John Hawkins

From Humiliation to Humility

“Stress reveals your idols,

and wrong idols were eating me up inside.

John Hawkins, 25-year veteran of the real estate/homebuilding industry, shared highs and lows of his spiritual journey and how his faith and work mix and affect his role today as president of Hawkins-Welwood Homes. When describing the company John says, “I’m called to serve Christ—and, by the way, we build homes.”

Although his company is one of the most successful builders of luxury homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, John’s road has not been a smooth one.  His commitment to Christ has been hammered out on the anvil of personal, as well as business, adversity.

Defining moments of John’s faith include when he learned “the difference between broke and broke-broke” in the mid 1980s. During the real estate crash John joined a men’s study group where he began to understand that his work matters to God and should be done for God’s glory. He says this was a game-changer for him. “I’ve always been driven, but that’s when I knew I was called.”

In 1994, a tragic accident in his partner’s family catapulted John into leadership of the company—before he was ready, in John’s estimation. But under his leadership business grew and the Hawkins-Welwood partnership was formed. From the beginning, they saw their work as significant to God and used their company to serve Christ by serving their employees and customers.

In 2002 at age 45, John suffered a major stroke, which he says was an opportunity for him and his wife Dianne to claim God’s love and understand that their blessings were in Christ—not in circumstances.

John recovered fully from the stroke and expressed how he felt at the beginning of 2006, “Texas had won the Rose Bowl and I just knew it was going to be a perfect year.” Instead, he says it was the beginning of the most difficult four years of his life. He lost a dear friend, his wife was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, the housing market went south, banks called loans, and he faced the possibility of having to close his business. All this brought John to a feeling of deep humiliation, but he says it was a gift from God.

In John’s case, humiliation brought humility by showing him what was out of order in his life. “Stress reveals your idols, and wrong idols were eating me up inside. Tim Keller’s book Counterfeit Gods really helped me identify misplaced priorities. The only person who ever sought out humiliation was Jesus. Second Corinthians 5:21 says, ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ Our humiliation is often necessary for our own good and is small compared to the humiliation that Christ suffered for us.”

John's humility works its way out every day on the jobsite. In an industry where conflict between a client and homebuilder is all too common, the company’s commitment to honor Christ not only drives them to excellence, but when conflicts arise, John reminds his people that honoring Christ is imperative. "That doesn’t imply that you let people run over you, but Christ-like humility also means that we don’t have to win.”