The Engineer that God Built

Come and listen to my story about a man named … Steve. (If you heard banjo music in your head, you’re my kind of reader.) I met him when I got out of the Air Force in the early ’90s. He was an engineer at the company that hired me; I was a technician. We became friends, and over time he told me his story.

Steve lost his dad young. Raised by his mother with a brother and sister, he was a teenager in the late ’60s—and acted like it. In high school he was arrested for marijuana. By good luck (read "Providence"), he ended up before a judge who had something better in mind than juvenile hall. Instead, Steve was sent to a Christian boys’ ranch.

There, surrounded by godly men with open hearts and steady hands, he learned in the forest and in the classroom. They taught him about the world and its Maker. Before he graduated, Steve professed faith. When he returned home, he met the love of his life—a good church girl who wasn’t supposed to fall for a bad boy but did anyway. They married, and suddenly Steve realized he was responsible for someone other than himself.

So, he went looking for work. He walked into a power-supply company and asked for a job. “What can you do?” they asked. “Whatever you want,” he said. They hired him to clean bathrooms. And he did. But he also paid attention. The owner noticed and trained him as an electronics assembler. Steve kept learning, kept asking questions, and eventually he was designing power supplies.

Another company hired him next—a spaceborne tape recorder manufacturer building machines for NASA and others. They brought him on as a test engineer but soon groomed him into a full-fledged electronics engineer. By the time I met him, he was designing advanced systems.

I started as a technician and eventually became a test engineer. He became a primary engineer, and I became his test engineer. We grew close, talking theology and life. When my wife left me, he invited me to his church, where they welcomed me with open arms. Steve introduced me to the woman who is now my wife—we’ve been married 33 years. Steve and his church girl have been married more than 50.

Steve eventually retired to a small town in Texas, surrounded by his wife, kids, and grandkids. But for years we worked side by side. We became elders together. We served, shared the gospel, laughed, and cried together. I was with him the day he held his first grandchild in the hospital. Our wives are still in touch.

Steve is one of those “men of God” who are simply a joy to watch. Not because he’s flashy or loud, but because he’s clearly a man God has shaped—hammered out of loss, hardship, and bad choices, and rebuilt into a faithful husband, father, and follower of Christ. He’s a living reminder of what God can do with a willing heart.

I’ll always appreciate Steve—for his friendship, his example, and the quiet testimony of a life transformed.