now about breakthroughs...

I am believing God for a breakthrough…again!

And as I approach the throne, a bit shame-faced at my incessant requests, I am amazed to see that my Father is expecting, even excitedly welcoming me. He is not irritated as man is wont to be; rather He is ready to hear me and to show me everything that has been done to give me the breakthrough I seek again.

So I am thinking…

Perhaps heaven’s community does not regard breakthroughs the way we do. When we pray to God for breakthroughs what does He decrypt in our pleas?

The word itself is not in the Bible …I searched. That search however showed that there are many scriptures that infer breakthrough because of the meaning of the word. If I combine all the dictionary descriptions of the word, I can confidently define breakthrough as an ‘act of overcoming or overpowering an obstacle or restriction’.

What really is a breakthrough in the life and walk of a Christian? Why do we seem to always need breakthroughs? Will we ever get to that point in our lives when we can run on cruise control and never need another breakthrough?

I recently acquired understanding by looking at the life and development of a child:

Just picture for a few minutes, how a crawling child views the ability to walk; to that child its an amazing feat – a challenge as he watches other children, walk, run and play effortlessly.  Then one day, that baby pulls himself up, stands, takes a step and then another and discovers the joy of walking. At that point, the baby has broken through and crawling and watching others walk from the sidelines is a pastime that he will never purposefully engage in anymore.

However as that child enjoys walking, starts running even, he realizes that people around are communicating in words he cannot understand nor produce. Communication then becomes the next feat that requires a breakthrough!

This is how breakthroughs become developmental milestones in our spiritual lives as we transform from carnal men to men who have the mind of Christ – it is no simple feat. First, it signifies complete victory over one phase and a preparedness to move to the next and secondly, it is a continuous, progressive process.

A breakthrough in itself is complete; when a child walks he needs never resort to crawling again to move from one place to another. Breakthroughs are complete like that – when a Christian learns to rely daily on God’s grace to live above sin, then purity becomes a way of life everyday, it is no longer a struggle. When we find like that the proverbial dog that we keep returning to our vomit, then clearly in that situation we have not had a breakthrough.

As we celebrate breakthroughs in certain areas of our lives, we must rejoice with a preparedness to meet the next phase or challenge ahead of us. Our rejoicing is two-fold; that breakthrough and the next challenge is a testament to our progress and the God who gave us the breakthrough before is ready, more than willing and quite able to give us the next!

Still many of us are not where we should be. We are still grappling – crawling when we should be walking, running even!

Several things can slow our development, but I am only going to write about 3  generic hindrances to our breakthroughs. These 3 are: (i) Fear & Doubt (ii) Sin and (iii) Adversaries.