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Mike Jones

On the outside I was looking pretty good. A nice family with three boys and doing well at work. But on the inside I had some serious problems. I’d been a closet cigarette smoker for the previous five years and was desperate to quit. All previous attempts had ended in failure and I was beginning to sense the toll my addiction was beginning to have on my physical and spiritual health. Also, my marriage was not going well.

Speaking of spiritual health, I was an unconverted church member. Every week I was in church but I didn’t know Jesus.

To illustrate how addicted to cigarettes I was, I was running out of time to finish writing a thesis for my master’s degree at American University, and crazy as this will sound, cigarettes helped me meet my deadline. My research was already done. So what I did was hole up in a motel for a week and started writing. To maintain momentum, however, I would allow myself to have a cigarette only after I had finished handwriting one full page of copy. 

It was crazy, but it worked. After smoking 168 cigarettes that week (I don’t know the real number), I finally completed writing my thesis. 

That will give you an idea how addicted I was. Cigarettes were my best friend and my worst enemy. My tennis game was rapidly deteriorating and I was beginning to have episodes of tachycardia (extra heart beats).

My wife and I had three sons and I had the added stress in my life of being a driven person. I directed my company’s advertising program and also its test marketing of new products.

The Decision to Quit

In New York City, I discovered additional stress. You see, I had arrived determined not to smoke, but every person at the seminar was smoking some kind of tobacco, mostly cigarettes. (This was in a time when you could smoke almost anywhere). Anyway, I didn’t have to light up. All I had to do was breathe.

Today those conditions would asphyxiate me. Back then I simply wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes and join the others. I was feeling pretty desperate.

When the first break came, I bolted for my room, which was in the same hotel where the seminar was being conducted. Falling on my knees, I began to pray. “Dear Lord, I need Your special help right now or I’m going to be smoking shortly,” I told Him. Then I headed back for the next session.

Keep in mind that I was not a Christian at this time. Churched, yes. But a Christian, no. I had grown up in the church and I believed in God. But so does the Devil. God didn’t have my life.

After returning to the seminar, I still wanted to smoke in the worst way. At noon, I hit a deli and bought a sandwich, then headed back to my room to pray. That was the way my day went. Attending the seminar and praying every spare minute.

At the end of the day, I ate a light bite and went to bed—early.

The next two days were largely repeats of Day 1.  Attending the seminar and praying. Praying and attending the seminar. The battle raged like this for three days.

But when I awoke Friday morning, the last day of the seminar, I knew something was different. I had a sense of peace that was wonderful. Also, I had no desire to smoke. My desire for a cigarette was flatout gone.

During the first moments of the seminar, I knew for sure that I was really okay. As usual, everyone lit up. But as the smoke from 25 or so cigarettes curled around me, I no longer had any desire to smoke. I was free at last.

What had happened? I don’t have all the answers, but I distinctly remember telling God during my time of Jacob’s Trouble over that four-day period, “Take me, I’m yours. But help me not to smoke.”

I had asked God for help and had invited Him into my life. He accepted the offer. Not only did He give me a complete victory over my smoking addiction, God also showed me what it was like to experience Him on the inside. Once that happened, I knew I didn’t want that experience to end.

Back then I didn’t understand everything that happened. I just knew that I had a peace and joy in my life I could hardly believe. I had received a new nature. The Bible calls this experience that of getting a new heart.  “I will give you a new heart,” He tells us, “and put a new spirit within you and take away your heart of stone.”—Ezekiel 36:26. 

I was born again and loving it.

When a person is born again, he or she receives a new divine nature through the Holy Spirit’s wonderful work. The selfish, nasty person becomes gracious and loving. The negative person becomes positive, the depressed joyful, the person who’s been full of himself starts putting others first. The changes are quite profound.

In my case, after getting home I think I became a better husband and father. I quickly decided I didn’t need to be president of my company and I stopped working nights and weekends. When the company was sold about a year later, I was the only employee offered a position with the new company. I turned it down because my priorities were now different.

The president of my company couldn’t believe it. He told me, “Mike, you can take this job and go up to Chicago and not even be overly successful and you will still have a terrific career path ahead of you just by being with this company.”

I prayed about what to do. The purchasing company sent a private plane from Chicago to Columbus and flew me up to meet with some of their vice presidents and others in the marketing arena.

A few days later after considerable prayer, I turned down their offer.

Within a few months and out of the blue, the president of Andrews University called and asked me if I would consider teaching journalism courses at my alma mater. After consulting with both God and family, I accepted and left the business world.

Don’t think for a minute that everything was hunky dory after that. After that, all the “why?” questions started coming. Because it seemed to me that I was terrible teacher. For two years I gave it my best shot and was distraught most of the time sure that I wasn’t getting the job done. Many a time back then, I asked God, “Why?  Why did you bring me here?”

Two years later I received a phone call and was asked to meet with the general manager of the Review and Herald Publishing Association who was flying in to visit with me. What he told me was incredible. Some committee in Washington, D.C., he said, had voted to invite me to become the second editor of my denomination’s national publication for youth and young adults—Insight Magazine.

After much prayer (for I had also been invited to become a minister in Canada), I accepted this invitation and went on to have an awesome experience with that publication.