A Life Lived Wholly Unto God - Chapter 8: Israel – Called Into the Ministry

A Testament of the Grace of God on His Servant
 by Kathryn Currier with Doyle Davidson

Not long after the court case with Dr. Butler, Doyle was attending a Kenneth Copeland meeting on Sunday afternoon at the Tarrant County Convention Center in Fort Worth, Texas, and God told him to put $50.00 in the offering and he would send him to Israel. At that time he only had $75.00 in his checkbook and little desire to go to Israel, but he obeyed God and gave the $50.00. Just a few days later he received a phone call from someone he knew in Fort Lauderdale, Florida who told him that Derek Prince was leading a tour to Israel in June and had invited Doyle to go. He knew God had told him to go and he saw God perform miracles to get him there:

“When it was time to make the first payment, God did a miracle for me to get the money. When the final payment was due I had to call Fort Lauderdale and tell them that I did not have the money, yet in my heart I knew that I was going to Israel. They replaced me with another family, and that night one of those family members died. The next morning they called me and informed me about the death, and they said, ‘Do you believe that you are still to go to Israel, and do you have the money for the final payment?’ I said, ‘Yes, but no I don't have the money.’ They said, ‘Well we will put someone else in your place then.’ That night one of the individuals that was supposed to go in my place had emergency surgery. The next morning they called me and said, ‘Do you have your money to go to Israel?’ I said, ‘No.’ They said, ‘We are not going to put anyone else in your place to go, Doyle.’ Frankly, I thought, ‘how long is it going to take for you to get the message?’ That evening at about 9:45 PM, I received a phone call from a person and they said, ‘Are you going to Israel?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ They said, ‘Do you have the money?’ I said, ‘I do not.’ They said, ‘How much do you need?’ I said, ‘Well how much to do you have.’ (I was always amazed with my response.) With what I had and what they were sending me, it was enough to pay our final payment. Now I was sure that we were going to Israel, and I certainly expected to have abundance of money to spend during that trip. 

During this period of our preparing to go to Israel, just a few days before we went, Ralph and Debbie Edge came to our house and were born again. That was the beginning of God giving me men and women to make Christians out of. 

We were to depart DFW on June 8, 1974. The night before we left, I had our tickets. The hotel rooms, breakfast, a sack lunch, and an evening meal had been paid for. We had thirty-three one-dollar bills. At about 10:00 p.m. that night, some people brought us 100 one-dollar bills. At that time, I thought now the money is coming. Needless to say, when we got on our airplane at DFW airport we only had the $133.00. I had determined that there would be no credit cards used. 

We flew to New York, and I will always be grateful for Derek Prince's actions at that airport. Someone had informed Derek that I had been involved in a lawsuit, and he called me and he said, ‘I don't want to hinder your faith, but you are going to have to be realistic.’ I said to Derek, ‘Are you telling me that I am being disobedient.’ He said, ‘Well I don't know.’ I said, ‘Well what are you saying to me,’ and his response to me was, ‘Well I don't know.’ 

Derek was interested in my life and for that I will always be thankful. Someone had told him about the judge’s decision in the lawsuit. When the plane landed in New York, Derek was there at the terminal waiting to greet us. He said, ‘We have a great distance to walk, so let's walk to this next terminal.’ He said to me, ‘Isn't it amazing what God did to that judge?’ I said, ‘Yes sir, it was a miracle.’ I said, ‘I am looking forward to this trip, because I thought that by now with all of the things that had happened, that God must be preparing to do something in Israel for me.’ Derek said to me something that I will never forget, he said, ‘You have earned this trip.’ I said, ‘Earned it?’ I realized at that time that Derek was appreciative of my obedience to God. Little did I know what was about to happen in Jerusalem. 

Our plane landed in Tel-Aviv and we stayed overnight there. The next day we went to a Kibbutz on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee called Nof Ginosar. We spent four days on the Sea of Galilee, and then we went to Jerusalem and stayed at the Saint George Hotel. We attended a Sunday morning service at the Garden Tomb where a minister from Holland was speaking. While this man was speaking, the anointing of God moved into my heart. I was aware of what it was, and God started talking to me with Acts 1:8 burning in my heart, ‘But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.’ I knew that God was calling me into the ministry. I thought to myself, ‘This must be why God brought me to Jerusalem.’ 

On Tuesday evening, Patti and I entered the dining room at the Saint George Hotel and there were only two seats available in that dining room. They were at Derek and Lydia's table. As we moved toward the table, Derek stood up and asked, ‘Would you like to sit with us?’ I replied, ‘Yes’. We ordered our food, and Derek looked at me and said, ‘Would you like to speak for ten minutes tonight in Christ's Church?’ My response was immediate, ‘Yes.’ I then excused myself and went to my room. When I arrived there I kneeled down and I said, ‘Okay Lord what am I going to say.’ He answered me immediately, and I said, ‘Thank you.’ I got up and went back to finish my meal. The extent of my teaching had been a bible study in our home and teaching a men's group of about 50 or 60 men on Saturday mornings at the First United Methodist in Argyle for a period of six months. 

I spoke for ten minutes and there was an attorney there from Auckland, New Zealand that came to me and said, ‘I am an attorney. I have presented cases to jury's, and I have heard attorneys present cases before jury's and I have never heard a more clear and to the point presentation than you just gave.’ I said, ‘Thank you sir. God bless you.’ That was a great encouragement to me. 

At that moment, I knew why God called me to Israel. That night Acts 1:8 was fulfilled in my life, a witness to Jerusalem and New Zealand, which is considered the uttermost part of the earth. 

Our needs were supplied while we were in Israel. We never were short and we never were wanting for money in Israel or London. I was in an elevator in London England, on our return from Israel, and a man gave me some British pounds. I don't recall how much. I gave that money to some young people (Kathy and a group of young people in our tour) in London, and they went and had a meal. When we arrived back in Argyle, we had remaining eight one-dollar bills. 

While we were gone we had some people collect our mail from our mailbox. During that trip to Israel, I had received in the mail $4000.00 worth of bills that I owed, and I had received a little more than $4000.00 in the mail from work that I had done before I went to Israel. I was encouraged that God was with us.” 

Years later, when asked what he talked about that night in Jerusalem he said the Lord asked him, “What have I done for your family?” Doyle said he immediately knew what he would say and when it was his turn, he spoke of how God had brought Patti and Kathy into following what he believed was God and then read Joshua 24:15:

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

When he finished reading that verse, he said, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” He made a decision that day in Jerusalem, and stated it publicly, that they would serve the Lord.

Doyle shared with me that while in Israel and when he returned, God began to deal with his heart in a major way and even as he was remembering those days as we spoke that afternoon on the phone, God was ministering to him:

“I had no desire to go to Israel, to me it was just a country in the Middle East, a barren land; I pictured it as sand—a desert. When we arrived there I saw roses—many, many roses; I could smell the cow-manure they fertilized them with. I loved roses—I grew them in my yard. I saw He had made places in Israel a watered garden. For three months after I returned home, I was miserable. God was breaking my hard heart—talking to me about the land of Israel. He talked to me about Jerusalem. He talked to me about the His love for a tree. He talked to me about His love for a mountain and a plain. I didn’t know God cared about any of that. And most of all, He showed me His love for His people. And He put His love in my heart for the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem, for His creation—and He put His love for His people in my heart.” 

As I listened to Doyle talk, I was reminded of Lydia Prince’s words about Jerusalem. She referenced verses in Psalm 137 a number of times in her book, Appointment in Jerusalem:

“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.” 

When she first arrived in Jerusalem she talks of one evening reading the words in Psalm 102:

“Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion…For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof…” 

“Stones and dust—could a person actually fall in love with things like that?” she asked herself. But that is what God did: He put His love for Jerusalem and God’s people in her heart. There are many who talk of their support for Israel, who have a “…zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” Lydia said that she thought God gave her the work among the children in Jerusalem because she loved them. But then, she said, God showed her He loved the children and that was why He had given her the love for them.

Doyle’s life and Lydia’s life were parallels in many ways; they both had forsaken a life of luxury and prestige to obey God. I always marveled at that, it reminded me of Jesus speaking to Peter and Andrew in Matthew 4:

18) And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. 

19) And he saith unto them, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. 

20) And straightway left their nets, and followed him.

What I have begun to understand about Doyle and Lydia and those disciples that Jesus called to—it was simply God, it was His plan and only He could cause a person to lay their life down and follow Him.

Several days into their trip in Israel, they were just north of Hebron at a store and Lydia was sitting in a chair looking at Doyle and said, “Doyle, come over here.” She was somewhat frail, and as he walked up to her chair, he knelt down in front of her and when he did, Derek stepped up to her side, almost protectively. “Doyle, do you have something to say to me?” she asked. “Yes I do,” Doyle replied. Lydia knew by the Spirit that God had something to say to her. “You need to stop listening to your daughters. You need to have your mind on the word of God and not listen to what they are saying, because they are scaring you.” Derek spoke up in protest, “Now that’s not true.” Lydia put her hand over his, gently pushing him away and never taking her eyes off Doyle said, “Derek that is true and you know it’s true.”

Lydia recognized Doyle’s faith and his obedience and later, on that same trip, she again called him over to where she was sitting and said to him, in the presence of Derek, “Doyle, God has done more in your life in five years, than I’ve seen him do for any man on this earth.” Those words were a great encouragement to Doyle then and still are today.

Other chapters of "A Life Lived Wholly Unto God:"

Introduction
Chapter 1: Early Years
Chapter 2: Heritage
Chapter 3: Like Jonah and the Whale
Chapter 4: Sell Out and Obey Me
Chapter 5: Return to the Land of Your Fathers
Chapter 6: Florida
Chapter 7: Back to Texas
Chapter 8: Israel - Called Into the Ministry
Chapter 9: Argyle
Chapter 10: Carrollton
Chapter 11: A Prophet to the Nations
Chapter 12: Water of Life Ministries
Chapter 13: Terry Mai
Chapter 14: Radio and Television Ministry
Chapter 15: Live Stream Broadcasting
Chapter 16: The False Anointing
Chapter 17: Water of Life Christian Training School
Chapter 18: Africa
Chapter 19: Medicine is Witchcraft

Posting Index