Now I remember when I was a lot younger and you know somebody said something to me and
it kind of, you know, it kind of, I don't know if I want to say it hurt my feelings
or it just kind of cut me to the heart because of the fact that what they were saying I felt
like it was kind of true what they were saying.
You know and usually when somebody says something to you and it's not true, it doesn't really
bother you that much, right?
I mean if somebody just rails on you with some outlandish accusation, you just, ah that's
a good one, you know.
Yeah, right.
But you know when somebody criticizes you and it kind of cuts to the heart because you
kind of feel like they hit a little too close to home.
You know what I'm talking about?
I remember when I was a young man, it wasn't really a criticism of me, but this just kind
of cut me to the heart.
And I was young and I didn't know a whole lot, but I remember somebody said to me, they
said to me, ah, I was talking to them about how you know if you do the right things, God's
going to bless you and God's going to take care of you and this and that.
And you know this person basically said to me, they said you know what, they said I look
at your life right now.
And they said you know, I see you going to church three times a week and this is a long
time ago, this is when I was first married, you know in the early days, I think I've been
married a few years.
Actually you know I've been married several years but it was a long time ago, it was a
few years ago and they said you know I look at your life, you're in church three times
a week, you're out soul winning, you read the Bible like madness, you know and you're
tithing, you know you're giving to missions and they say but look at your life, they said
you know God's not blessing you.
I mean look you're dirt poor, you have no money, you know you're not getting ahead,
you're not getting anywhere, you know things aren't going great for you, so how are you
going to sit there and tell me that if I do the right thing, God's going to bless me?
You know when I look at you, you're not being blessed and at the time I mean I was struggling
really bad financially, I mean we were very poor, things were not going good and it just
kind of hurt me because I was just thinking to myself you know why isn't God blessing
me more?
You know what I mean?
I am doing the right things, you know.
But you know what?
God was blessing me because I was out getting people saved because I was having children
with my wife and you know we look at it and say you're not being blessed because your
car is a piece of junk and you don't have any money and you can hardly even pay your
bills and you know thank God ever since I've been married the only time I've ever been
laid out a bill was just because you know I just forgot to send it out.
I mean I've always had the money for bills but sometimes that's all the money I had.
There were times when we had no furniture.
I mean for years we had no furniture, no food.
What was the thing that we brought up honey the other day that I always forget to mention
when I'm talking about how poor we were?
She brought up just the most extreme example and I was like man I should have brought that
up.
I mean just to get you to realize I mean we had nothing and this person looked at that
from the outside and saw that you know that we were just struggling and just God's not
blessing you but you know what we got the blessing of God all mixed up and you know
you got your prosperity preachers out there the health and wealth gospel that's going
to tell you about how God's going to bless you financially.
You know God's not necessarily going to bless you financially but you know what God will
bless you with something that's more important.
I mean what is the value of getting somebody saved?
I mean that's treasure in heaven.
I mean that's a human being.
I mean is a human being worth more or things?
And we need to realize that people are what's important.
And this philosophy carries over to every part of life.
And I remember at the time thinking to myself, you know what?
I don't know if I can afford to have children, but you know I'm just going to pray that God
provides.
I'm just going to have faith in God.
And you know God did provide.
And yes we were lean, yes we were scraping by, but we always had food to eat, we were
able to pay our bills, and we lived, we survived, we made it.
And you know I remember I said to somebody at the time, I said well, I said I can always
make more money later and straighten my finances out there, but I can't go back and have a
bunch of kids later.
You know what I mean?
And I saw the value in a human being, you know I can look in my children's faces right
now and be glad that I chose people rather than things.