Whenever Ken and I talk about living by faith, I know there are some people who think, Oh, that's easy for you. You're preachers. You have it made!
And, in some ways, we do. We have it made because our calling demands
that we give God our attention, and giving God your attention always
brings success.
But we haven't always lived that way. In fact, the
first time I ever saw Kenneth Copeland, he was about as far from a
preacher as I figured you could get. He flew planes and sang in
nightclubs. As for me, I was a college girl who said she would never
marry a preacher and who had never even heard about the new birth.
Right
after we got married, Ken went into a business enterprise that we
thought was going to make us rich. So I quit my job and went to work for
this new company. Two weeks later it folded.
We ended up sleeping
on a rented rollaway bed that sagged in the middle. We had a
wrought-iron coffee table Ken made in high school and a black and white
TV. Nothing else. No refrigerator. No stove. I cooked in my coffee pot
and an electric skillet and used a cardboard box on the porch to keep
our food cold.
We were flat broke. Unemployed. Deeply in debt. I had nowhere to go. No furniture. No nothing.
Then
one day I picked up the Bible Ken's mother had given him for his
birthday. In the front she'd written this verse, "Seek ye first the
kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be
added unto you." I turned and read Matthew 6. It said God cared for the
birds. For the first time in my life it got into my heart that God cared
where I was and what I was doing. I figured if He cared for birds, He
cared for me! I knelt in that bare room and told Jesus that if He could
do anything with my life, He could certainly have it. That's all I
remember saying.
I had no idea I had just been born again. Two
weeks later Ken found a new job. We moved to a new furnished apartment
and bought a better car. In the midst of it all, something else
happened—Ken got born again.
Don't worry if you don't "have it
made." We certainly didn't when all this started. Just stick with God
and let Him make you. He is a good God who is good to all (Psalms
145:9).
Make a decision in your heart to seek Him first. Then all the other things will be added.
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