Cement Logic’s Johnston: Choosing Adaptability, Gratitude

Ben Johnston (right), co-owner of Cement Logic LLC and Johnston Brothers Construction, is coming back strong, along with his brother and co-owner, Randy Johnston. You can learn more about their remodeling and construction businesses at cementlogic.net and johnstonbrothersconstruction.com.

What are some ways the COVID-19 outbreak has affected your organization, and how is it rebounding?

At the time of the outbreak, our business was focused in kitchen and bathroom remodeling. When the news came out that everything was shutting down, the projects we were working on were nearing completion and all of our prospective projects were essentially cut off. It was a very unfortunate situation at the time because our business was thriving in that market. The worst part of it all was that we had to make the call to lay off two full-time employees. 

Our Triune God is faithful to provide, though, and is in control of everything, even COVID-19. We were given the opportunity to start a home addition for some good friends of ours. God bless them for taking a big risk and a true leap of faith to continue with their plans to add space to their home for their growing family. I am extremely grateful to God and to them for giving us the opportunity to shift back into full-scale residential new construction. It is something we had been hoping to do for some time, as a lot of the designs, upgrades and renovations we were doing on the remodeling end of things were inspiring us to start from scratch in full-scale home design-builds. Residential construction is where our roots are. We first started out working for our dad’s construction company when we were 10 to 12 years old.

Our experience in renovating existing buildings has given us great insight and inspiration to design and build more efficient living spaces from the foundation up. The biggest thing for our business, and probably everyone’s business in events like this, is being adaptable. We have always tried to stay open to different opportunities and not focus in one area too much. I believe having an open mind to spontaneous change and a willingness to take risks is the key to success or even just simply contentment in any time. This is America, a land of great opportunity, but nobody ever said it was going to be easy living.

How has the outbreak affected your personal life?

The outbreak itself is best left to prayer and God’s healing. The situation as a whole can be a real nuisance if we let it be. In respect to the family and study time it has afforded, I am grateful. I tend to work long days so it was a blessing to just spend some time with my family and hunker down at home for a little bit. I love studying the Bible and reading Reformed Theology books so it was a great opportunity to find myself immersed in some writings that glorify God even in the darkness of the times. It has been a great time to be further assured of the absolute sovereignty of God in all areas of life, whether it be spiritual or His physical creation. He is working all these things for the good of His will, whether we can see it in our time or not.

What steps are you taking to come back strong?

My brother and I are hands on and love building stuff so it has always been the same routine really. Wake up at 4 a.m., pray, drink coffee, work as hard and long of a day as humanly possible, spend time with my kids and my wife, go to bed, repeat. One of my most tried and tested strategies for being productive and efficient is to ignore the news entirely, ignore the weather forecast, and trust God will put everything in to place out in the path ahead of me. I believe this is referred to as “burying your head in the sand,” but I like to look at it as “keeping your eye on the sky.”

In a practical sense, we started hosting online design meetings where we can walk clients through a custom 3D model and interact with them through the design process. It has proven to be a very efficient process for collaborating with our clients on piecing together their vision in the virtual world before ever digging the shovel in. 

What advice are you sharing with the people you love?

I have heard a lot of people say “this will all pass” and I don’t think that is ever something we can say with complete confidence. I don’t think there is anything that we can be guaranteed in this life except that we will certainly die someday. Could be today, tomorrow or far off. The good news is that we can be assured of where we are going when this stage of life ends by having faith in Jesus Christ and the salvation he accomplished for the world over by God’s grace alone. I do believe that nobody dies in soul but in body. The soul will live on in eternal separation from God or eternal glory with God … so, if we can possess complete assurance that we will not see death in the grace of Christ, what is there to fear, ever? There are much worse things than a virus in this life. There is one thing that is far worse than anything in this life – being separated from God in death. Repent and believe in the Lord is the only advice I can share with anyone in confidence that there will be an eternal reward.