SPIRITUALLY
DIRECTING THE PRESIDENT

Topics: Commitment; Conversion; Discipleship; Encouragement; Evangelism; Friendship; Influence; Mentoring; Ministry; Purpose; Spiritual Direction; Spiritual Growth

References: John 15:15; Proverbs 17:17; 18:24

Gerald R. Ford found Christ with the help of a Hollywood director. When Ford was a young congressman in Michigan, Billy Zeoli, a gospel film executive, stopped by Ford’s office and gave him a Bible. Over the next few years, the two men became so close that Ford called Zeoli “an alter ego, a second self.”

They both loved sports. Ford had been an All-American football player, and Zeoli created a ministry for professional athletes. Zeoli was holding a service for the Dallas Cowboys at a Washington-area Marriott hotel. Ford went to hear his friend preach on “God’s game plan.” Ford was especially moved by the sermon and hung around to talk with Zeoli about Christ and forgiveness and what it meant. The inquiry felt real and raw; but was that the moment Ford committed himself to Christ? “It’s hard to say when a man does that,” Zeoli says plainly. “That’s a God thing. But I think that day is the day he looked back to as an extremely important day of knowing Christ.”

When Ford became vice president in the fall of 1973, Zeoli began sending him a weekly devotional memo titled God’s Got a Better Idea. Ford referred to those memos as “profound in their meaning and judicious in their selection.” Beyond the memos, Ford and Zeoli would meet privately every four or five weeks for prayer and Bible study.

—Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, “The Other Born-Again President,” Time (January 15, 2007)