Anyone who sets out to follow a dream, soon discovers that they need a miracle or two along the way. In today’s program I’m joined once again by a special guest – Peter Irvine the former Managing Director of Gloria Jeans Coffees.

I'm joined by Peter Irvine, the Managing Director of Gloria Jeans Coffee. Ten years ago, Peter and his business partner, Nabi, had this crazy dream of opening a chain of coffee shops across Australia. And today there are over 250 Gloria Jeans Coffee shops right across the country. And, in fact, they've taken over the brand worldwide. It's easy for us to sit here, at this end of the equation and assume, “Wow! These guys are so successful, they must have had a dream all along the way. The whole thing must have been so well-planned that it just locked in brilliantly along the way.” Was that the case, Peter?

Peter Irvine: Well, we would have loved for it to have been like that. But, in fact, Jesus never promised that we wouldn't face problems or obstacles. He said He'd find a way through them with us.

Berni Dymet: What was the first crisis you hit? You know, you opened the first store in Miranda, I believe, in the southern suburbs of Sydney, I believe and then fairly quickly thereafter in the eastern suburbs of East Gardens.

Peter Irvine: That's right.

Berni Dymet: OK, you open a couple of stores. You are serving coffee. What happens?

Peter Irvine: Well, there are a number of obstacles you come up against. One of them is always cash flow in business—and that's in the early days. But even today it can be an issue unless it's being managed really carefully, the whole business. Secondly, you have people who don't want to deal with you because they don't think you are going to amount to anything; you won't succeed; you're going to fail, so, they don't want to be involved with you. That's changed today, now, they want to get on board. But we looked for partners who are part of the family. We see the whole business as a family; and who want to be with us, you know, long term. And if they are in for the short ride, they are not being part of the journey. But that's one issue. Then in 2002 we had a fire. It burned our whole building down.

Berni Dymet: That would have been fabulous!

Peter Irvine: It was. At eight minutes past midnight I got the call. I thought I was still dreaming. The whole building, our training, our support, our roasting and all our supply burned to the ground, it took three days to burn. You stand in the car park and say, "God, we have 92 stores open, what's Your plan, because I haven't any?” And He started to remind me of some of the stock we've got based elsewhere. We could fly stuff in. And we've got the people, which was the Henry Ford story we spoke about yesterday, I heard that two weeks before the fire. So, we started to rebuild. Within 24 hours, we were starting to supply stock to stores. Our competitors and the media all thought we would close up. That never entered my head; it was just, “Hey, we've got a big obstacle. How do we get through it.” One of the key things is I believe in miracles because I've seen it in business where God brings people, brings situations, changes peoples hearts that need to be changed. It might outside your dealing with people, but their hearts need changed and you see a whole turn around.

We have just seen it again this weekend in a major thing in South Africa since taking on the business.

Berni Dymet: Even early on you struggled…cash flow was an issue. I remember hearing you once speak at a conference where you talked about the fact that you were getting out of business by the next Friday if something didn't work.

Peter Irvine: That's right.

Berni Dymet: What was God's role in that? I mean how did God get involved in that?

Peter Irvine: Well, during my morning walk and jog, I was saying to the Lord, "It's about time something happened, like now, because we aren't going to last past the next couple of days.” And it was within a couple of days that we got a call from someone who wanted to become our first franchisee, knew we were struggling and said, "I'm prepared to work with you through all the risks and whatever." We were reluctant to do that. It's not the way we want to do business. But he kept insisting so he came on board; and he helped build the brand; and we moved on from that stage. You see, when I was in my thirties, it was one Sunday afternoon; I remember it. I was having a time with the Lord; and I sensed there was something in my spirit saying, "You really realize that your Bible is very small." And I said, "Lord, what do you mean?" And He said, "Well, you are mentally crossing out verses and chapters and books because people have been telling you and books you've been reading say, "That's not relevant today." And I opened the Word up and said, "Oh, You are right."

Berni Dymet: So, what had you been crossing out? What were you ignoring?

Peter Irvine: Things like, miracles don't apply today. The gifts that were around don't apply anymore. I kept seeing them in use, God blessing and using people. And I thought, well, it must be the devil because that is what I'd been taught. You see, but you are giving the devil all the glory for everything. Suddenly, the Word started opening up for me again, right from beginning to end about how God took His people and pushed through mountains, across chasms, blessed them to be a blessing to other people.

Berni Dymet: What do you say to someone who says, "Look, Peter, it's fine for you to say, 'We don't have a franchisee. We're going to close down. Some bloke came in out of the woodwork and he said, "I'm going to work with you."'" I mean it happens to people who don't believe in God too. I mean how do you ascribe something like this to the God that you believe in when you see good things happening to people who don't believe in God.

Peter Irvine: Well, an experience or a relationship with Jesus is a lifestyle. So, we don't only see that situation, we see it in dealing with our families, in our church involvement, we see it only every week in our business. So, it's a consistency and a lifestyle. And we've got to learn to bring our experiences up to God's Word, not bring God's Word down to our experience because if we only base it on our experience we are not going to feel good today or next week or something will happen and we suddenly say, "God's not listening to me." And that's not the way He works.

Berni Dymet: Are there any particular passages as you look back on your experiences with Gloria Jeans that really stand out that have blessed you with understanding how God works miracles in our lives?

Peter Irvine: Well, He works through people as well as speaking directly to us. One comes out in Proverbs where it says, "Plans fail for lack of counsel." We are encouraged there to seek counsel, get support, get ideas, bounce ideas off of people. We've got to be careful with that, but it's certainly one way that He provides answers to us. The other is, if we are open to Him and His Word verses will jump out to us. Other things that encourage me: when I look in 3 John 2, it talks about that we will prosper even as our soul is prospering. I always thought that meant from a spiritual sense. But you look at the context and actually it talks about all of life: physically, materially, spiritually that we should prosper.

And all this is not for ourselves but to be a blessing to other people when you look at it all in context. That was another verse where God says, "I have plans for you." Then in Jeremiah, He talks about enlarging and stretching when we become comfortable with our comfort zones. You know, we bring everything back to where we are comfortable and I don't find that He ever said we are to be comfortable in ourselves because that means that's a selfish thing. We need to be, obviously, at peace and comfortable with what we are doing in what He wants. But we can't ever sit back and say, "Oh, I've got enough. I'm going to look after myself. But what I learned, a probably even bigger lesson as I think about it is, "To whom much is given, much is required." I believe God gives us small starts, small things to see our faithfulness, to learn to grow, so we're building a foundation before we get to the bigger steps. Otherwise, it would ruin us.

Berni Dymet: In looking back on it all, I mean, you must sit there sometimes and go, "Wow, look at what God has done through this whole Gloria Jeans thing." Are there any insights, I mean, when you look at the miracles, the blessings that have happened along the way, the times that He has stepped in when you are thinking, what's next? Have you got any encouragement or insights for people who might be at the beginning of their dreams? Or who might be traveling through some difficult times in their dreams? What comes to mind?

Peter Irvine: Well, you've got to go back to, "Is this the calling?" And then you set your vision in relation with God. And it needs to be a big vision. Then you need to compare everything to it because the difficulties are going to come and will drag you off course or discourage you. Friends, family or other business people will come with ideas and you'll go, "That's fantastic." But many of those will take you off the course. And you've got to say, "That's where I am going. I need to say no. I need to take this "on board." I need to maybe take some of that.

We have to be careful or we'll be dragged off by good things, not always bad things off the course. That's the key thing is, to have a vision