids spiritually for a lot of years, too.
But for 13 years, we were really on separate tracks spiritually. I was actually on a men's retreat, and it wasn't a retreat about marriage, it was just about our relationship with the Lord, and it was during a prayer and worship time, and God had to do a very miraculous work in my heart. [00:40:40]
He brought me to a place of repentance and conviction and even brokenness and convicted me that in 13 years, I had never woken up in the morning like with this front-burner thought that Amy's spiritual life that day was something I needed to be concerned about. In other words, that God had called me to love her and serve her and lead her. And that I needed a plan to just encourage her and bless her and support her spiritually.
The Lord, like, turned my heart to Amy and turned my heart to my ministry to her. See, even that word, Laura, if you had come up to me and said, well, how's ministry going? Well, I would have told you about church. Now, if you say, Rob, how's ministry going? I'm going to say, well, hey, let me tell you how I'm trying to connect with Amy and partner with her and encourage her. Let me tell you about the kids. Because that ministry began with her heart and her soul.
The first thing then that happened, and again, this was almost 17 years ago, we started praying together before we went to bed each night. [00:41:42] It's just a short prayer. I will pray, God, thank you for this and this and this today. And then, Laura, what I'll try to do is just think about a burden that Amy has and try to shoulder a little bit of that burden in prayer for her. So, "Lord, Amy is just... I know she's exhausted today. So, I want to pray she'll fall asleep quickly, not wake up one time, and wake up in the morning just feeling great. Give her her full strength back." Or, God, I know that she's got this very difficult decision tomorrow. She needs wisdom. Lord, your word says that when we need wisdom, we should ask for it, and you give without partiality. So, please give her the wisdom that she needs." It's just any burden that I sense that she is under, I want to shoulder a little bit of it in prayer.
We now have been praying every night for almost 17 years. Now, I am not tooting my own horn here. We have 13 years of no prayer, 17 years with prayer. So, I'm only plus four, okay, in our almost 30 years together. So, we're still digging out of a lot of prayerless years. But I cannot overstate, and I'll just mention one other thing real quickly here, that the area of prayer that we've probably gotten the best in and where we've seen the most miracles is prayer in the midst of conflict. [00:42:56]
So, Amy and I are having a fight about Lord knows what. And one of us says, I think we should pray. It's gritted teeth, and it's just horrible. It's the last thing you want to do because our walls are up, and we're angry with each other. One person says, I think we should pray and you say, fine, and you walk over, and I hold her hand. It's like a dead corpse, right? She's just angry, and I'm angry. And one of us says, "Lord, help us." Three words: Lord, help us.
So many times we've had the miracle, and it is a miracle, of the Holy Spirit rushing in, softening my heart to her, softening her heart to me. For the last 30 minutes, I've been like, you, you, you, and now all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit shows me, oh, me, me, me. And the same for her. And now there's an exit ramp off this conflict that we have been on.
But we have experienced these miraculous answers to prayer in our marriage as the Lord brought us out of that very... It was a dangerous time. We didn't know it at the time, but it was a dangerous time of those 13 prayerless years. [00:44:02]
Laura Dugger: I think what's so evident is your daily walk with the Lord in these practical ways that He's met you. And I think that's very replicable for shouldering some of the burden for our spouse or our children through prayer. But then also these big ways that God has shown up, and all of them are important. So thank you for sharing that.
Rob, this time has been so rich, but there's so much more that you have to teach us. So after this conversation, where can we go to learn more from you?
Dr. Rob Rienow: Well, Laura, I've loved it. I appreciate your ministry so much. People can connect with me and Amy through our weekly podcast, Family Vision. You can find Family Vision on any podcast service. That's just where Amy and I are sharing each week the things that God is teaching us and the areas that we're growing. You can find our ministry on any social media channel by searching Visionary Family Ministries or coming to our website, VisionaryFam.com. [00:45:05]
And a couple of our books that connect with our conversation today, one is called Healing Family Relationships. It is just a walk through some biblical principles to seek peace and reconciliation in your home. I share my dad's story in detail in that book, and I think you'll love it.
Another one that comes to mind is a book called Never Too Late. If you have an adult child in your life who's far from God and maybe you feel like you've been praying for them forever to come to Christ, or even just to be restored in their relationship with you, that resource, Never Too Late, would be the way to go.
Laura Dugger: Wonderful. We will add links for all of those resources in the show notes for today's episode. Rob, you're familiar because this is not the first time you've been on the podcast, but we are called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so as my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce?
Dr. Rob Rienow: Well, from our conversation today, The Savvy Sauce would be asking God to give you a childlike faith. [00:46:10] Sometimes we think about having a faith in God or having a mature faith, or you think about having a long-time faith or a deep faith. A mature, deep, long-time faith is childlike. And it is simply coming to God like a child in a spirit of neediness, putting your full faith and trust in Him, giving Him your whole heart in every area of your life.
Laura Dugger: Well said. Rob, thank you for your always helpful teaching. I continue to learn from your humor and your stories, and most importantly, from the overflow of your rich relationship with the Lord. So thank you for being my returning guest today.
Dr. Rob Rienow: Thanks, Laura. I appreciate our friendship. I know that your podcast is making a huge difference in people's lives, so thanks for having me on.
Laura Dugger: Aw, thanks for that. [00:47:08]
One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, we're separated from Him.
This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute.
This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:48:07] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus.
We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.
If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him.
At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. [00:49:09] We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started?
First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John.
Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.
We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.
Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [00:50:11] The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.
If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.
