Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread
upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto
Moses (Joshua 1:3).

You and I may not be able to go to all the world, but
we can go to our own neighborhood. Most of us would
rather go around the world than right next door.

Like I said earlier, I don’t like to mow yards,
not even my own, but one day the Lord told me
to mow my neighbor’s yard.

“Lord,” I asked, “You want me to mow that man’s
yard? The grass is about six inches high. What if he’s
home? If he looks outside and sees me out there mowing
his yard, he may get upset.”

Then I happened to think: If I saw somebody out
mowing my yard, I wouldn’t complain. I might be
embarrassed, but I would be grateful. I wouldn’t say a
word to him—until he got through!
Still my mind kept trying to talk me out of what
God had told me to do.

Do it the way Joshua did, the Lord said. He claimed
every part of the ground where his foot stepped. Go over
there, mow that man’s yard and claim that family for
the kingdom.
So I did.

Later I found out that my neighbor was out of
town. That’s why his grass was so tall.
Sometime before, I had met the man and his wife.

They had two boys that played with our son John.
One afternoon while the boys were playing, one of
them happened to get his finger mashed in the swing.

He screamed so loudly you could have heard him all
over the neighborhood. John came running in saying,
“Daddy, come pray! Come pray quick!” I ran out,
grabbed that little fellow’s finger and said, “In the
Name of Jesus, I command the pain in this finger to
stop. Be healed, in Jesus’ Name.”

His eyes were like saucers, and his mouth dropped
open. After a moment he said, “That’s the dumbest
thing I ever heard in my life.”
I got so tickled that I laughed out loud.

“How’s your finger?” I asked.
“Oh, I’ve got to go home,” he responded without
answering my question. His finger was healed
instantly, and he hadn’t even thought about it, because
I had shocked him so badly by doing “the
dumbest thing he had ever heard in his life.”

Well, a few days later there came a knock on my
front door. I opened it, and I have never been witnessed
to so fast and so hard in my life. The lady said, “Mr.
Copeland, did you know that Jesus Christ of Nazareth
is alive today? He was raised from the dead!”

It was the boy’s mother from next door, just
preaching away. She was not very tall, but by the
time she got through with me, she looked like she
was six feet four inches! She just kept shouting and
witnessing to me about the Lord. Finally, she began
to wind down. She was going to close the deal and
get me saved.

“Listen,” I said. “Hold on a minute.”
She backed up for a second, and I quickly explained:

“Let me tell you something. I’m a born-again child of
the living God, and I’m a preacher. That’s what I do. I
believe every word you said.”

“Glory be to God!” she exclaimed.

“What in the world happened to you?” I asked.

“This hasn’t been on you very long.”

“No, just a few days. There was a lay witness mission
in a church right down the street there.” She was
talking so fast she could hardly get the words out
of her mouth. “My husband and I went and discovered
that Jesus loves us. I’m going to start a children’s
prayer group right here in the neighborhood. Can
your children come?”

“Yes, they surely can,” I said.

What had happened? All I did was mow that
yard, but I did it in faith. I did it glorifying God, and
God did what He had been wanting to do through
me. He needed my faith and my obedience. All I did
was provide God the open door that He wanted.

Know exactly what your needs are. I had to learn
to include my neighbors in my needs. Don’t shortchange
yourself or those around you—your family,
your neighbors, your church, your world. God is not
going to rebuke you for needing too much.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland