06/07/2024
Transcript from my 2016 video recording entitled "Grace & Favor in Business".
Grace & Favor in Business by Dr. Gary L. Sorensen 30 March 2016
GREETING
"Howdy! That is how you greet people when you grow up in Texas. My name is Dr. Gary Sorensen and I did grow up in Texas.
As you can see I am not in the early stage or even middle stage of my career. I am in the Third Act, if you will.
My first 20 years was spent in academic and consulting business. My bachelor degree was in Civil & Environmental Engineering, my masters in City, Urban and Environmental Planning and my doctorate in Architecture and Environmental Design. My research was in Materials and Environmental Sciences, and my consulting included all the above plus Environmental Health.
Do you see a trend? I liked the Environment or God's creation.
In my second 20 years I left the university and became an Environmental Entrepreneur and businessman. At first it was a poor transition but through experience and hard knocks I became better. I am currently a minor owner in a cutting edge water treatment company for the most difficult wastewaters and primary owner of a revolutionary solar and heat transfer company.
Now into my 3rd twenty years my focus has changed to that of an Environmental Philanthropist, mentor and investor in emerging disruptive technologies in four key areas: Energy, Water, Life and Living. My nonprofit Reborne Global Trust is already working with inventors and visionaries whose embryonic technologies could well be valued in the $trillions.
GRACE and FAVOR
Because of my background, as I look at the environment, the earth, the created universe and the Kingdom I see systems and processes, equilibrium and balance of forces. Today I want to talk to you about the balance of two forces, GRACE and FAVOR in Life and in Business.
Rather than start with the 14 dictionary definitions of GRACE or 15 for FAVOR, I want to begin by planting revelation seeds in you by way of my experiences with GRACE and FAVOR. They are no more important than yours and probably less dramatic than many of your experiences. However, if you are taking notes, I would like you to jot down what experience are triggered in your memory so that we can collectively explore some revelations.
My story of from THEN to NOW begins in April 1916, a hundred years ago. In a small rural town of North Dakota, USA a child was born that was 2 months premature. Now even today 2 months premature is a concern but 100 years ago in a small town with no hospital and no critical care unit, there would be much concern for such a child. Because of GRACE and FAVOR that child did survive and eventually grew up to be, MY FATHER. 1
First lesson to note is that GRACE and FAVOR can be GENERATIONAL. When Noah found FAVOR in the eyes of the Lord that FAVOR extended to his first and second generation. That FAVOR brought 80 years of hard work, ridicule by his neighbors and scoffers, self-doubt and perhaps questioning his FAVOR. What kept him going, not taking offense, not becoming resentful or bitter? GRACE. What protected him from himself? GRACE
How far back in your genealogy do you have to go to see that you are alive today because of GRACE and FAVOR?
Let's move on to the summer of 1951. My family and one of my uncle and aunts family lived about 250 miles apart, us in Texas them in Oklahoma. In the summer we would often meet at a resort or lake in between our homes so that the four cousins could play. I was 2 1/2 years old and this is my earliest memory. We were at Lake Texoma at the beach. The lake was roped off for wading and swimming. I now know the reason for the ropes and floaters. I was wandering and wading. I was outside the ropes when I stepped into a deep hole. I remember reaching straight up with my arms and my hands but could not reach the surface of the water. I could not breath and just as I was fading out and could not see a very strong hand grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the water and placed me on shallow ground. I looked around and there was no one there. I saw my family and cousins far away inside the ropes. They were not close by, but when they saw me they soon were close. I tried to explain as best as a 2 1/2 year old could about someone pulling me out of the water, but no one had seen anyone. Looking back now I believe this was my first experience with grace and favor. I remember being calm during the entire event and to this day I have a very calm spirit around me.
Young teenage Joseph found FAVOR in the eyes of his heavenly father and his earthly father. I believe both saw Joseph as a gift of visionary FAVOR for his family and nation. But his brothers jealously only saw competition and favoritism not FAVOR. Joseph found himself placed in a hole by his brothers, but God's GRACE lifted him out of that hole and His FAVOR prevailed to elevate Joseph in Egypt and His GRACE prevailed to keep him from becoming offended, bitter, resentful and revengeful toward his brothers and when the time came his position allowed him to save his nation and family from famine. We often don't see either the FAVOR or GRACE immediately and often it appears to us to be the opposite happening.
In the 4th grade we had an open ended project to make a model of a house. I had a picture in my mind to make a free form earthen house that looked like a mound with (solar) lenses for windows and the nearby sidewalk and roadway were all the same material. I made a village that looked like it had been carved out of the ground. I remember explaining that everything was sprayed with a miracle glue to hold everything together. See where this story goes in college.
The Lord can implant FAVOR by giving pictures and glimpses and visions, even to the very young. In the 6th grade I discovered my first hero that was not a sports star. I did a report that include American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who was probably the most famous architect of the 20th century. A few months later my father had a conference in Wisconsin so we took our family summer vacation there. We were able to visit Talesin East which was the home, office and studio
for Wright who had just pasted away the previous year. It was my first chance to see the working studio of an architectural genius. In the studio I found out that only 10% of what this man designed was ever built. Then I saw it, one of the unbuilt designs, A VILLAGE THAT LOOKED LIKE IT HAD BEEN CARVED OUT OF THE GROUND. I recognized it from the 4th grade.
The Lord can link FAVOR together with common visions. His GRACE showed me for the first time in my life that my visions as a 12 year old might be important.
Two very important FAVOR events happened when I was 16 that would shape my career. First, I had begun to think about where I wanted to go to college and what I would study. I had narrowed the choice down to 5 Universities. My first choice had the largest civil engineering department in the free world. Without my knowing it one of my teachers had recommended me for a special National Science Foundation summer program for science and engineering at this first choice university. There were only 32 slots from our state. At the graduation service at the end of the program the President of the University happened to be available to present our certificates. In his closing remarks he stated "You are the type of student we want at our university and if you apply we will accept you." I did and I was.
I was walking in FAVOR in high school and someone who could grant FAVOR used GRACE to recognize FAVOR in me and placed me into a higher level of FAVOR. Than an authority figure who had GRACE to extend (increase) my FAVOR declared these are the conditions for you to partake of additional FAVOR and we have seen that you measure up and because of my authority I can extend to you FAVOR of your first choice of a university. Many people are part of the FAVOR process and they interlink at the appropriate times.
The second event that happened when I was 16 that impacted my late future life happened when I attended a major youth conference of about 10,000 people. The featured speaker was a chemist who had been nominated for the Nobel Prize in science. He was speaking on the vibration and frequencies of life. At the end of the talk he asked for questions to be submitted on the cards the ushers handed out. I submitted mine. Later that afternoon I received a response at my hotel room. The note said to meet him for breakfast at the hotel dining room. When we met the next morning he began by saying he had spoken to hundreds of thousands of youth and college students the past 20 years and no one had ever asked my question. The question was "Can I meet you for breakfast to discuss your work?" He then began to tell me the secrets of his Nobel work on atomic theory, vibrational mechanics and the frequency of the universe. Those seeds planted would come to fruition 40 years later in my company ThermoNeutronics.
Sometimes FAVOR is there for the asking, if you are not intimated.
The last semester of my senior year in college I was selected to work with a new construction material. It was a new "Miracle glue" that could hold shaped earth into any shape, from houses to sidewalks to roadways"(my 4th grade project). The only problem it cost $1000 per gallon. If only it cost less or there was another choice. Stay tuned.
Let's move into my early career after college. See if you see FAVOR in this. I had established a design company and was doing work in Houston. I was looking to move there and was reviewing the classified ads for an apartment. Right in the middle of the apartment ads was an ad for a teaching position in the department where I had graduated a few years before. I called for an interview and they said school starts next week, can you start then. I could and I did and my academic career had begun. A 6 month appointment eventually turned into a 20 year academic career of teaching and doing research at two major universities.
In the classroom I was more of a mentor than a teacher. I would often stop to answer a personal business question and tell the student why don't you try this and they would come back after the summer and say they tried that and it worked. For years I would meet students in town or at meetings out of town that would say they remembered the day I told them this or that and they used it in their careers. My teaching and mentoring career has now spanned 40 years and has ranged from 1st grade students to Ph.D. students.
My first twenty years I was an unknowing recipient of GRACE and FAVOR. Now I was becoming a participant in encouraging and passing on someone else's GRACE and FAVOR. After about 20 years the Lord told me "IT IS YOUR TURN".
In the Spring of 1984 I was sitting in my university office preparing for class. My office had a chalk board where I wrote class notes and also tried out ideas. Suddenly the Lord prompted me to go to the board and write the word THERMONEUTRONICS. There was no other revelation then but several hints over the next 30 years until the formation of ThermoNeutronics LLC in 2014.
Sometimes the Lord uses one word to imprint FAVOR in your life. In June 1993 while still at the university, I was invited to a friend's house to hear a "traveling preacher". When I arrived there were over 60 people in his living room and surrounding rooms listening to this man teaching. He was very interesting to listen to. When he stopped teaching he began to call individuals and couples out from the crowd and begin to "tell them their future", as I described it. This was my introduction to personal prophecy. He was about to quit and then he spotted me hiding in a corner. He gave me my first personal prophecy and told me I would be in business and told me I will be a minister of GRACE.
I began thinking about turning my research into a business. In September 1994 I met a delegation from Ivanho Power Institute of Russia. The Vice Chancellor I met used to be the head of the Soviet Space Agency. I told him of my plans to form a business to turn coal ash into building and construction materials. He said they have some of the largest coal ash deposits in the world around Moscov and invited me to visit and set up operations. They actually had large traces of silver in the ash if we could recover it. He said he would introduce me to the government, political and business leaders of Russia, then winked and said “And mostly to the ladies of Moscov”. Major RED FLAG went up in my spirit. The Lord spoke to me quickly about MAN’s FAVOR versus HIS FAVOR. I declined the offer.
By Dec 1994 I left the University to start my own business.
The Lord had given me the vision for a technology to turn ashes into construction materials. I assembled a Christian team with Christian investors. I prayed for FAVOR. I had FAVOR with a major utility and a major bank who joined our team. I was installing our equipment at our new facility and was getting close to opening this visionary business. I prayed for additional FAVOR and I was betrayed by our Christian attorney. I prayed for more FAVOR and both our major utility company and major bank went into merger and could no longer help us. I prayed for FAVOR again and was betrayed by Christian investors. I prayed for more FAVOR once more and we were able to sell the company but I lost everything I had invested. GRACE helped me endure.
As I continued to pray for FAVOR I began to cross paths with others with God given visions who had been betrayed by attorneys or investors or major corporate partners. I developed relationships with them and continued to collect more visions, technologies and relationships.
In 2012 a friend sent me a YouTube of a professor who was being interviewed on a major TV network morning show about a new solar technology that I immediately recognized as a solution to a solar vision I had since the 4th grade. I found his email address and sent him a note complimenting him on his technology and said that I would like to meet with him. He returned my email and we set up a meeting. Within 10 minutes we became business friends and began collaborating and did find that we had complimentary technologies not only for solar but also for desalination of water.
Many months later we were talking about that YouTube interview that brought us together. He revealed to me that from that interview he received 1600 invitations to meet with him but only accepted 1, mine. I, of course asked "Why me?" Because I signed my email to him with the expression "Live Blessed, Gary" (which I always do). He said he could see that I was a spiritual man and he was searching and he wanted to talk to a spiritual man. Can you say FAVOR? We were drawn together not because of my expertise or my experience but because of my FAVOR.
Gradually refined FAVOR helped me to develop water and solar technologies for my existing companies. Marcellus Shale Water Group LLC and ThermoNeutronics LLC.
The Lord was talking to me about Legacy visions and bringing together a collection of visionaries by forming Reborne Global Trust. By October 2014 the Reborne Global Trust Evergreen Fund began organizing. By this time I could recognize those individuals who had been through the GRACE FAVOR GRACE FAVOR cycle many times and had been humbled by it. In most cases it took only 5-10 minutes for us to recognize each other and build immediate and strong relationships. We all found that we had networks of visionaries who were bestowed with Godly visions that had been "hidden in plain sight for safekeeping" until the appropriate time and FAVOR relationships were built. It was confirmed that my GRACE and FAVOR role is as mentor for embryonic visionaries.
From my experience and this gathering of Legacy partners, I have collected some thoughts for how you may use GRACE and FAVOR in business. So let's reflect on our collective memories and seeds of revelation.
GRACE and FAVOR are not events but a process that cycles through us. FAVOR is like a stream where we dip our toes in, go ankle deep or “ask for more FAVOR” and are plunged head first into the deep waters and rapid currents. The power of GRACE allows us to survive and then thrive in FAVOR. We can choose to resist or assist. Sometimes we are not the chooser but we are the chosen, the protected chosen. Sometimes we ride the waves of our ancestors and sometime we cut the brush for our family and nation.
HOW TO USE GRACE AND FAVOR IN BUSINESS
1. Do you recognize where you are in the GRACE FAVOR process? It is His GRACE and FAVOR not yours. It does not always look like your plans. What does your genealogy and history tell you? How does He communicate GRACE and FAVOR revelations to you? Are you in shallow water or deep current? Are you assisting or resisting?
2. Do you recognize where others are in the GRACE FAVOR process? Your business partners? Are they in the recipient or participant mode? Your employees? Your vendors and contractors? Your clients and customers? Your competitors?
3. How can being more aware and open to GRACE and FAVOR equip you to be a change agent and participant in the GRACE PROCESS for others?
4. How does embracing the full meaning of GRACE and FAVOR change your view of a successful business?
5. How can these revelations change the course of your life's journey?
PRAYER
I pray that the seeds of prophetic revelation about GRACE and FAVOR today will grow below the surface and then break out and blossom at the appointed time. I pray that these revelations will help you to be aware, to prepare and to declare your walk in His GRACE and FAVOR. I pray that there will be no place for remorse or resentment for mistakes, missteps or missed opportunities to walk in His GRACE and FAVOR. I pray that there will be liberation and excitement and anticipation released in your Spirit. I decree and declare that the Lord's GRACE and FAVOR are now fully active in your life and business. Amen.
