about Jeff
Jeff Copeland
Jeff D. Copeland is a simple, ordinary person who grew up from humble beginnings in the Pineywoods of East Texas. He has a degree in marketing from Texas A&M University, 30+ years of marketing experience, 20+ years-experience as an outdoor writer and 30 years-experience as a hunting guide. Among other life achievements, he has also managed ranch- es and whitetail deer breeding operations and sold farm and ranch real estate. Nothing about any of those facts makes him qualified to write a book detailing how an individual might come to seek out, find, and live their best life by walk-ing hand-in-hand in a special relationship of communion with God. It simply means that unbeknownst to Jeff, God gave him the gift of being able to string words together on a piece of paper in such a way as to paint vivid word pictures and stir deep emotions within the reader. Jeff took that gift for grant-ed and made a decent living with it for a couple decades, thinking he was a self-sufficient, self-made man. Despite his Christian parent’s best efforts to “raise him right,” he had seri-ous doubts as to whether or not there even was a “higher power” at all; much less the Loving Heavenly Father he has now come to know over the last ten years.
When Jeff’s “self-made” life turned into a self-made mess causing him to hit rock bottom, he was surprised beyond measure to find out that God IS the Rock at the bottom. It suddenly became clear that the hand of the God he hadn’t really believed in had in fact been the cause of every success Jeff had ever achieved; and thankfully, also the source of every precisely-measured obstacle and trial he had ever faced in life. In that moment, Jeff came to understand that God IS love. God wants nothing more than for us to live our best and most blessed life; which He designed just for us before time began. That longing of God’s causes Him to pursue us, using “life’s circumstances” to nudge (or push) us towards Him until we accept His invitation. He never gives up trying to give us our best life, no matter how hard-headed and obstinate we are.
Coming to this realization created a deep sense of awe for God in Jeff and he found himself on a quest to devour the Bible to learn Who God was, who God wanted him to be, and to figure out how to be able to see the truth in all the promises of the Bible in his own life. As Jeff embarked on this journey; slowly but surely, God began to reveal how the promises work (and they all do work exactly as the Bible states); but to Jeff’s dismay, there were times when nothing seemed to work as promised. Through continued diligent study and meditation on the Word, God finally gave him “eyes to see” and “ears to hear” that the truth of the failures was due to continuing battles with pride and a tendency to keep moving “self” to the center, instead of keeping God at the center of Jeff’s life. That is the key to living in communion with God and living our best life under the blanket of peace that Jesus promised is available to ALL Christians in John 14:27: God has to be at the center!
As Jeff’s understanding of this concept of getting and keeping God at the center came into focus, and he started fighting the daily battle to eliminate “self and pride” from the equation; he began to feel the need to write down what he was learning. He thought he was just making notes he could refer to as a reminder for times when he was struggling; but then he realized that God had a bigger plan. As hard-headed and prideful or conceited as Jeff had been for the majority of his life, he would be the perfectly imperfect example to others trying to figure out how to define that longing in their soul which nothing of this world could ever satisfy. Because if God could lead Jeff from rock bottom into the blessed life the Bible promises is available to all who believe in Jesus; there is nobody anywhere who can’t be led there. Aside from being a child of God, there is nothing overly special about Jeff. He is simply a regular, everyday failing human earnestly striving to walk through life hand-in-hand with his God, who provides all, and to share the truths of the promises of God’s Word with others.
Jeff and his Jack Russell, Bindi live in a small town in the Texas Hill Country.