Isaac Tolpin is today known as Resolute Man, one half of Courageous Parenting, husband of Courageous Mom, Angie Tolpin, and a home-church shepherd. Yet, his early life started out in an unbelieving household of a single, working mom.

God didn’t leave himself without a strong witness, though. At one point, Isaac and his sister had a run-in with the wrong side of the spiritual realm when they and their friends began messing around with a Ouija Board. Strange happenings began manifesting around the young Tolpins’ home culminating in a demonic attack from one of their friends. The friend, a girl they were on good terms with, uncharacteristically showed up unannounced one day. She sat down quietly and stared at Isaac with what he could only describe as “demonic eyes.” Without saying a word, the girl headed for their kitchen. Moments later she emerged with a large chef’s knife which she flung with all her might at Isaac. The knife narrowly missed his body and ricocheted off the arm of the chair he was sitting in. Panicked, Isaac hurriedly pushed her out the door. Thankfully, provided his sister with the wisdom to get rid of the Ouija. She found a Bible and burned the board while she read passages of scripture over it.

Even though Isaac knew the existence of the spiritual realm was indisputable after this episode, it didn’t lead to immediate conversion to following Christ. That would come much later when, during his college years, he had the good fortune to captain a branch for Vector Marketing, the marketing company that sells Cutco knives. He led his branch to be #1 in sales in the country, made a lot of money for his age and felt like he had a good grip on direction for his life.

This confidence was put into question, however, when the girl of his dreams walked through his office door. “I didn’t even believe in marriage until I met her!” Angie had just returned from a mission trip and was an all-or-nothing woman of God. Isaac had never met anyone like her and though he had a strict policy not to date any of his sales reps, he was smitten with her. Angie felt called to witness to Isaac and faithfully followed through but thwarted any possible romantic pursuits by actively severing ties to him afterward.

Though Isaac wanted to be with Angie and couldn’t have her, he could possibly have her faith and he realized he needed to figure out what he thought of Jesus and the Bible. God was drawing him powerfully and he found himself going to services, sometimes two a day, every weekend. He searched scripture and sought God. Finally one day he had a spiritual encounter and called Angie in the middle of the night. She told him he needed to accept Christ which he promptly did upon hanging up.

The next day he was shocked by the immediate change in himself. He had previously been wary of what he’d have to give up to follow Christ and now he found himself just not desiring any of those things. Soon after, Isaac and Angie got together and were married a year later.

Isaac found that his conversion to Christ had made him an even better businessman. Higher quality candidates were attracted to work in his business and, after climbing the ranks to division manager, he saw God do something truly remarkable. His division was selling about $5,000,000 a year and was consistently finishing number two in sales out of 40 divisions. During a prayer time he asked God to help him grow the division’s sales. God responded with specific instructions about giving God glory for every success and being obedient to everything the Spirit told him to do. From that point forward the Holy Spirit began to give specific instructions on how to run the division and, though the directions were unconventional for how things were usually ran in the company, Isaac obediently implemented the changes. The result was that during the Great Recession his division doubled in sales and crushed previous company sales numbers.

Even better, though, his decision to follow Christ had given something much more important to live for than just sales numbers. During his time as a division manager, he was able to publicly declare his faith with his many speaking engagements at conferences as well as one on one with people he was leading and working with. Now he was endeavoring toward eternal things rather than mere temporal goals.

Later, he realized it was his time to leave the company and he started a new company of his own. Unfortunately, pride got in the way and the company failed. The family lost all their money and they were also stuck with a half million in debt. But God was faithful to fully pay off the entire debt within two years and to lead Isaac back to humility.

It was within a few years of this that God led Isaac and Angie to start Courageous Parenting, which is a ministry designed to help Christian parents lead with intention and conviction in an uncertain world. Isaac and Angie know a thing or two about this topic as they have eight children of their own. Their youngest is 1-year-old and their oldest is enrolled at Liberty University. Angie has also been blogging under the name Courageous Mom for quite some time. You can find her book on Christian postpartum care here. Their podcast has blown up with over 12,000 downloads per week and 200 people or more have already been through their six-week parenting mentor program. Justin listens to the podcast regularly and heartedly recommends it!

Listen to this week’s episode for all the amazing details of Isaac’s story as well an amazing parenting tip for discipling your kids!