Dr. James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family and Family Talk, who passed away peacefully on Thursday at age 89, was not only my friend and mentor but also, at one time, my boss. It has been said, “You shouldn’t meet your heroes, as you’ll likely be disappointed.” Yet when I first met Dr. Dobson in 1995, my admiration only deepened. He became a mentor, and I later had the privilege of serving as one of his Vice Presidents at Focus on the Family from 2001 to 2004. I thought I’d share a memory about him you might enjoy.

How Dr. Dobson loved the Lord and could hear Him through His Word and His Spirit.

As Vice President and Physician-in-Residence at Focus on the Family (FOTF), I was privileged to meet and pray with Dr. Dobson almost daily, and I traveled with him often.

He was the real deal. What people saw on the outside was reflected from the deepest part of him — nothing fake or hypocritical.

When we traveled together, the first three activities of every day were a Bible reading time, a prayer time, and then he hit the treadmill. Every. Single. Day. Even days we were in Washington and heading to the White House that morning. He had begun his daily walks on the treadmill after his heart attack in 1990.

But his walk with and love of Jesus was even more intense than his exercise routine. He learned to listen to and hear the whispers of His Father’s Spirit. Here’s an example of that.

One day, Monday, August 6, 2001, Dr. Dobson walked into my office at FOTF at the end of the day to see if I could join him in the studio the next morning to record a special program for release on Wednesday, August 8. He strongly sensed the Holy Spirit wanted him to record a program about the White House Bioethics Commission that had been appointed by President George W. Bush just after his inauguration earlier that year. The Commission was debating what the President should do about embryonic stem cell research.

Dr. Dobson wanted to let FOTF constituents know how critical this issue was to the unborn babies who were in these frozen orphanages, as embryos, who would be destroyed by such “research.” He asked me what I thought. I was concerned that it was too early for a “call to action” as the White House staff was telling us that there would be no announcement until after Labor Day.

“Should we wait until we know more about what is being recommended to the President and what he is considering?” I asked.

“That makes perfect sense,” he said. “Except, I strongly sense the Holy Spirit leading me to do this now.”

Well, that settled that. He was adamant that he believed the Spirit was leading him to record a “call to action” the very next day.

He asked me what I thought the “call to action” should be. Should he get constituents to call the White House, their Senator’s office, and their congressman’s office? Or something else?

We prayed together. What was my advice to him?

“Dr. Dobson, I sense you should encourage your listeners not to shut down the phone lines in Washington (which they could easily do), but rather, to devote a day of prayer, the very day of the broadcast, for wisdom for our President, and to call their pastors and church to do the same all that day.” He smiled, and that’s what he decided we would do.

We were in the studio the next morning, Tuesday, August 7, recording the program. Of interest, a photographer from the Colorado Springs Gazette was there that morning, taking pictures. They posted this photo with Dr. Dobson’s obituary this week (what are the odds!?!?).

Anyway, so what happened?

The broadcast went out on a Wednesday, August 8, across the country.

Then, the very next day, on Thursday morning, August 9, the day after Dr. Dobson’s plea for FOTF listeners to pray that day for President Bush, the White House announced the President, who was at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, was going to have a press conference late that afternoon to announce his decision.

It turns out the President had been praying on Wednesday at his ranch about the final decision he would announce the next day.

The Holy Spirit had orchestrated Dr. Dobson’s encouragement to countless hundreds of thousands of listeners to pray for the President on the same day the Holy Spirit had led the President to devote a day to pray about the issue and his final decision.

Dr. Dobson was invited to be on Larry King’s national TV show that Thursday evening, just after the announcement, to discuss the President’s decision. We listened together in his office to the President’s announcement (Dr. Dobson, Shirley, Paul Hetrick, Barb, my wife, and me). We were stunned. It was an amazing announcement. As we took the elevator down to the studio for Dr. Dobson’s interview, Shirley said, “Jim, you have to throw the President a HUGR bouquet.” Dr. Dobson smiled. “Walt, what do you say?” I remember my eyes misting. “Jim, I think it was Lincolnian.” Dr. Dobson provided the bouquet and the Lincolnian quote during the interview.

The secular world saw it this way:

George W. Bush’s decision on stem cell research, announced on Thursday, August 9, 2001, allowed federal funding for research on existing embryonic stem cell lines but prohibited funding for research on new lines created after that date. This policy was often characterized as a compromise between those who opposed embryonic stem cell research on ethical grounds and those who advocated for its potential scientific and medical benefits.

The analogy to a “Lincolnian decision” refers to the idea of a difficult and divisive issue where a leader attempts to find a middle ground or a way to move forward despite strong opposing viewpoints, similar to Abraham Lincoln’s handling of the issue of slavery during the American Civil War.

Bush’s decision aimed to balance the needs of science with ethical considerations surrounding the destruction of human embryos. It sought to support research while avoiding the use of taxpayer funds to encourage the creation and destruction of new embryos for research purposes.

The policy was implemented with the understanding that the existing cell lines, created from embryos that had already been destroyed, presented a way to proceed with research without crossing a “moral line” regarding the destruction of human embryos.

I was convinced the Holy Spirit’s leading to get Dr. Dobson to encourage prayer for wisdom for our President on the very same day the President was praying for the same thing, was used mightily by God, for our country’s good, the good of the frozen unborn, for the good of the President’s legacy, and for the glory of God, His Kingdom, and His righteousness.

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