I’ll never forget the first time God was able to get the truth of that principle through to me. It was years ago when Gloria and I were on our way to preach a meeting in San Francisco. I was walking through the airport with a little Minolta camera hanging over my shoulder. Back then, that was the ministry camera and Gloria was the ministry photographer. So that camera was important to us.

I had walked around that airport for a while when suddenly I realized my camera was gone. Someone had stolen it right off my shoulder! To put it very mildly, I was irritated.

I started looking around the airport for the thief. I thought, If I find you, you turkey, I am going to whip you good!
But right in the middle of my upset, the Spirit of God interrupted my thinking. If you take that attitude, He said, you’ll lose that camera!

“What are you talking about, Lord?” I answered. “I’ve already lost it!”

No, it isn’t gone yet.

I’d learned from Brother Oral Roberts about the seed, plant, harvest principle, so I caught on to what the Lord was telling me in a flash. I said, “Lord, I see it!” Then I turned to Gloria and said, “Listen, let’s agree on this. I’m giving that camera to whoever took it off my shoulder. I’m sowing it as a seed into that person’s life and I’m praying that God will use it to get him saved. I’m believing that every time he touches that camera, the anointing of God will come on him and draw him to Jesus. Even if the police catch the thief with the camera in his hand, I will say, ‘Don’t charge that man with any crime. I have given him that camera.’ ”

Of course, Gloria agreed and we boarded the plane to San Francisco. After we got settled in our seats, I started talking to the Lord about the seed I’d planted. I said, “Lord, I know that camera had value and we need a camera in this ministry. But I don’t want another Minolta. It’s a good camera, but it doesn’t have enough range to do what I need. What I want is a Nikon F.”

This was back in the early ’70s when just the body of a Nikon F was worth anywhere from $700 to $900. The two lenses I needed were worth about the same amount, so to buy the whole outfit, I might have to pay up to $1800. But I wasn’t worried. I had my seed in the ground and I started getting excited. I started expecting the harvest.

What a Deal!

Can you see what happened to me? I could have been sitting there seething over that stolen camera. I could have been sitting there getting offended, cutting myself off from the anointing of God. But I wasn’t! I had forgotten all about that thief. I was too busy being thrilled with the new camera God was giving me to worry about how the thief had done me wrong!

A few days later, Gloria and I were walking along the street in San Francisco when I spotted a Nikon F camera box sitting in the window of a small shop. I went in and asked the store clerk how much they wanted for it.

“We don’t have a Nikon F,” she answered.

“Yes, you do. It’s right there in the window.”

She reached over and got it, looked puzzled and carried it to a Japanese gentleman in the back of the store. “How much is this?” she asked him.

He threw up his hands and said something in Japanese that I didn’t understand. So I just dug around in my pocket and found some traveler’s checks. “Here,” I said, “I have $250. Will you sell it to me for that?”

“OK!” said the Japanese man.

Of course I was excited about getting just the body of a Nikon F for that price. But before I had a chance to say anything about it, the store clerk dug around in a drawer, found a Nikon 50 mm lens and handed it to me along with the camera.

Glory to God, my crop was coming up!

It wasn’t finished yet, either. Just a few days later in another city, Gloria and I were walking along the street again and we stopped in a camera store. I looked up and noticed that way up high on the top of a display shelf there was a lens case for a Nikon 200 mm lens.

The same thing happened again. The store owner didn’t know he had it, and didn’t know what to charge for it. So he sold it to me for $100!

I don’t mind telling you, by the time that deal was done, I was almost hoping someone would steal something from me. But then I realized, Hey, I can give it – without someone having to steal it! I liked that kind of harvest!

You’d like that kind of harvest too, wouldn’t you?

Well, you can have it. Just start taking those opportunities for offense and planting them as seeds. Instead of crying over how badly you’ve been hurt, turn those hurts into harvests and start laughing at the devil. Take everything ugly he has ever thrown at you and sow it as a seed.

Begin now by praying:

Father, in the Name of Jesus, right now I sow as seed in the kingdom of God every hurt, every bad feeling, every theft, and every evil thing any person has ever done or said to me, my family or my ministry. I release every person who has ever hurt me and I forgive them now. I lift each one of them up to You and I pray for those people. I pray, Father, that they’ll come into a greater knowledge of You. I pray that their spirit be saved on the Day of the Lord.

Now I declare before You, My God in heaven, that I expect a reward. I believe Your Word and by faith I set my sickle to my harvest. I believe I receive a hundredfold return for every wrong deed done to me, every unkind word spoken to me and every dime stolen from me. I expect to receive a blessing of equal benefit. I claim it. It’s mine and I have it now in Jesus’ mighty Name!

Excerpt permission granted by Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
aka: Kenneth Copeland Ministries