June 23, 2025 • 26 mins
Right Thinking with Steve Coplon.
This week's show is called "Finally Surrendering." Tune in and hear Steve share important moments in his life when he knew that the obstacles that he was facing were far bigger than himself and he knew he had to surrender. This show will inspire you to do the same.
In this episode of Right Thinking, I discuss the power of surrendering in challenging times and the strength found in seeking support from a higher power. I reflect on my spiritual journey, emphasizing the importance of intentionality in healing and faith. A personal experience highlights a divine encounter that brought peace amidst turmoil.
I connect lessons from martial arts to spiritual clarity and stress the need to align with God's will through compassion and service. I conclude with a verse from Micah 6:8, encouraging listeners to prioritize spiritual fulfillment over material success.
https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/right-thinking
This week's show is called "Finally Surrendering." Tune in and hear Steve share important moments in his life when he knew that the obstacles that he was facing were far bigger than himself and he knew he had to surrender. This show will inspire you to do the same.
In this episode of Right Thinking, I discuss the power of surrendering in challenging times and the strength found in seeking support from a higher power. I reflect on my spiritual journey, emphasizing the importance of intentionality in healing and faith. A personal experience highlights a divine encounter that brought peace amidst turmoil.
I connect lessons from martial arts to spiritual clarity and stress the need to align with God's will through compassion and service. I conclude with a verse from Micah 6:8, encouraging listeners to prioritize spiritual fulfillment over material success.
https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/right-thinking
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
There must be lie starting brighter somewhere.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Got to be birds. Why a high to the sky.
Four of you.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Good morning, welcome to Right Thinking with Steve Copeland. I'm
your host, Steve Copeland, and thank you for tuning in.
Let's have a great day.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Good morning, glad to be with you well.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Today's episode number four hundred and thirty six, Right Thinking
with Steve Copeland is very pleased to announce that this
week's show was called Finally Surrendering. Tune in here Steve
share important moments in his life when he knew that
the obstacles that he was facing and were far bigger
than himself, and he knew he had to surrender. This
(01:05):
show will inspire you to do the same. Last week's
show that was this is Not Our Home. It was
an effort on my part to try to explain a
place that I seek to dwell in that my whole life.
(01:27):
I think I was hit at that direction. It took
a long time, and I gave an example of my
good friend Steve Thomas and how he helped me along
when he told me that we live in a spiritual reality,
not this physical world around us. And he said that
whenever you feel like you're being pulled down by all
(01:51):
the things in the world around you, stresses, fears, tensions, etc.
You're not all into the spiritual plane. Well, I did
the show, and Steve said, and step back in as
quick as you can to get back into it. Last
week was kind of an introduction to this spiritual place
(02:13):
that I was describing. But another name for it is
the Kingdom of the Lord. And the Kingdom of the
Lord isn't just a place where we go so we
can know that we won't have stresses. The Kingdom of
the Lord is a place where we go where we
(02:34):
give everything everything we live.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
For the Lord.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Our whole lives are geared toward serving the Lord and
doing what pleases him. We get to a point, at
least I did where I know that I'm where I
am today.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I'll be seventy.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Four years old in about three weeks or so, and
I'm where I am to only by the grace of God.
And there's so many things that I've gone through that
if it wasn't for the Lord just carrying me through it,
I don't think I'd be able to have gotten here.
(03:15):
And that's what I want to talk about a little
more today, I want to talk about if it's this
place that I introduced and talked about last week, the
spiritual realm.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
The Kingdom of God.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
I want to go back because I feel like I'm
very inadequate to even use words to describe this. It's
not an insurance policy. It's not buy in favor in
a higher being that's going to take care of you
and move you along and get through get you through
your troubles.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Hopefully all that will take place.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
But but you know, many people talk about what is healing,
and I believe that nothing's impossible with the Lord and
that we can have healing. But sometimes healing isn't what
people believe it to be. Like I have several cancers.
Of course the Lord can make them go away, and
all of a sudden, the doctors say, it's a miracle,
(04:14):
you don't have any of your cancer anymore. It's just gone. Sure,
that'd be great. When I was talking to saalmus Chad
about the show, I had more responses last week, by
the way, than I've had in a long time. I
had many conversations with different people about the show, and
part of it was I was seeking I was seeking
(04:35):
some conversations because because I felt so inadequate, because I'm
dealing with something that is just so important and so
so something that I want everybody to have. You know,
It's like, don't you just wish all the time that
some of the people that you care about, that you
pray for, that you wish could turn their lives around
(04:56):
and do better, would just understand some of the things
that you understand. Well, life's not like that all the time.
Sometimes people have to find it for themselves. And that's
really really part of what I'm saying. So to go
back to sawmus Chad, he told me about a person
that he admires greatly. I'm not exactly sure of the
(05:18):
name of this gentleman. Let me see if the person
that Chad wanted to share with me. His name is
Nick Vujaisk and this gentleman was born without any arms
or any legs, and he's presently around forty some years old.
He's got a phenomenal life. I mean, he's probably one
(05:40):
of the most inspirational persons in the world that anyone
else will ever hear about a person with no arms
and legs. He's a world famous pastor that is just
an inspirational messages for years now, he's married and got
several kids. And what Chad told me when I ended
my show, when I said that I just really don't
(06:01):
know what I'll ever regain, but I know that I'll
never quit trying. He said that Nick Jsic without any legs,
he keeps a pair of pants hanging in his closet
so that when he ends up with a miracle of
having legs, he'll have a pair of pants. Well, I
(06:23):
think I think that's a phenomenal. I didn't do it
justice what it is, but but but this this gentleman,
he's phenomenal. And so I just I just wanted to
thank U sawmus Chad for sharing that with me. It
was very powerful. But but that was one reaction I
got from last week's show. And another that I got
(06:44):
that I thought was was very very important was from
my wife Donald. When we're talking about seeking to be
in the Kingdom of the Lord in this spiritual plane,
she pointed out to me that you can't get there
unless you want to get there, unless you seek to
(07:05):
be there. And so I just want to make it
very clear that what I spoke to last week a
place that that I dwell in myself and I talked
about how I have the different surgeries and things, and
I go to this place. There was a story that
I wanted to share, but once I started speaking last week,
(07:25):
I just went different directions a little bit. I had
a radiation session about nine years ago for my prostate cancer.
And by the time they get you on the table
and you go through all the settings and make sure
everything's lined up properly and so forth, sometimes I'm on
the table for over an hour, an hour and twenty
minutes or so.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
In this particular day, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Really have the desire to be there doing that, and
so as I prayed, as I laid down, I said,
Dear Lord, please please comfort me today, and I don't
really want to be here. Just please take me in
your arms and wrought me like a baby and give
me comfort.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
And then all of.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
A sudden, I saw this seventeen foot Jesus in his
robes just holding me like I was like a little baby,
like a swaddling baby, kind of like like he was
in the manger, and he was just rocking me, rocking me,
and I was I was probably just cooling because I
was so much at peace. And then the rocking just
(08:28):
kept going harder and harder and faster and faster, and
then finally I opened my eyes and I looked to
my right and a nurse was shaking me kind of hard, saying, saying,
mister Copeland, it's okay now. You know it's all over.
You know it's been an hour and twenty minutes. You
know you can get up now. And I just looked
at her and smiled, and I said, you know, I'd
(08:49):
rather say where I'm at for a while longer. That's
the place that I'm talking about that I've been so
blessed to go. But as I talk more about it,
I realized that I did not do it justice at all,
because it's not just the place you asked to go
and then you're there and the Lord takes care of you.
You have to seek to be there. And to use
(09:11):
kind of an analogy that I want to talk about.
Back in nineteen seventy four, I was invited to go
to a Mike Foster karate.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Training camp for a week.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
And you know, I was up in Richmond, and I
was training with an American karate academy and I trained
with a professional named Keith Hayflick and he was number
one contender for the Professional Parate Association Full Contact title
world title. And Jeff Smith from d C his nickname
(09:50):
was the DC Bomber. He fought out a June Ree,
world famous martial artists, and so I trained with Jeff.
I was a spart I don't mean Jeff. I trained
with Keith for a fight that he had with Jeff,
But I trained with Keith for six of his professional
full contact fights, and to be blunt, it was some
(10:11):
brutal training, but it was phenomenal. It was something else
to be able to train with Keith for six of
his fights. And when I won the Battle of Atlanta
in a white belt division that year, I had gotten
an invitation to go to the Mike Foster training camp.
And this was a camp where the new sport of
professional full contact karate.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Was getting ready to be launched.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
And Bill Wallace, the middleweight world champion, was the first
champion that had won his championship a couple months earlier,
and he was a guest instructor and it was just
a phenomenal place to go for a week and train.
So Keith and I drove down there for the week
and we were in this camp and on July the eighth,
nineteen seventy four, fifty one years ago, Bill Wallace was
(10:58):
the guest instructor that day, and he taught a sparring class,
and anybody that wanted to spar with Bill Wallace, world
champion Superfoot, had an opportunity to spar with him. Well,
I was probably about the fifteenth person that had a
(11:18):
chance to get out there and spar with him. And
remember it was a training class, you know, it wasn't
like a sanctioned fight or anything. But I can just
tell you this, everybody that had sparred with him, and
everybody else that started with him that day other than myself,
had the most phenomenal cautiousness because you're out here with
(11:40):
the world champion with the fastest kick in the world.
And so maybe I was a little nuts or something,
but when I got out there and we bowed in,
I had this one thought, if I could just put
my they call it leather and boxing, but in karate,
I guess it's my my pads, my gloves. If I
could score on him, if I could, if I could
(12:02):
do punches or kicks on him, it would just make
me that much better for the rest of my whole career,
and so I decided that I was going to go
kind of hard with him. But before anything else happened,
Bill Wallace, we bowed in each other. I took my
stance and he threw his world famous double action kick
(12:23):
that was a low round house kick and then it
kicked to the hit. Well, I just naturally blocked them both.
It was it was just a natural reaction. I didn't
do anything.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I just did it.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
And then he stopped, he bowed, he came over to me,
he gave me a hug, he kissed me on my cheek.
That's kind of what some karate guys do sometimes, and
then we continued a spark, and we sparked for about
four minutes, and it was a really interesting spar that
I had, one of the one of the most wonderful
experiences I ever had. I mean, I actually went on
him and got in on him once twice and came
(12:58):
in with one of my reverse punches.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
But all I can.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Tell you is that it was an incredible experience that
I had, and I saw Bill Wallace off and on
from then and there. When i'd be with some of
my other karate friends, like in another tournament where Bill
Wallace was at or whatever, and he'd say, Hey, Steve,
you want you want to work out this afternoon. And
my friends are like, oh my gosh, man, you Bill Wallace,
you never had me wants to work out with you.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah. It was a wonderful experience. Wonderful experience.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
But what I want to tell you is that one
week training camp that we had, we had class running time.
This was professional training and I will never forget on
a blackboard we had. I think it was Mike Foster
that taught this concept. He said that the goal when
you're in competition, or not just competition, or in any
(13:45):
situation in karate, it's to be able to reduce the
amount of time that you hesitate and increase your reaction time.
And and there was there was you know, blackboard, you know,
stick figures, different things showing the critical distance between your
(14:07):
front foot and your opponent's front foot, and how to
cover the distance and how to close that distance and
get there quicker through various footwork or whatever. But the
concept of reduce hesitation time, increased reaction time, it basically
means see what's going on quicker, become aware of what's
(14:29):
going on quicker and react to it quicker. And so
you know, sometimes it's not how fast you can throw
a punch or a kicks, it's how you set it
up or how well you react. You know, you don't
have to be the fast person in the world, but
your reaction and your awareness, these are what's so important.
(14:50):
So it was about being able to see it quicker
and react quicker. In other words, don't hesitate to react, just.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Just see it, do it well.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
What Donna said to me in response to the last
week's show when we were talking about you've got to
be a seeker, she thought that I had pretty much articulated,
you know, what it is to be in the spiritual plane,
and she understood that little wafer cloud that we float
on when you're experiencing the world pinging on you with
(15:24):
all the different things that the world can do to
recognize it. And she said this statement to me that
I thought was just wonderful. We have a we have
a close friend named Wanita in our Bible study, and
she said that she and Wanita talk about this all
the time, and that why Nita had said, when you're growing,
you can correct your behavior quicker. And so what that
(15:49):
is is my leading today that the place that I'm speaking,
which is the spiritual plane, it's not just a chenrala
that we go. It's a place that we seek to go.
But what is it that we do there? We surrender
ourselves completely to the Lord. We can surrender ourselves completely
(16:13):
to the Lord. You know, on all of the currency
in America it says in God we Trust. It's been
going on for a long time that we've had that
motto in America and God we trust.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
But do you really trust God?
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Well, let me tell you what I think is probably
the biggest turning point in my life is I faced
my greatest adversity that I think that I've been dealt
my multi maloma cancer incurable. They call it bone cancer
because it's in the bone marrow and where my immune
system is. My cancer resides in the bone marriat without
(16:51):
my body. And twenty four and a half years ago
when I started having pneumonia and got diagnosed with multi maloma.
The first year that I had my diagnosis was a
It was a nightmare. Literally, I would be asleep and
I would just start having these these awful, awful dreams
(17:12):
that were like nightmares that I was going to die,
and and I was going through divorce at the same time,
so I was having a rough time. But this one night,
it was a year in, I was just living in fear.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I was.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
I was just having a hard time knowing that I
had a five and a half year life expectancy. And
this one night, I was laying there and I had
the proverbial death dream that people talk about sometimes where
you go through a white tunnel and you feel like
you're dying. And I was in my bedroom and I
was I was alone. Like I said, I was going
(17:48):
through separation and for divorce, and all of a sudden,
I thought I died, and I opened my eyes and
I woke up, and I had this experience where the
room around me that was my bedroom, it didn't feel
like I was really in it. It felt like some
kind of an outer body experience. It just didn't feel
(18:12):
the air I call it, the atmosphere was different. And
that's when it came to me that I knew what
I had to do in my life. And that's when
I said to the Lord, Lord, this is so much
bigger than me. I can't deal with this. Please help
(18:34):
me through this. Take this burden from me and that
was the beginning. That was the beginning of my extreme
closeness to the Lord Jesus Christ. And when I say
it was the beginning, it's a process to get closer.
And what I really want to say to you is
when you understand about the spiritual plan, this Kingdom of
(19:01):
Heaven that I'm speaking to, what I want to do
right now is describe to you what it is that
that's really all about. It's really about seeking to be
closer to the Lord. And righteousness, the righteousness of the Lord,
living for the Lord, giving him full obedience, pleasing him,
(19:26):
knowing that you're living in the grace of the Lord.
These are the things that this is about. It's about
prioritizing your life so that you want to know God's will.
And it's in everything that you do. We demonstrate love,
compassion and service to others because that's what God wants.
(19:48):
But what it really means it's to be right with God.
And when you're right with God, you don't have to
think about much of anything else. You pray, you study,
you worship, you meditate, you surround yourself with other people
that believe and encourage this. It's not just thinking about
(20:11):
how can I get through things in life. It's much more.
It's about just doing the will of God. You know,
when I was only sixteen years old, my mother used
to just we talked all the time about God and
living for God's will. That's the most wonderful thing that
my mother passed on to me, was that all she
wanted to do was please God and do his will.
(20:32):
And full street that I lived on, five houses from
Suburban Park Elementary School. I would go up to the
Grammy Street bridge on Grammy Street, just about a mile
and a half away, and I would go down and
there was this place you go it now with people
go down to fish and you couldn't see the cars
on the street anymore. But I developed a prayer that
(20:54):
I've kept my whole life, where I would go down
there and just pray to the Lord and say, dear Lord,
please use me as an instrument to carry out your will.
I got that directly from my mother. But that's where
it is. But once you get to where you want
to be in the kingdom of a Lord, it takes
(21:14):
a lot of determination and focus and a lot of prayer.
But it means letting go. And one of the things
I like to say is no self, only God. When
you live for God, your life's going to be closer
and closer to God. And then when you trust God,
you don't need to worry about anything. If you were
(21:37):
to just leave this world right now, you'd be with
the Lord once you've accepted. Well, you know, I'm trying
to get just a little bit deeper. But righteousness is
about a sense of morality, justice, virtuous living. And so
(21:57):
this is just another one of my shorter show that
I want to do for you here to just let
you know that it requires that spiritual, spiritual reality that
I brought you into last week. It requires a seeking
to be there. You've got a desire to be there.
But remember it's not just to go there so you
(22:19):
can get the things you want. Don't pray to win
the lottery. It's to give up yourself, pray to be
closer to the Lord, and to just commit your whole
life to Him. And that is how I really get
through all of my adversity and hardship. It's that I'm
not worried about all these things. I'm not concerned about
(22:41):
the illnesses that I carry. I started talking a few
minutes ago about healing. Well, you know, the song Blessings
by lower Story, the title of the last week's show
actually came from there. And sometimes I talk to people
about healing. A lot of people say, oh, I prayed it,
nothing happened.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
I've been carrying a couple of terminal illnesses and some
other difficult situations for a long time.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
But it's okay. I'll live with them.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
I uh, you know, I made peace with my cancer
buddies years ago, you know, and say, hey, just strap one,
we're going to go through a route through life. Well,
what I really want to want to say as I
as I go through this today is just like when
I went to the karate camp and we learned in
blackboard training to reduce hesitation time and increase reaction time.
(23:36):
As Donna and Wan need to talk, when you realize
that you're letting the pressures of the world affect you,
and that you're drifting away a little bit from just
trusting God and letting God show you where to go
and what to do, recognize it quicker, that's what That's
(23:58):
what one need. And Donna said, so it's a constant
process of renewal. But all I want to tell you
is there's going to be plenty more to come on
these subjects. But living for the Lord, trying to seek
a life of righteousness closer to the Lord, that's what
this is really all about. And that's really what I do,
(24:20):
is I really try to be close to the Lord
all the time and not worry about the material things
or the pressures of the normal world that's out there, say,
the normal world, the natural world. I'm going to end
the show today with just a wonderful piece of scripture
and the Bible study that I've been involved in for
(24:43):
who maybe eighteen years now. Every now and then I
come across one piece of scripture that is just something
that I'm going to stamp one of my forehead and
never ever let go of. And we've been studying the
minor profits at the end of the Old Testament less
i don't know, eight or nine books of the Old Testament,
and what we call the minor prophets. And there's one
(25:06):
prophet called Micah. His name is Micah, and there's one
verse in Micah that says it all. And I like
to just bring this to you right now, because if
you ever want to know what it is, the Lord
wants from you, from us. It's as simple as this.
(25:26):
This is Micah chapter six, verse eight. He has shown you,
oh man, what is good and what does the Lord
require of you but to you justly to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. I want everybody
(25:46):
to have an absolutely wonderful week. God bless each one
of you, and I look forward to being with you
again next week. God bless you.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Thanks for listening to right thinking with Steve Coper. I'll
look forward to being with you again next week, and remember,
don't quit plan ahead. It will get better. God bless
you and have a great week.
There must be lie starting brighter somewhere.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Got to be birds. Why a high to the sky.
Four of you.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Good morning, welcome to Right Thinking with Steve Copeland. I'm
your host, Steve Copeland, and thank you for tuning in.
Let's have a great day.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Good morning, glad to be with you well.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Today's episode number four hundred and thirty six, Right Thinking
with Steve Copeland is very pleased to announce that this
week's show was called Finally Surrendering. Tune in here Steve
share important moments in his life when he knew that
the obstacles that he was facing and were far bigger
than himself, and he knew he had to surrender. This
(01:05):
show will inspire you to do the same. Last week's
show that was this is Not Our Home. It was
an effort on my part to try to explain a
place that I seek to dwell in that my whole life.
(01:27):
I think I was hit at that direction. It took
a long time, and I gave an example of my
good friend Steve Thomas and how he helped me along
when he told me that we live in a spiritual reality,
not this physical world around us. And he said that
whenever you feel like you're being pulled down by all
(01:51):
the things in the world around you, stresses, fears, tensions, etc.
You're not all into the spiritual plane. Well, I did
the show, and Steve said, and step back in as
quick as you can to get back into it. Last
week was kind of an introduction to this spiritual place
(02:13):
that I was describing. But another name for it is
the Kingdom of the Lord. And the Kingdom of the
Lord isn't just a place where we go so we
can know that we won't have stresses. The Kingdom of
the Lord is a place where we go where we
(02:34):
give everything everything we live.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
For the Lord.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Our whole lives are geared toward serving the Lord and
doing what pleases him. We get to a point, at
least I did where I know that I'm where I
am today.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I'll be seventy.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Four years old in about three weeks or so, and
I'm where I am to only by the grace of God.
And there's so many things that I've gone through that
if it wasn't for the Lord just carrying me through it,
I don't think I'd be able to have gotten here.
(03:15):
And that's what I want to talk about a little
more today, I want to talk about if it's this
place that I introduced and talked about last week, the
spiritual realm.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
The Kingdom of God.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
I want to go back because I feel like I'm
very inadequate to even use words to describe this. It's
not an insurance policy. It's not buy in favor in
a higher being that's going to take care of you
and move you along and get through get you through
your troubles.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Hopefully all that will take place.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
But but you know, many people talk about what is healing,
and I believe that nothing's impossible with the Lord and
that we can have healing. But sometimes healing isn't what
people believe it to be. Like I have several cancers.
Of course the Lord can make them go away, and
all of a sudden, the doctors say, it's a miracle,
(04:14):
you don't have any of your cancer anymore. It's just gone. Sure,
that'd be great. When I was talking to saalmus Chad
about the show, I had more responses last week, by
the way, than I've had in a long time. I
had many conversations with different people about the show, and
part of it was I was seeking I was seeking
(04:35):
some conversations because because I felt so inadequate, because I'm
dealing with something that is just so important and so
so something that I want everybody to have. You know,
It's like, don't you just wish all the time that
some of the people that you care about, that you
pray for, that you wish could turn their lives around
(04:56):
and do better, would just understand some of the things
that you understand. Well, life's not like that all the time.
Sometimes people have to find it for themselves. And that's
really really part of what I'm saying. So to go
back to sawmus Chad, he told me about a person
that he admires greatly. I'm not exactly sure of the
(05:18):
name of this gentleman. Let me see if the person
that Chad wanted to share with me. His name is
Nick Vujaisk and this gentleman was born without any arms
or any legs, and he's presently around forty some years old.
He's got a phenomenal life. I mean, he's probably one
(05:40):
of the most inspirational persons in the world that anyone
else will ever hear about a person with no arms
and legs. He's a world famous pastor that is just
an inspirational messages for years now, he's married and got
several kids. And what Chad told me when I ended
my show, when I said that I just really don't
(06:01):
know what I'll ever regain, but I know that I'll
never quit trying. He said that Nick Jsic without any legs,
he keeps a pair of pants hanging in his closet
so that when he ends up with a miracle of
having legs, he'll have a pair of pants. Well, I
(06:23):
think I think that's a phenomenal. I didn't do it
justice what it is, but but but this this gentleman,
he's phenomenal. And so I just I just wanted to
thank U sawmus Chad for sharing that with me. It
was very powerful. But but that was one reaction I
got from last week's show. And another that I got
(06:44):
that I thought was was very very important was from
my wife Donald. When we're talking about seeking to be
in the Kingdom of the Lord in this spiritual plane,
she pointed out to me that you can't get there
unless you want to get there, unless you seek to
(07:05):
be there. And so I just want to make it
very clear that what I spoke to last week a
place that that I dwell in myself and I talked
about how I have the different surgeries and things, and
I go to this place. There was a story that
I wanted to share, but once I started speaking last week,
(07:25):
I just went different directions a little bit. I had
a radiation session about nine years ago for my prostate cancer.
And by the time they get you on the table
and you go through all the settings and make sure
everything's lined up properly and so forth, sometimes I'm on
the table for over an hour, an hour and twenty
minutes or so.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
In this particular day, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Really have the desire to be there doing that, and
so as I prayed, as I laid down, I said,
Dear Lord, please please comfort me today, and I don't
really want to be here. Just please take me in
your arms and wrought me like a baby and give
me comfort.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
And then all of.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
A sudden, I saw this seventeen foot Jesus in his
robes just holding me like I was like a little baby,
like a swaddling baby, kind of like like he was
in the manger, and he was just rocking me, rocking me,
and I was I was probably just cooling because I
was so much at peace. And then the rocking just
(08:28):
kept going harder and harder and faster and faster, and
then finally I opened my eyes and I looked to
my right and a nurse was shaking me kind of hard, saying, saying,
mister Copeland, it's okay now. You know it's all over.
You know it's been an hour and twenty minutes. You
know you can get up now. And I just looked
at her and smiled, and I said, you know, I'd
(08:49):
rather say where I'm at for a while longer. That's
the place that I'm talking about that I've been so
blessed to go. But as I talk more about it,
I realized that I did not do it justice at all,
because it's not just the place you asked to go
and then you're there and the Lord takes care of you.
You have to seek to be there. And to use
(09:11):
kind of an analogy that I want to talk about.
Back in nineteen seventy four, I was invited to go
to a Mike Foster karate.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Training camp for a week.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
And you know, I was up in Richmond, and I
was training with an American karate academy and I trained
with a professional named Keith Hayflick and he was number
one contender for the Professional Parate Association Full Contact title
world title. And Jeff Smith from d C his nickname
(09:50):
was the DC Bomber. He fought out a June Ree,
world famous martial artists, and so I trained with Jeff.
I was a spart I don't mean Jeff. I trained
with Keith for a fight that he had with Jeff,
But I trained with Keith for six of his professional
full contact fights, and to be blunt, it was some
(10:11):
brutal training, but it was phenomenal. It was something else
to be able to train with Keith for six of
his fights. And when I won the Battle of Atlanta
in a white belt division that year, I had gotten
an invitation to go to the Mike Foster training camp.
And this was a camp where the new sport of
professional full contact karate.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Was getting ready to be launched.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
And Bill Wallace, the middleweight world champion, was the first
champion that had won his championship a couple months earlier,
and he was a guest instructor and it was just
a phenomenal place to go for a week and train.
So Keith and I drove down there for the week
and we were in this camp and on July the eighth,
nineteen seventy four, fifty one years ago, Bill Wallace was
(10:58):
the guest instructor that day, and he taught a sparring class,
and anybody that wanted to spar with Bill Wallace, world
champion Superfoot, had an opportunity to spar with him. Well,
I was probably about the fifteenth person that had a
(11:18):
chance to get out there and spar with him. And
remember it was a training class, you know, it wasn't
like a sanctioned fight or anything. But I can just
tell you this, everybody that had sparred with him, and
everybody else that started with him that day other than myself,
had the most phenomenal cautiousness because you're out here with
(11:40):
the world champion with the fastest kick in the world.
And so maybe I was a little nuts or something,
but when I got out there and we bowed in,
I had this one thought, if I could just put
my they call it leather and boxing, but in karate,
I guess it's my my pads, my gloves. If I
could score on him, if I could, if I could
(12:02):
do punches or kicks on him, it would just make
me that much better for the rest of my whole career,
and so I decided that I was going to go
kind of hard with him. But before anything else happened,
Bill Wallace, we bowed in each other. I took my
stance and he threw his world famous double action kick
(12:23):
that was a low round house kick and then it
kicked to the hit. Well, I just naturally blocked them both.
It was it was just a natural reaction. I didn't
do anything.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I just did it.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
And then he stopped, he bowed, he came over to me,
he gave me a hug, he kissed me on my cheek.
That's kind of what some karate guys do sometimes, and
then we continued a spark, and we sparked for about
four minutes, and it was a really interesting spar that
I had, one of the one of the most wonderful
experiences I ever had. I mean, I actually went on
him and got in on him once twice and came
(12:58):
in with one of my reverse punches.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
But all I can.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Tell you is that it was an incredible experience that
I had, and I saw Bill Wallace off and on
from then and there. When i'd be with some of
my other karate friends, like in another tournament where Bill
Wallace was at or whatever, and he'd say, Hey, Steve,
you want you want to work out this afternoon. And
my friends are like, oh my gosh, man, you Bill Wallace,
you never had me wants to work out with you.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah. It was a wonderful experience. Wonderful experience.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
But what I want to tell you is that one
week training camp that we had, we had class running time.
This was professional training and I will never forget on
a blackboard we had. I think it was Mike Foster
that taught this concept. He said that the goal when
you're in competition, or not just competition, or in any
(13:45):
situation in karate, it's to be able to reduce the
amount of time that you hesitate and increase your reaction time.
And and there was there was you know, blackboard, you know,
stick figures, different things showing the critical distance between your
(14:07):
front foot and your opponent's front foot, and how to
cover the distance and how to close that distance and
get there quicker through various footwork or whatever. But the
concept of reduce hesitation time, increased reaction time, it basically
means see what's going on quicker, become aware of what's
(14:29):
going on quicker and react to it quicker. And so
you know, sometimes it's not how fast you can throw
a punch or a kicks, it's how you set it
up or how well you react. You know, you don't
have to be the fast person in the world, but
your reaction and your awareness, these are what's so important.
(14:50):
So it was about being able to see it quicker
and react quicker. In other words, don't hesitate to react, just.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Just see it, do it well.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
What Donna said to me in response to the last
week's show when we were talking about you've got to
be a seeker, she thought that I had pretty much articulated,
you know, what it is to be in the spiritual plane,
and she understood that little wafer cloud that we float
on when you're experiencing the world pinging on you with
(15:24):
all the different things that the world can do to
recognize it. And she said this statement to me that
I thought was just wonderful. We have a we have
a close friend named Wanita in our Bible study, and
she said that she and Wanita talk about this all
the time, and that why Nita had said, when you're growing,
you can correct your behavior quicker. And so what that
(15:49):
is is my leading today that the place that I'm speaking,
which is the spiritual plane, it's not just a chenrala
that we go. It's a place that we seek to go.
But what is it that we do there? We surrender
ourselves completely to the Lord. We can surrender ourselves completely
(16:13):
to the Lord. You know, on all of the currency
in America it says in God we Trust. It's been
going on for a long time that we've had that
motto in America and God we trust.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
But do you really trust God?
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Well, let me tell you what I think is probably
the biggest turning point in my life is I faced
my greatest adversity that I think that I've been dealt
my multi maloma cancer incurable. They call it bone cancer
because it's in the bone marrow and where my immune
system is. My cancer resides in the bone marriat without
(16:51):
my body. And twenty four and a half years ago
when I started having pneumonia and got diagnosed with multi maloma.
The first year that I had my diagnosis was a
It was a nightmare. Literally, I would be asleep and
I would just start having these these awful, awful dreams
(17:12):
that were like nightmares that I was going to die,
and and I was going through divorce at the same time,
so I was having a rough time. But this one night,
it was a year in, I was just living in fear.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I was.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
I was just having a hard time knowing that I
had a five and a half year life expectancy. And
this one night, I was laying there and I had
the proverbial death dream that people talk about sometimes where
you go through a white tunnel and you feel like
you're dying. And I was in my bedroom and I
was I was alone. Like I said, I was going
(17:48):
through separation and for divorce, and all of a sudden,
I thought I died, and I opened my eyes and
I woke up, and I had this experience where the
room around me that was my bedroom, it didn't feel
like I was really in it. It felt like some
kind of an outer body experience. It just didn't feel
(18:12):
the air I call it, the atmosphere was different. And
that's when it came to me that I knew what
I had to do in my life. And that's when
I said to the Lord, Lord, this is so much
bigger than me. I can't deal with this. Please help
(18:34):
me through this. Take this burden from me and that
was the beginning. That was the beginning of my extreme
closeness to the Lord Jesus Christ. And when I say
it was the beginning, it's a process to get closer.
And what I really want to say to you is
when you understand about the spiritual plan, this Kingdom of
(19:01):
Heaven that I'm speaking to, what I want to do
right now is describe to you what it is that
that's really all about. It's really about seeking to be
closer to the Lord. And righteousness, the righteousness of the Lord,
living for the Lord, giving him full obedience, pleasing him,
(19:26):
knowing that you're living in the grace of the Lord.
These are the things that this is about. It's about
prioritizing your life so that you want to know God's will.
And it's in everything that you do. We demonstrate love,
compassion and service to others because that's what God wants.
(19:48):
But what it really means it's to be right with God.
And when you're right with God, you don't have to
think about much of anything else. You pray, you study,
you worship, you meditate, you surround yourself with other people
that believe and encourage this. It's not just thinking about
(20:11):
how can I get through things in life. It's much more.
It's about just doing the will of God. You know,
when I was only sixteen years old, my mother used
to just we talked all the time about God and
living for God's will. That's the most wonderful thing that
my mother passed on to me, was that all she
wanted to do was please God and do his will.
(20:32):
And full street that I lived on, five houses from
Suburban Park Elementary School. I would go up to the
Grammy Street bridge on Grammy Street, just about a mile
and a half away, and I would go down and
there was this place you go it now with people
go down to fish and you couldn't see the cars
on the street anymore. But I developed a prayer that
(20:54):
I've kept my whole life, where I would go down
there and just pray to the Lord and say, dear Lord,
please use me as an instrument to carry out your will.
I got that directly from my mother. But that's where
it is. But once you get to where you want
to be in the kingdom of a Lord, it takes
(21:14):
a lot of determination and focus and a lot of prayer.
But it means letting go. And one of the things
I like to say is no self, only God. When
you live for God, your life's going to be closer
and closer to God. And then when you trust God,
you don't need to worry about anything. If you were
(21:37):
to just leave this world right now, you'd be with
the Lord once you've accepted. Well, you know, I'm trying
to get just a little bit deeper. But righteousness is
about a sense of morality, justice, virtuous living. And so
(21:57):
this is just another one of my shorter show that
I want to do for you here to just let
you know that it requires that spiritual, spiritual reality that
I brought you into last week. It requires a seeking
to be there. You've got a desire to be there.
But remember it's not just to go there so you
(22:19):
can get the things you want. Don't pray to win
the lottery. It's to give up yourself, pray to be
closer to the Lord, and to just commit your whole
life to Him. And that is how I really get
through all of my adversity and hardship. It's that I'm
not worried about all these things. I'm not concerned about
(22:41):
the illnesses that I carry. I started talking a few
minutes ago about healing. Well, you know, the song Blessings
by lower Story, the title of the last week's show
actually came from there. And sometimes I talk to people
about healing. A lot of people say, oh, I prayed it,
nothing happened.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
I've been carrying a couple of terminal illnesses and some
other difficult situations for a long time.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
But it's okay. I'll live with them.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
I uh, you know, I made peace with my cancer
buddies years ago, you know, and say, hey, just strap one,
we're going to go through a route through life. Well,
what I really want to want to say as I
as I go through this today is just like when
I went to the karate camp and we learned in
blackboard training to reduce hesitation time and increase reaction time.
(23:36):
As Donna and Wan need to talk, when you realize
that you're letting the pressures of the world affect you,
and that you're drifting away a little bit from just
trusting God and letting God show you where to go
and what to do, recognize it quicker, that's what That's
(23:58):
what one need. And Donna said, so it's a constant
process of renewal. But all I want to tell you
is there's going to be plenty more to come on
these subjects. But living for the Lord, trying to seek
a life of righteousness closer to the Lord, that's what
this is really all about. And that's really what I do,
(24:20):
is I really try to be close to the Lord
all the time and not worry about the material things
or the pressures of the normal world that's out there, say,
the normal world, the natural world. I'm going to end
the show today with just a wonderful piece of scripture
and the Bible study that I've been involved in for
(24:43):
who maybe eighteen years now. Every now and then I
come across one piece of scripture that is just something
that I'm going to stamp one of my forehead and
never ever let go of. And we've been studying the
minor profits at the end of the Old Testament less
i don't know, eight or nine books of the Old Testament,
and what we call the minor prophets. And there's one
(25:06):
prophet called Micah. His name is Micah, and there's one
verse in Micah that says it all. And I like
to just bring this to you right now, because if
you ever want to know what it is, the Lord
wants from you, from us. It's as simple as this.
(25:26):
This is Micah chapter six, verse eight. He has shown you,
oh man, what is good and what does the Lord
require of you but to you justly to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. I want everybody
(25:46):
to have an absolutely wonderful week. God bless each one
of you, and I look forward to being with you
again next week. God bless you.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Thanks for listening to right thinking with Steve Coper. I'll
look forward to being with you again next week, and remember,
don't quit plan ahead. It will get better. God bless
you and have a great week.
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