On June 16, 2026, Jake Nichols of the The Cowboy State Daily Morning Show interviewed author Gary Meisner on his book Life Through a New Lens. Jake hosts the show from 6-10 am weekdays, and was a great interviewer. with a fun, no nonsense style that you would expect in the Cowboy State.
Per The Cowboy State Daily Show:
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Afterwards, Hayley McKee shared, “Gary, you were fantastic! Thank you so much for joining us.”
I’d like to thank Jake and Hayley for the opportunity to be featured on the show.
Transcript
Finding God Where Reason and Faith Meet: My Interview with Jake Nichols
A conversation with Jake Nichols on the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show about Life Through a New Lens, my journey from agnosticism to faith, and the unexpected path that led to my earlier book on the golden ratio.
Jake Nichols: We are back from break, and we’re going to get into the Zoom room and meet Gary Meisner.
Gary spent more than 25 years in business as a CFO and CIO, supplemented by eight years of independent consulting. That was his white-collar day job. Now I think he’s creating another chapter in his life.
He has become a writer, and I’m very interested in reading his latest book, Life Through a New Lens: Finding God Where Reason and Faith Meet. There are so many skeptics, agnostics, and people walking away from faith today. I think some believe that science and God are in opposition. This book will speak to people who have walked away from church or faith and ask them to consider exactly why.
What if the God they doubted is real and wants to be known?
Don’t be afraid. Take a look. Read the book. You may discover something you hadn’t seen before.
It reminds me a little of Lee Strobel, the skeptic who came to faith by researching. He wanted to say, “Prove it.” Gary, you’re a very good researcher. I think that’s in your wheelhouse. Let’s talk about this book without giving too much away, because I want everybody to read it.
Gary Meisner: Sure, Jake. I’ve been trying to get away from the corporate world for a long time. I wrote a book in 2018 that was, in some ways, a precursor to this one. I retired in September, so this is my first book out of the gate in this new chapter. I’m looking forward to more opportunities like this. Thank you for having me on.
Jake: Good for you. I want to talk about the golden ratio a little later if we have time. I think you’re on the right path here. What inspired this book? How do you convince a publisher that this is going to be popular and widely read? Tell me how it all got started.
Gary: I’m self-publishing this book, so when it came to convincing someone, I had a little meeting of me, myself, and I.
This is something that has been on my heart for a long time. As I neared retirement, I set about writing it with a passion because there is a lot of me in this book. It includes many personal stories and retraces the path I took from being a deeply cynical, even militantly cynical, agnostic and skeptic to becoming a man of faith.
Jake: So maybe you were a “show me the nail holes” kind of Thomas. What often converts someone is steady investigation, as with Lee Strobel: “I don’t believe this. Show me.” Then you begin looking at the design of everything around us and start to think, “No, this was created by somebody. This didn’t simply fall into place.”
For you personally, Gary, was there a moment of revelation? Did something happen in your life?
Gary: There was. Even if you look at Lee Strobel’s work, he approached it analytically and tried to disprove God, but I think he ultimately came to a moment you might call revelation or personal experience. Even with C.S. Lewis, there was a point when the light suddenly came on.
Looking at things rationally and scientifically is a great way to approach the question if that is how you’re wired. Ultimately, though, it was a personal experience that carried me across the threshold. Then I began seeing life through a new lens. When you look from a different perspective, you start seeing things you had dismissed or missed before.
Jake: Can you share what happened? Were you plucked from a car accident? What was it?
Gary: Nothing so dramatic. It was more a case of the traditional white-collar blues. I had a successful corporate career, a wife, nice cars in the garage, and all of that. Then I reached a point when I was facing a great deal of pressure in my career and marriage.
We relocated from Chicago to Nashville. I was so cynically skeptical that I wanted nothing to do with religion. One of my first thoughts was, “What is it going to be like to live in the Bible Belt?”
I found out fairly quickly. Our new neighbors invited us to a church service. Afterward, I told my wife, “If you ever want to go to that church again, it will be without me.” That shows you where my heart was.
About five weeks later, though, she went back home with the kids, and I was alone. I felt a need to do something I had never done on my own: go to church. So I found a church and attended a service.
I won’t go into all the details here, but during that service I suddenly realized there was a vast gulf between God and me. It was like going camping and waking up on the wrong rim of the Grand Canyon. You look across and think, “Oh my God, there’s this enormous gap, and I’m on the wrong side of it.”
I would call it a moment of awakening or enlightenment. There was a presence there. I realized something was real that I had been missing.
I’m an analytical guy. I go deep on everything. That experience set me on a multiyear course of reading the Bible and digging deeply into science and philosophy. I read the scriptures of five or six major world religions. The more I studied, the more everything I had held onto as “science,” along with the idea that there was no need for God, crumbled beneath me.
I began to see that the evidence for God was present in both the spiritual and scriptural side of life and in reason, science, and mathematics.
Jake: I can’t speak for our Creator, but I think God appreciates people who move simply on faith. We’ve all met believers who don’t need to do the research. They just believe.
But I also appreciate people like you. You’re a numbers guy and a CPA.
Gary: I’m a left-brain guy.
Jake: You did that your whole life. The math needed to work before you could get there. And you got there.
Gary: Very much so.
Jake: Does the book share this journey so that perhaps somebody else can read themselves into it?
Gary: Yes. My journey from childhood and high school forward is in the book. It isn’t a memoir in the sense that it simply tells my life story, but I use many personal stories and life lessons to express what I’ve experienced and learned.
I took a somewhat unusual approach. Whenever you go on a memorable trip, what do you do? You take pictures. Then you come home and show friends and family: “Look at these pictures. Look what I did. Look where I’ve been.”
I found myself in a similar position. I had been on a journey, but it wasn’t one that required a passport or an airplane ticket. It was a journey deep inside me. How could I return from it and tell others what I had seen?
I’m a visual person, and I began noticing images in magazines and elsewhere that made me think, “Yes, that captures it.” So I put the book together almost like a travelogue. It has 50 short, accessible chapters. Each includes a unique, thought-provoking photograph and a brief story built around it.
The book begins by exploring the filters through which we see the world. Why do we believe what we believe? What obstacles do we create through intellectual pride or the assumption that science has all the answers? It then considers what lies at the heart of faith. Religion isn’t fundamentally about rules; it’s about relationship.
I walk through the stages I experienced and share them through stories, while also bringing in spiritual and scientific depth. The result is a blend of several kinds of books.
Jake: A life fully examined and realized. Gary has probably been where many people have been. You achieve success in the material world: a great job, a wife, and everything else. Yet there is still a hole, still a hunger. You begin asking three questions: Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going?
If you can’t answer those, there is one book that will point you toward the truth. It isn’t Gary’s, but Gary’s is a good start.
Gary: Right. There are two books I’d recommend. [Both laugh.]
Jake: Life Through a New Lens: Finding God Where Reason and Faith Meet. You can learn more about Gary at GaryMeisner.com.
Gary: May I give you one quick link?
Jake: Yes.
Gary: Just go to OpenTheLens.com. It will take you to a page with information about the book and free access to the entire book online. You can also buy it in print or as an ebook from Amazon and other retailers. At OpenTheLens.com, you can read my story.
Jake: Very cool. Where were you in 2017 when you authored The Golden Ratio: The Divine Beauty of Mathematics?
You know, the golden ratio, sometimes known as phi. I once had an idea to incorporate pi into a science-fiction movie. Computers would be burning out their hard drives trying to calculate it to the final digit. In the opening scene, the machine would finally ding. It would reach the last number.
Gary: And then what happens? “I’ve been surfing all night, and I finally reached the end of the Internet.” That kind of thing. [Both laugh.]
Jake: Right, exactly. I’m interested in reading your golden ratio book. It has been translated into nine languages and has been out for a while.
Gary: That book was an outgrowth of the experience I just described. I’m Mr. Math, Mr. Analytical. Once I came to faith, I began looking at nature and its design. I became fascinated by the golden ratio, which appears in mathematics and geometry, in nature, and in the arts.
Back in 1997, during the early days of the Internet, I was a technology-minded guy who needed a subject for learning HTML and building a website. I created a page with information about the golden ratio and began receiving visits from all over the world. I registered GoldenNumber.net in 2001. During the early 2000s, the site was receiving about a million visits a year from people wanting to learn about the golden ratio. Some wrote to tell me about new discoveries. I had essentially created a community for discussion and discovery around the topic.
Then, in 2017, a publisher approached me and said, “We want to publish a book on this subject. Would you be the author?” I thought, “Yes, let’s do it.”
Jake: Wow.
Gary: Much of my existing content had to be redone because I didn’t own the rights to all the images, so I undertook another major round of research and discovery for the book.
That book, too, grew out of my journey to faith, which enriched my life in unexpected ways. It brought contacts and friendships across mathematics, science, psychology, religion, art, and graphic design. It took on a life of its own.
Jake: Now that the corporate job is no longer consuming your time, are we going to see more from you? You seem like someone who has to research and write about what he learns.
Gary: I’m naturally curious and have a hard time relaxing. Since retiring, I’ve thrown myself into getting this book out into the world. It reached Amazon only a couple of weeks ago, and I haven’t even had my official launch yet. Your show may be my official launch.
Jake: Tell me the quick link again. Where can people learn more and get the book?
Gary: OpenTheLens.com. The page provides an overview of everything, with links to read the entire book free online or buy it on Amazon.
I’ve also created several free companion resources. The discussion guide can be used by a small group or book club. I also created A Skeptic’s Guide to the Existence of God, which presents the classic arguments for and against God’s existence. You can find all of those resources there.
Jake: I don’t know what it is, but I love it when a doubter, especially a skeptical person with an analytical mind, comes to the realization I wish we all would: We were created by God for a purpose, and there is somewhere we are going.
Gary Meisner, the light bulb went on, even for an accountant nerd.
Gary: God saves accountants, too.
Jake: Yes, He does. Gary, thank you for being on.
Gary: Thank you, Jake. I appreciate it. Have a blessed day.
Jake: Thank you. You too.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability while preserving the substance and conversational character of the original interview.