In “The Reluctant Disciple,” Robin Pou tells a parable about reconciling faith and business

Meet Robin Pou. He is currently a successful Executive Coach and founder of a Dallas-based leadership development firm. He is also the author of the newly released The Reluctant Disciple: A Parable About Reconciling Faith and Business. But there’s more to Pou’s success than initially meets the eye.

You see, Robin Pou almost died violently during a roadside attack at the hands of thugs armed with guns and machetes in the African bush of Kenya during a short-term mission trip in 2007.

“As I lay face down in a ditch by the side of the road, sensing a catastrophic end to the ordeal, I unexpectedly discovered the answer to the ultimate question, What’s my purpose?” he says in the Author’s Note at the book’s beginning.

A miraculous turn of events led to his eventual escape and ultimately to the reality of the meaning of grace, he says. The success-obsessed young businessman that Pou was “died” that night, and a new man began to emerge, desiring to fully integrate a faith-filled life in the marketplace, at home. . . . everywhere. He claims he discovered what real success actually is.

God redeems all he allows is a powerful lesson from the pages of this book.   

So, what did God do in Pou’s life through this traumatic experience? Besides eventually setting out on a new venture back home in Texas to help executives and top leaders maximize their full potential, Pou found he had a parable—a novel even—inside him that took more than a decade to birth: The Reluctant Disciple. 

The parable of the prodigal executive

Pou’s parable recounts the angst, disappointments, and almost catastrophic reactions of a fictitious home builder and rising businessman, Peter Christiansen. Only a few pen strokes away from a deal that would set Christiansen’s business among the elite home builders in Dallas, he was poised and ready to roll. Or so he thought.   

And roll he did, but in ways completely unexpected and near-disastrous to Christiansen’s life and to his “I-almost-made-it” enterprise.

Without giving away too much of the parable’s intriguing turns and twists, Christiansen experiences a near-death event as a result of his own poor decision-making, coupled with his fragile sense of self and weighed down by a worldly view of success.

Peter Christiansen was a man on a mission, but his early success bogged down. After failing to land this elite prospect, Peter storms away, making an impulsive decision that results in him being seriously injured and near death. A Good Samaritan couple, Jim and Mary, miraculously rescue Peter and provide aid that allows his body, and ultimately his soul, to heal.Jim and Mary slowly begin to engage Peter about God’s purpose and grace despite the predicament Peter’s bad decisions rendered. Over the course of several in-depth conversations, Peter revisits past events in his life where he thought God had all but abandoned him.

These conversations show Peter more than he ever imagined about God’s love and mercy, as well as a path toward understanding how faith and his professional world are surprisingly compatible. Even Peter’s current predicament is laced with “aha” moments as Jim and Mary lovingly speak sometimes painful truth to him. Salt and light are not always easily administered.

Finding God’s redemption

Pou’s parable strikes at the contrasts and sometimes seeming contradictions inherent to the pursuit of worldly success while living a purposeful, Christ-filled life. Any believer wrestling with the seemingly mismatched nature of authentic faith and business success will see the reality Peter discovers: Business endeavors and their challenges, even their disappointments, can be gifts from God that can be used for our good and his glory.

In referring to a painful story Peter has related, Jim responds, “God causes or allows things to happen. And what he allows, he redeems.”

You’ll experience the reality and sovereignty of God not only in the conversations, but in the setting, the circumstances, and the outcome of this parable. As with the author’s own harrowing, near-death experience, Peter Christiansen discovers the reality that God has been there all along.

So will you.