My Message

“I’m just a regular guy. I’m not a pastor, I don’t run a ministry, I didn’t go to seminary and no one, including me, derives any direct benefit from the messages I share. On the contrary, it costs me a great deal of time and resources to do this. So the question you should be asking yourself is this. ‘Why, after achieving success and tasting some of the best that the “American Dream” can offer, is this guy, so convicted about NOT chasing it any more and why did he choose a message that MOST people absolutely DON’T want to hear? What does he KNOW, that I don’t know? What has he experienced that I haven’t experienced?”. I believe you owe it to your soul, to stick around and find out the answers to those questions. – Michael Chriswell

If your life hasn’t turned out like you hoped, my story and message are for you. If you have ever deeply desired success, only to fall short, or you have ever experienced success, only to be left feeling empty, my message is for you. If your childhood looked more like the devil’s playground than a healthy upbringing, my message is for you. If you thought accepting Jesus Christ, would make your life work, and then it didn’t, my message is for you. If you have ever been disillusioned by the sting of false accusations, painful betrayal, crushed dreams, or the devastation of repeated adversities and failures, my message is for you. If you have ever felt tension in your soul, between your desire for success and your desire for God, my message is for you. If you have ever wondered how some people seem to go through the worst life can dish out, and they still come out smiling, positive and feeling joyful, my message is for YOU.

Flying High on the “Good Life”

Not too long ago, I had the ultimate “success” story occurring in my own life. I overcame a tremendously difficult childhood, filled with everything from sexual abuse, to bullying, to death, to even being told my father wasn’t my father. At age 15, I was living in a dirty trailer park, with my single parent Mother.

She kept having a recurring dream, where she had frantically built an airplane, and then she always woke up in a cold sweat, while taxiing down the runway, wondering…will her plane ever fly? She eventually realized, that I was the airplane, and her fear was that I wasn’t going to make it in life.

Incredibly, by the time I was 34, I was being called the next “Zig Ziglar” (World’s Greatest Motivational Speaker). I had a successful business, an annual income in excess of $225k, I was living in a $900k home, had a garage full of paid for toys, private school for my two oldest children, and I got to travel all over the United States as a sought after and respected speaker and trainer. My plane not only flew, but it flew a long way from the poverty of that trailer park, and it didn’t stop there.

It was the ultimate success story, in the making. I had been a Christian since the 10th grade and I loved God. I had overcome adversity. I was active in my church. I read my bible nearly everyday. I studied success and applied what I learned. I worked hard and was honest. It worked! I had it all…God, Family and the “good life”. I had believed for a long time, that God wanted me to be successful, so that he could use me. I just knew that he was going to make me a millionaire so that other people would listen to what I had to say about him.

The ultimate high point came in 2009 when I was approached by the largest seminar company in the world, to discuss the opportunity of sharing the platform with former politicians, military leaders, business leaders and some of the best speakers in the world. It seemed people’s predictions were coming true after all, and the stage was set for me to become something like the next “Zig Ziglar”.

Falling Out of the Sky

My only problem was that my desire for more success was being frustrated by my desire for more of God. There were warning lights going off on the dashboard of my soul saying…“You are too prideful and even though you hide it extremely well from others, the kind of notoriety you will receive from this seminar opportunity, will be the death of you.” This started a tipping point, where I began to seek God, like never before and to repent and confess my deeply divided heart. I began to ask him to have his way with me, and to shine the light of Christ on the dark spots of my heart. I could never have imagined the dramatic set of events this type of praying would set off.

My plane began falling out of the sky fast and when it crashed, there were major casualties. In less than a 12 month period, I experienced betrayal, divorce, the failure of my business, financial devastation, personal bankruptcy, the loss of my career, the loss of my possessions, the loss of my money, the loss of my passion, and even the loss of my ability to take care of my own basic needs.

The suffering didn’t end there…it got worse. I went from being the husband, that my wife declared publicly on my blog, that she was proud of and honored to be on the journey with, to 60 days later being a monster. Shortly after I received divorce papers, the accusations and slander started. I was accused to church leaders, friends and the court, of being bi-polar, a non-provider, verbally abusive, physically abusive of my kids, desiring to kidnap my kids, having an affair, hiding money, stealing the kids money, and on and on and on…

I thought the low point was the day I realized, that the $26 in my checking account, was all the money I had in the whole world. But, before it was all over, I would have to move 600 miles away from my five small children, and move back in with my parents at the age of 37. It was the only way I could afford to pay the court ordered child support, which had been based on my past income.

This became the straw that broke the camel’s back. After having already been vilified, for an entire year, to my children, in an attempt to alienate them from me, they were told that I didn’t love them and that I simply abandoned them, for no reason.

Treasure Among the Wreckage

The suffering was indescribable and impossible to explain in anything shorter than a book, but the most powerful part of my journey is not how I crashed, but where I crashed, and what happened as a result. My plane crashed on a deserted island, where I was essentially all alone, desperately trying to make sense of the crash. Every hour, for months, was spent trying to figure out what life would look like from here and how I would survive.

After months or roaming around the island, I discovered a buried treasure. It was the most unbelievable, indescribable and valuable treasure I could have ever imagined. The treasure I discovered was not salvation through Jesus Christ (I already had that), not a great new church, not a fantastic conference or program, not some new teaching or book that had all the answers, and not even the Blessings of God. The treasure I found, was GOD HIMSELF! As an active Christian for 19 years, I had really only known about God, rather than actually knowing him.

In the suffering and the loneliness of the island, God began to reveal himself to me in extraordinary ways, through the Holy Spirit. He began to teach me, in very personal ways, the truth about my life, my expectations, my beliefs in Him, the Bible, success, business, people, purpose and even the devil. He used incredible suffering to purge me, one by one, of the lies that I had believed for so long and then began to replace them with the truth. He showed up in some of the most spectacular and supernatural ways, to reveal himself to me and to allow me to experience him. Sometimes, it was so extraordinary, that friends and family, who witnessed the accounts, were pushed to the edge of what they had believed about God’s activity in someone’s life.

What I have experienced with God, completely trumps everything else in the world, to me. You are reading the words of a person, who has experienced God in such extraordinary ways, that he has no fear at all of the economy collapsing, terrorist attacks, nuclear war, or even the end of the world. These things cannot overcome the total trust I have developed through relationship with HIM.

My closest friends, all know that I cannot wait to die and be with God and the Lord Jesus Christ, in heaven, even though I know that I must stay here for now to work. I love God so much, that I often get teared up, just thinking about Him and what he has done in my life. If you do not understand how I could feel this way, it’s simply because I know something that you do not yet know. That’s why I’m talking about these things on my blog and videos, to tell you how I got here and how with God’s help, how you can too!

Please, please, please, DO NOT make the mistake of thinking my writing or videos on this website, are about me or that I was selected to have some special experience with God. When I began to read books, written by the likes of A.W. Tozer, J.I. Packard, Larry Crabb, Oswald Chambers and others, I realized I wasn’t the only one who has discovered this treasure. Although it is evident by personal experience, and by the stories of great Godly men, that only a small number of Christians ever seem to have this experience, of truly knowing and experiencing God, I truly believe it is available to YOU. The scriptures tell us that God not only desires to be known by you, but that he will allow all who seek him, like I did, to find him, like I did.

I think you are going to be inspired and super encouraged, by hearing the stories of how I’m learning to walk with God. I’m going to be very transparent about the journey. I’m going to tell you the major details of how I went from being a person who’s biggest desire, in life, was to achieve success, happiness and comfort, to being a person who would literally beg God, not to take away his longest and most painful adversity. By the time you watch a few of my video messages, you will understand exactly why I was able to say that and I believe you will be compelled to join me on this incredible journey, that only a few ever get the thrill of experiencing.

He prays to God and finds favor with him, he sees God’s face and shouts for joy; he is
restored by God to his righteous state. Then he comes to men and says, ‘I sinned,
and perverted what was right, but I did not get what I deserved. He redeemed
my soul from going down to the pit, and I will live to enjoy the light.’ “God does
all these things to a man – twice, even three times – to turn back his soul from
the pit, that the light of life may shine on him.”
Job 33:26-30