The Why Behind the Vision

I wanted to take a moment to share the inspiration, and the why, behind God & People. I think it is only after you hear the why behind the vision that you yourself can grab hold of it and partner with it. My hope is that this vision would be an inspiration to those who come in contact with it and their lives in turn would benefit greatly from this message. 

In order to fully understand the message behind God & People I think it is also helpful to understand the context from my life journey as well.

I’d like to start by introducing myself. My name is Darin McGinnis and I have the lovely privilege of being married to my beautiful wife, and Co-Founder, Sarah McGinnis. We officially branded God & People in 2020, after marrying the previous year on a warm summer night in June. Though we had recently founded the brand, this vision had been developing in our spirits long before.

I was raised Christian and grew up in the church. I always believed God was omni, well… everything and that He himself was fully able to accomplish any and all things. I also believed that we could be in Heaven and enjoy a fulfilling life as long as we maintained our faith in God, and lived a relatively sin-free life. But as I entered adulthood there came a point in my life when my beliefs began to be challenged. My plan to play football in the NFL and share the message of Christ from that platform was sadly becoming less and less likely as my college football career came to an end. 

During my young adult years my passion to pursue God seemed to fade a bit. I no longer had my life path planned out, and because of this seem to drift away from any real intentional time spent with God. It was as if, in my heart, I felt abandoned by God without direction. I thought we had an agreement. I thought as long as I did my part then I would get what I wanted, right? Church became more of a dry religious duty and my heart was no longer inspired much by attending and fellowshipping in the church. This did not happen overnight, and wasn’t necessarily a conscious understanding on my end at the time. As I saw myself investing less and less devotional time with God, my convictions began to fade congruently. My apathetic attitude toward God led me to floundering and un-fulfillment in my life. I even recall having a dream where I couldn’t remember God’s name because it had been so long since we last spoke. 

It wasn’t until a couple years later I realized there wasn’t much benefit to being a marginal Christian. I had the understanding of God, and what it meant to be a Christian, but I lacked any real enthusiasm of pursuing a deep relationship with God. Knowing the truth and not acting on it keeps you out of any real enjoyment. I wasn’t benefitting much from my relationship with God because I didn’t invest any real effort, and I didn’t enjoy being distant from God because sin left me feeling empty. This was a very unenjoyable position to be in. I decided it was time to make a change. 

I accepted the fact that there were certain decisions I was making in my life that were not congruent with a godly lifestyle and desired to change. I also decided that it was time to forgive God for not fulfilling “our plan.” A plan that clearly wasn’t God’s plan but rather my own. This is what we call as Christians, repentance. This is when you get to the decision point in your life where you’d rather humble yourself and act according to what you know is right (in alignment with God’s Word, the Bible) rather than continue doing what is not in alignment with God’s Word, or disregarding something you know you’ve been called to do. (Think Jonah) 

At this point I began intentionally investing time back into my relationship with God. Francis Chan’s book “Crazy Love” really helped spark the pursuit that ensued. I began pursuing God more than I had previously, and in a new way. Instead of setting out to complete a storyline I drew up for my own life I now had developed a bit more humility to go along with whatever step God had for my life next. I began desiring a relationship with God more. I was receiving more fulfillment from my relationship with God than I ever had before.

I continued to pursue God to understand who He was and what He thought of me. I wanted to know what He was thinking. I went to ministry school with hopes to understand this further. Through the study of the Bible, ministry school and personal experiences I came to the conclusion that God is good and He has good things for us. It seems clear on the surface but this  is also the most contested idea of God by non-Christians. As I grew with God, His goodness seemed to become more clear. Take the beginning of creation for example. When God created us and our planet, He said it was good. God literally created humans so we could enjoy fellowship with Him, and those around us, while enjoying this life. The Word says God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. He gave them responsibilities, and talked with them daily. This was the vision; that humans would enjoy their life on Earth and enjoy connecting with God in relationship. Loving God and loving people seemed to be the framework by which everything was held together. Now we all know what eventually happened to Adam and Eve. The devil deceived Eve into believing there was a better alternative for their life (secret knowledge) and gets Adam and Eve to fall away from their relationship with God, into sin. Deception was the bedrock of the devil’s ploy to separate us from God. The deception being that there is a better alternative to achieving a great life outside of God’s Word. This is simply not true. The unfortunate part about the nature of deception is that you do not realize you are being lied to!

The devil pulled us away from perfecting God’s vision through deceit, which led to all types of destruction. While we cannot turn back the hands of time in this scenario, we do have a path forward. The path forward was paved and made available through Jesus Christ. The enemy came in with deception to pull us away from God, and God sent Jesus as a sacrifice for this sin so that we could once again be united with Him. What a love story we have here. Jesus paid the ultimate price so we could know that God is for us and not against, to welcome us back into the kingdom of heaven. Though heaven is eternal, and we are not there yet, we are ambassadors of heaven through Jesus Christ. When we make a decision to turn away from the deceit of the devil, and back to God and His Word, then we empower God’s best for our lives. God’s best is walking with God in relationship and loving others as yourself. In essence, loving God and loving people.

I look forward to sharing more about God’s impact in my life, along With His passion for us. We appreciate your support and look forward to partnering with you in sharing these messages so that others may too be inspired to pursue God’s best for their lives. We look forward to connecting with you on social media as well. God Bless!

 

Darin A. McGinnis II

CEO & Founder