Do Your Finances Make You Afraid?

Like any farmer, Mike Wichman occasionally went through some rough seasons. When profits hit a low in 2000, dairy farmers struggled to get by. “My finances started to go bad, and I was like, well, you know, I can’t tithe this month. I’ve got to cut back. So I cut back, and then things really started going bad,” he says. His cattle started getting sick with a strange disease that simply caused them to waste away. A few died and Mike was worried he might eventually lose his entire herd. “I was calling up the veterinary clinic and they were saying, ‘Well, there’s nothing you can do. Sell them before the die,’” Mike recalls. “I was just really depressed, ready for bankruptcy. That was probably at my lowest point in life. I was going in the wrong direction financially, spiritually.” So Mike started tithing and praying. “I was praying that He would lead me out of this financial mess that I was in, help me get my life back in order,” Mike explains. “I started reading the Bible every morning, and putting God first with my money. You know, there were some times when I didn’t know how it was going to work out, but I just trusted Him.” Then one day Mike came across a magazine article. A woman in Australia was using copper supplements to treat the same kind of disease that threatened to destroy his herd. He called her up, got some more details, and tried out a similar formula with his cattle. “It amazed me that it worked as good as it did,” he says. “It still amazes me to this day that it works like it does.” Mike started selling the supplements to other farmers, and they had good results, too. One customer even mentioned Mike and his supplements in an interview for a national magazine article. “The business just flew from there,” he says. “I just knew that God had to be behind that kind of free advertisement. And it was after I had increased my tithing again.” Mike got so much response he sold off his herd and went into the supplement business full time. Today, he makes more money selling supplements than he did when he was farming. He certainly didn’t enjoy the tough times, but Mike says they did teach him a lesson. “People tend to have fear of the electric company or the phone company or whatever, but they don’t trust God. And that’s just a huge mistake. We just need to learn to trust God. Lean on Him,” he says.