Can You See Your Breakthrough?
What does a breakthrough look like?
Breakthrough in the Hebrew is perez or perets, meaning breach or a bursting forth. So a picture might be of a dam. But why does a dam burst? Generally because it's been weakened over time, slowly but surely.
Sometimes we pray for breakthrough, imagining a huge explosion of blessing, favor, healing, whatever we're needing. But maybe what we need is the slow, steady inexorable pressure of Living Water cutting away at it every moment of every day - even when we don't see or feel it.
I'm reminded of Jericho. "Then the Lord said to Joshua, 'See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.'" (Joshua 6:2-3).
God said He'd given them the city while it was yet closed up and impenetrable. Kind of like God saying, "I've healed you" while you still have all the symptoms, huh? Or, "I'm your provider" while you still have no job.
Joshua obediently led the people through what appeared to be absurdity, marching around impervious walls with zero visible impact.
On the seventh day, they increased their seemingly pointless efforts sevenfold. Their enemies had surely moved from threats to hilarity by this point. What fools the Israelites seemed to be.
Until the moment the breakthrough came.
The walls - thick enough that people had homes within them - didn't explode in a spectacular display. The flying rubble would have killed everyone. An implication in the Hebrew is that they collapsed from the bottom up.
Not what the people were expecting when they began, I'm sure. Yet they received the promised results.
What's my point? We can be so distracted by the way we think God's going to meet our needs that we miss it when He does it differently. Just because we don't see what we want doesn't mean He isn't acting on our behalf. May I train my eyes to see what He's doing, not the package I'm desiring.
Breakthrough in the Hebrew is perez or perets, meaning breach or a bursting forth. So a picture might be of a dam. But why does a dam burst? Generally because it's been weakened over time, slowly but surely.
Sometimes we pray for breakthrough, imagining a huge explosion of blessing, favor, healing, whatever we're needing. But maybe what we need is the slow, steady inexorable pressure of Living Water cutting away at it every moment of every day - even when we don't see or feel it.
I'm reminded of Jericho. "Then the Lord said to Joshua, 'See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.'" (Joshua 6:2-3).
God said He'd given them the city while it was yet closed up and impenetrable. Kind of like God saying, "I've healed you" while you still have all the symptoms, huh? Or, "I'm your provider" while you still have no job.
Joshua obediently led the people through what appeared to be absurdity, marching around impervious walls with zero visible impact.
On the seventh day, they increased their seemingly pointless efforts sevenfold. Their enemies had surely moved from threats to hilarity by this point. What fools the Israelites seemed to be.
Until the moment the breakthrough came.
The walls - thick enough that people had homes within them - didn't explode in a spectacular display. The flying rubble would have killed everyone. An implication in the Hebrew is that they collapsed from the bottom up.
Not what the people were expecting when they began, I'm sure. Yet they received the promised results.
What's my point? We can be so distracted by the way we think God's going to meet our needs that we miss it when He does it differently. Just because we don't see what we want doesn't mean He isn't acting on our behalf. May I train my eyes to see what He's doing, not the package I'm desiring.
Comments
Post a Comment