If God Can Find David: Discovering Your Kingdom Destiny

By Beverly Bradley

"If God Can Find David will be a great inspiration to your heart and life. You will learn how God uses and anoints imperfect people. As we submit our lives to God, our areas of greatest weakness and struggle become our areas of greatest anointing and authority. Your breakthrough will become a breakthrough for someone else. Be empowered to discover your true purpose, destiny, and identity in God. This book will greatly impact and equip you to move to a higher level of God's glory and power in your life" ""Matt Sorger, Matt Sorger Ministries If God Can Find David: Discovering Your Kingdom Destiny will give you a better understanding of what you are called to walk in as a believer. Through this uplifting and powerful read, you will learn how to go from heartache to wholeness. It will empower you to go to the next level in God as you discover, deepen, and maintain your true identity, becoming all you can be in Him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642580556

Book preview

Chapter 1

Redemption Changes Everything

I want to share with you a very personal story of God’s redemptive plan for my family.

I met my first husband, who was a Muslim from Iran, while I was a senior in high school and married him two weeks after I graduated. Even though I was raised in a mainline denominational church, I was not a Christian. I did not know Jesus in a personal, intimate way.

Many of you may remember the Iran hostage crisis back in 1979. (It is, in part, what the 2013 movie Argo is about.) It was during this time in history that I was married to him. I would come in from work in the evenings while he was watching the news coverage of what was happening over there and cheering on the terrorists. He was anti-Christ, anti-Christian and anti-American. I felt like a traitor to God and my country. (Before I go any further, I want to say this is not a bash Muslims story. We need to understand that Jesus died for the Muslims too. Most of them just don’t know it yet.)

A few months into the marriage, he became physically abusive. The first time it happened, I was naive enough to think it was a one-time thing. But it wasn’t. He got in the habit of being physically violent every time we would have a disagreement about anything. It didn’t have to be important. I got really good at lying to my parents about the different markings and bruises they would see on my body. (Or at least I thought I was good at it.)

Fifteen months into the marriage, I was invited to church by my sister-in-law. While there, I had a personal encounter with Jesus that changed my life forever.

A few months later, my first husband and I moved away from the town I grew up in—away from family and friends. Shortly after that, I found out I was expecting my son, Justin. I knew from the moment I found out I was pregnant with him that there was a very specific call of God on this child’s life. Unfortunately, my pregnancy did not stop my husband’s abusive behavior toward me.

I would lay my hands on my stomach every day, and I would decree over Justin that he would live and not die. I would decree over him every day of his life in my womb that he would be a preacher of righteousness. There was one time when God woke me up in the middle of the night just in time to catch my first husband’s fist coming down on my stomach while we were sleeping.

For years, that puzzled me. I could never figure out how that could happen in our sleep. But then someone told me that it wasn’t Justin’s natural father doing those things, but it was the anti-Christ spirit in him that wanted to destroy my son. And the reason for that was because of the call and anointing that was upon the life I was carrying.

After four years of marriage, I had finally had enough, and when Justin was one year old, I took him and left. I moved back in with my parents and started going back to the church where I had given my life to Jesus a few years earlier.

During that time, I began to get up early in the morning to seek the Lord. I was so hungry for the presence of God—so desperate to know His love. My relationship with Jesus was my top priority. Learning to hear His voice and understand the ways of His heart was my goal. I desperately wanted Him to lead and guide me in all things.

During this time, I had also begun to think about the possibility of remarriage. I was twenty-two years old, and I knew I didn’t want to stay single for the rest of my life. So I began talking to the Lord about it. I wanted to know His heart on the matter.

Once I felt a peace about the fact that, under my circumstances, I could remarry, I told God, God, I am not going to date. I am not going to go looking for someone. If you want me to remarry, you bring me the man that I am supposed to marry. But I also told God, It has to be someone who is willing to adopt Justin. Even if it never comes about for legal reasons, it has to be somebody who would be willing because, if he is willing to adopt him, then he would be able to treat him as his own son. A few months passed, and I kept this before the Lord continually.

I began to hear a lot about a man named Sid Bradley. Every time I turned around, someone was asking me, Do you know Sid Bradley? Have you met Sid Bradley? I would say, No, I haven’t, but I keep hearing about him. I went to a large church, and it was not uncommon to be unfamiliar with some of the other people who attended the services.

Finally, one Wednesday night at church, our pastor had Sid stand up and share a testimony about falling off scaffolding down into a pipe organ while doing some construction work on an old church. Sid said that everyone on the job site with him said it looked like he fell in slow motion and that God just guided him down in between the sharp pipes on the pipe organ. While he could have been impaled on one of those huge pipes, he came out with only a scratch on his neck.

So as he stood up to share, I said to myself, So that’s Sid Bradley. I had already begun to sense that God was doing something to set us up.

A few weeks passed, and God continued to highlight Sid to me. Little did I know that even though we had not met, God had also been showing me to him. Sid later told me that he kept hearing the Lord say to him, Call her. And Sid would argue with God, saying, I can’t call her. She’ll think I’m crazy. I don’t even know her. But he kept hearing the Lord prod him to call me. Finally, Sid did call, and he said, You don’t know me but … And I said, Well, actually, I do know you. We both knew in that moment that God was connecting us.

Sid invited me to go to a Christian concert with him on the following Sunday afternoon. So we went, and later that evening, we went to church together.

One week to the day that we first went out, we were on our way to eat after Sunday church service, and Sid said to me, You know, if we go ahead and get married like we are talking about [yes, we had already discussed it], I would want to adopt Justin. Now remember, I told no one what my prayers had been. That conversation was between me and God only. He then said, Because if I am going to have the responsibility of raising him, I want the privilege of him being my son.

That was the one stipulation I had put on God: it had to be someone who was willing to adopt Justin. Three months later, we did get married. Now believe me, I am not recommending that your sons and daughters get married to someone they have only known three months. But we knew it was a God thing for us. We knew it was God orchestrating our steps to redeem what the enemy had tried to destroy.

When this happened, my first husband, Justin’s natural father, became very angry. He began to make threats. He told us that he was going to kill Sid and kidnap Justin and take him back to Iran and that I would never see him again. He went over to the babysitter’s house and banged on the door, trying to get in to get Justin. Now remember, I had already been on the receiving end of his physical abuse. I knew firsthand what he was capable of. It was terrifying. I was afraid for my life, for Sid’s life, and for my son’s life and future.

Because of all the threats that he made, Justin’s natural father was forced by the state to be restricted to supervised visits with Justin. He visited only once.

Sid and I began to talk with an attorney friend about moving forward with adoption proceedings. We found out that Justin had to be in Sid’s care and custody for a full year before we could file for adoption. So we waited the year.

At the end of the year, we began the proceedings. At the time, those around us didn’t understand and kept telling us it would be impossible for Sid to adopt. Even some family members were against us for wanting to do this. They did not understand that it was all part of God’s plan for us. Our pastor at the time told us to not get our hopes up, that it was not likely to happen. Even our lawyer said it was not likely to happen as long as the other parent is living.

We moved forward anyway, knowing what God had laid upon our hearts for our family and for the way we believed Justin was to be raised. I can look back now and know why it was so significant. If you know anything about Islam, you know that this goes much deeper than just the act or legal aspect of adoption. It was about the removal of the spirit of Islam from Justin’s lineage. It was about the removal of that anti-Christ spirit from his family line. That anti-Christ spirit had to be annihilated in Justin’s life.

All through the Old Testament, when God wanted to bring his children out of a place of bondage and into a place of freedom and blessing, they first had to go and drive out the inhabitants of the land. They had to drive out the God haters, the sinful, and the disobedient. And removing that anti-Christ spirit from my lineage, removing that anti-Christ influence from Justin’s life, is the same thing. God wanted to bring my family from a place of bondage into a place of freedom.

Even though I had made choices in my life that could have prevented the purpose of God from being fulfilled and I made choices in my life that could have caused my son, Justin, to be the exact opposite of what he is right now, I was bought back. I had been redeemed. And because I had been redeemed, the mighty hand of God was on all those who would come after me. From that moment on, God would always be at work, orchestrating the situations in my life and the lives of those who followed me to bring them to a place of redemption as well.

We have to understand that our redemption is not just about us. It goes far beyond us. Our redemption is about us and about all those who will come after us.

What we found out as we began the adoption process was that not only did Justin have to be in Sid’s care for a year, but if a parent did not send any financial support for a full year, it was considered abandonment. That is what would open the door for the adoption to go through. Little did we know that just a short time later, that law of abandonment due to no child support would be stricken from the books. The new law was to take effect just thirty days after Justin had been in Sid’s care for a year. However, because we had already begun the proceedings, we were grandfathered in under the old law. We knew nothing of any of this. But God knew. He knew a year earlier when He began to show me to Sid and Sid to me. He knew when He placed that desire on my heart that if I was to remarry, He had to bring me someone that would be willing to adopt Justin.

God knew what He was doing when He impressed upon us to move our wedding date up from one year to getting married three months after we met. For all those months and years, God was behind the scenes, working on our behalf and ordering our steps to bring about His total redemption for our family. There was only a thirty-day window for all of this to be able to work out the way it was supposed to.

See, God knew what His plan was. But He also knew what the law was, and He knew that we would be required to work within the limits of the law. As I said, we came under some harsh criticism from family members, but we moved ahead, knowing what God had said we were to do.

As the court date grew close, I was given this scripture from a friend as a promise from God for the situation.

Then Jahaziel was moved by the Spirit of GOD to speak from the midst of the congregation. He said, Attention, everyone—all of you from out of town, all you from Jerusalem, and you King Jehoshaphat—GOD’s word: Don’t be afraid; don’t pay any mind to this vandal horde. This is God’s war, not yours. You won’t have to lift a hand in this battle; just stand firm, Judah and Jerusalem, and watch GOD’s saving work for you take shape. Don’t be afraid, don’t waver. March out boldly tomorrow—GOD is with you.

Then Jehoshaphat knelt down, bowing with his face to the ground. All Judah and Jerusalem did the same, worshiping GOD. The Levites stood to their feet to praise GOD, the God of Israel; they praised at the top of their lungs! They were up early in the morning, ready to march into the wilderness. As they were leaving, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, Listen Judah and Jerusalem! Listen to what I have to say! Believe firmly in GOD, your God, and your lives will be firm! Believe in your prophets and you’ll come out on top!

After talking it over with the people, Jehoshaphat appointed a choir for GOD; dressed in holy robes, they were to march ahead of the troops, singing, Give thanks to GOD, His love never quits. As soon as they started shouting and praising, GOD set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir as they were attacking Judah, and they all ended up dead. The Ammonites and Moabites mistakenly attacked those from Mount Seir and massacred them. Then, further confused, they went at each other, and all ended up killed. As Judah came up over the rise, looking into the wilderness for the horde of barbarians, they looked on a killing field of dead bodies—not a living soul among them. (2 Chronicles 20:14–24, MSG)

We stood firmly on that scripture verse as a promise from God that He was going to fight this battle for us. What we saw with our very own eyes was that as the truth began to come out, even my first husband’s attorney appeared to have a change of heart. We could see in the spirit a shift begin to take place in the courtroom as his attorney began to sink into his chair. His lawyer started cross-examining him like a prosecuting attorney. It was very much like the enemies of God turning on each other in 2 Chronicles. It was a difficult thing to do. It was a difficult thing to go through for us and for Justin’s natural father, but God had a plan.

Even though we saw what Holy Spirit did in the courtroom that day, we still had no idea what the outcome would be. Then about a month after our initial court date, we received a call from our attorney. He left a message on the machine, saying, Congratulations, Sid, you are now the proud father of a three-year-old bouncing baby boy. God redeemed my family! He did what he had promised!

God redeemed me years earlier. He redeemed Sid years earlier. And then He brought us to this place together. God’s powerful plan of redemption, restoration, and healing could not be stopped. His redemption gave me the husband I needed and, at the same time, gave Justin the father he needed and, if that wasn’t enough, gave Sid the family he needed.

At some point after all this, and I am not sure of the time frame, my first husband left the United States and went back to Iran. He remarried an Iranian woman, and over the course of several years, he had two more children.

He tried to stay aware of Justin’s whereabouts through my dad. He was always asking for pictures of Justin. But because of the insane circumstances surrounding this, I would not allow anyone in my family to send him any pictures. I had never met his family, and I did not know what they may be capable of. I lived in fear that they would use the picture to create a false passport and just walk right out of the country with Justin and I would never see him again.

So time passed, and we settled into being a family. When Justin was eight years old, God blessed us with a beautiful, perfect baby girl we named Kelsey.

I wish I could say that our lives were just perfect after this, but that would not be true. We had to continue to fight for the destiny that had been placed on the inside of us by God.

As Justin grew older, he became rebellious. By the time he was twelve, he was already hanging with the wrong crowd and making really bad decisions. If it were not for the grace and promise of God, I can tell you he would not be here.

While he was a freshman in high school, two of his best friends were charged with attempted murder and sentenced to long-term prison sentences. The only reason Justin wasn’t with them that night is because he was grounded for doing something else. Another of his friends was stabbed to death in a bad drug deal.

You can see, if not for the grace, mercy, love, and compassion of Jesus Christ, if not for His redemptive power and plan for our lives, where would we be?

Through a series of circumstances, and I am not sure what all those are, my first husband gave his life to Jesus. Because of that, some people wanted him dead. In countries like Iran, if you confess Christ as the Son of God, they will kill you.

Shortly after Justin turned eighteen, his natural father decided he wanted to get out of Iran. He sent Justin a letter, asking for his help. We were just getting ready to go into a week of prayer and fasting at the church we attended at the time. We decided to take the letter to church and place it on the prayer request table. We made an agreement that all three of us would pray about it throughout the week, and at the end of the week, we would come together to talk about it and see what we felt Holy Spirit was saying to us.

At the end of that week, as we began to share with one another what we felt the Lord was saying, we all agreed that we did not feel we were supposed to sponsor him to come back to the United States. There seemed to us to be discrepancies in his letter, and because of that, we did not know if he was telling the truth. We did not know if he had terrorist ties. We did not want to be responsible for him once he was here. So we all agreed we would not do it. I really struggled with it because I felt that if he was now a brother in Christ that takes priority over everything else he has ever done. If he really was a Christian, then I felt we were responsible before God to help him. So we prayed for him, and we said, God, if he is telling us the truth and if his life is in danger because he is now a Christian, then send someone else to help him. Do whatever it takes to get him to safety.

A few months later, we heard that he was back in the United States. He divorced his wife in Iran because she would not come with him, and now he is remarried to an American woman and living and working in another state. He has since shared his story of redemption, persecution, and now freedom on national Christian TV on the 700 Club.

In spite of everything that transpired, he is now walking out his redemption too. Not only did God redeem me and my family, but He redeemed my enemy too. He took the thing we feared most back in those early days, which was my ex-husband and what he might do for revenge, and He redeemed it.

God is an awesome God!

God has shown me many times and in various ways His great love for me and that He will go to great lengths to bring to pass His