The Chick-fil-A Guy: Faithfulness at Every Stage of Life
A breakfast conversation with Rob Taylor shows how conversion, honest work, hospitality, and years of experience can become continuing service to Christ and people.
#425 — The Chick-fil-A Guy - Christians are the Best!
May 4, 2026
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A useful story across the breakfast table
Sometimes a conversation gives you a picture of faithfulness you did not know you needed. During a preaching visit to Colorado Springs, I met Rob Taylor and later had breakfast with him. Our conversation covered conversion, work, changing direction, hospitality, and serving people as the years pass. What encouraged me was the way those parts of his life fit together. Here was someone who had learned from experience and was still glad to use what he knew to help other people.
Some knew Rob as the Chick-fil-A guy because of his years operating restaurants. The conversation helped me see the faith and care for people behind that familiar description. The deeper impression was of a man who had learned to place work within a larger commitment to Christ and people. His story does not promise that every career decision will succeed or every prayer will produce the opportunity we expect. It does show how integrity and purposeful service can make the years of a life increasingly useful.
Encouragement begins with showing up
Rob had already encouraged me before we sat down to breakfast. He attended the meeting at another congregation in town, and Christians from his congregation supported the services through the week. Showing up made a difference. The visiting preacher and the host congregation received encouragement they could see. We sometimes underestimate that simple gift. Giving our time to study, sing, pray, and be with fellow Christians helps people know that their faithful work and their fellowship matter to us.
Hebrews 10:24–25 asks us to consider how to encourage love and good works as we gather. That thoughtful care can reach beyond the opportunities we already find easiest. Visit a faithful work nearby, support an opportunity for study, or speak warmly to someone you have not met. Old tensions and habits of distance can become excuses for missing present opportunities. Genuine encouragement often begins with a simple, visible decision to be there and care.
Your beginning does not set your limit
Rob became a Christian at twenty-seven. He had not received all the advantages of growing up in Bible classes, but the gospel gave his adult life a different direction. He went on to serve and help others among God's people. That is good news for anyone who feels permanently behind because of a late beginning. There will be things to learn, and learning takes humility. But the lack of an early start is no reason to decide you have nothing useful to offer now.
Childhood teaching is a blessing to receive gratefully. Still, neither a strong religious background nor the absence of one decides what a person will do with Christ's invitation today. The New Testament is filled with adults whose lives changed when they heard and obeyed the gospel. What matters now is your response to Christ. Learn what you have not learned, seek wise help, and use the opportunities available to you. A past without those advantages can become part of a testimony to grace rather than a reason to remain inactive.
Work belongs within the larger life
In his late thirties, Rob saw that restaurant work was taking time his faith and family needed. He had responsibilities, experience, and young children, so changing direction was not a casual decision. He prayed and considered possibilities. Chick-fil-A did not appeal to him at first. Later, the food and the company's Sunday closure led him to give it another look. His experience invites a practical question: is the work that supports our family also leaving room to care for the life we say matters?
His particular opportunity will not fit everyone's circumstances, but the questions can help us examine any job. Work shapes time, stress, relationships, and the attention we have left to give. If it consistently overwhelms other responsibilities, ask whether a change is possible. Sometimes adjustments within the current work will help; sometimes another direction deserves serious consideration. Pray for wisdom as James 1:5 teaches, seek sound counsel, and examine practical realities. An unfamiliar opportunity deserves thoughtful evaluation rather than immediate rejection simply because it differs from your first plan.
Prayer and persistent effort belong together
Rob did not receive an immediate yes. After an initial rejection, he continued making courteous contact and explaining his interest. Eventually the process reopened and interviews followed. The obstacles are part of what makes the account helpful. We can pray about a reasonable opportunity and still need patience, preparation, and effort. We may also need to accept a different outcome. Persistence is useful when it remains respectful and honest, with enough humility to learn what the next step actually requires.
We cannot treat each opening as a guaranteed message from God or each closed door as a final explanation. Rob's gratitude for God's care can encourage us without becoming a formula. Faithful persistence remains respectful of other people’s boundaries and responsive to actual circumstances. Colossians 3:23–24 teaches wholehearted work for the Lord. That principle applies while waiting, applying, learning, and accepting an outcome as well as after a desired opportunity arrives.
Integrity must be there before it is examined
One interview question concerned Rob's conduct at his current restaurant. His employer could confirm the integrity he described. That detail deserves attention. A reputation is being built long before the moment someone asks about it. We cannot make up years of honest work with a polished answer during an interview. The decisions we make when we are simply doing the job become evidence of what our convictions mean. Faithfulness today prepares us to speak truthfully about ourselves when a new responsibility arrives.
Once he entered the new work, Rob used his experience to care for employees, customers, and others. Hospitality meant giving people attention, and leadership included helping workers know they mattered. First Peter 4:10 teaches believers to use received gifts in service to one another. Our particular skills may involve managing a team, preparing food, organizing a project, listening patiently, or mentoring someone younger. Whatever the skill, Christian purpose asks how its use can bless people. Work becomes more meaningful when those around us are treated as people to care for rather than instruments of achievement.
Ask the question that opens the story
There are encouraging stories around us that we may never hear unless we ask. Ask a Christian how they came to faith, what a difficult season taught them, or why they changed the way they approached work. Then give the answer time. A person you know mainly by a job or a role may have experience that helps you see your own choices more clearly. Genuine listening allows that experience to become a gift instead of remaining hidden behind a familiar name.
Ask with real interest and respect for what someone prefers to keep private. A person does not owe us an inspiring story simply because we would like to hear one. Later, consider one principle you can practice rather than simply admire the experience. Rob’s story encouraged attention to hospitality and integrity. Someone else’s story may encourage patience, generosity, or courage. Relationships become richer when we receive those lessons with humility and eventually offer our own experience for another person’s good.
Keep finding joy in being useful
At seventy-three, Rob still enjoyed serving. He spoke warmly about people and experiences and could find humor in his age. What stayed with me was the sense that he remained available to others. Years of work had become something he could use in shepherding, hospitality, friendship, and encouragement. There is a useful invitation there for every age: keep learning how to love with the life you have. Experience becomes more valuable when we are willing to turn it toward somebody else's good.
Psalm 92:12–15 pictures the righteous bearing fruit in old age. Health and opportunities may change, but usefulness can take forms suited to the strength a person has now. A phone call, a prayer, a shared story, a wise question, or a patient conversation can bless another life. Wherever you are in the years God has given you, keep learning to love. Seek faithful company, work with integrity, and turn experience into service. The most encouraging part of a story like Rob’s is the invitation to begin doing that now.
Take the idea with you.
- 01Whose story of faithfulness would encourage me if I took time to listen?
- 02Does my work support the responsibilities God has given me, or consistently crowd them out?
- 03How can I use my experience to serve someone in this stage of life?
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