The Myth of Breakthough
I’ve begun to think the way I pray for and expect breakthrough is making me unhappy.
I live and work in personal development and I firmly believe that fakery will not fly. Not that my life has to be perfect before I can be useful, but I must be honest about the places my life is under construction. I can’t pretend they don’t exist and then help you with your construction.
It doesn’t work like that.
The torture comes when I want everything fixed at once, and I believe my success depends on it. Lord, please fix me, this, right now, all of it thank you. I can’t wait to see what you do by tomorrow.
There is literally nothing in the natural world that works like that. The law of gradual growth is real. It’s seed, TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME, and harvest.
When it doesn’t happen the way I think is right, I get disappointed and think I’m defective. Then I turn into a beggar. “Pleeeeease God, what’s wrong with me? Why do you bless other people and not me? What’s wrong with me that you won’t bless me with a giant oak tree, I mean, I planted the acorn yesterday?”
The problem is my expectations.
I was taught to pray for breakthrough, but nobody taught me I should define what it looks like. Inevitably I think Moses at the Red Sea. Joshua at Jericho, but don’t forget those two had 40-80 years in the desert before any of that happened. Isn’t it so great that the Bible doesn’t just run the highlight reels?
Like everybody, I love a big overnight breakthrough, but I know from experience when it happens:
I develop no resilience.
I develop no mastery in the area.
I give away my agency.
The work is not too much for me, I just have to learn how to do it: To pray without ceasing, renew my mind, enter his gates with Thanksgiving, and to quit despising the days of small beginnings. That’s less fun than the magic wand approach, but it’s how I grow.
Overnight breakthrough does none of that.
Maybe we’re actually breaking through all over the place.
What if by expecting breakthrough to come in increments, we began seeing it everywhere? Those small wins that remind us that in ALL things God is working for the good of those who love him - even if it doesn’t come how we prayed for it?
Wow, I didn’t eat sugar today and my body feels so much better. Thank you.
I’ve been praying for my marriage for decades and today we cooperated. Cool. Thank you.
My business is in a totally different place than it was this time last year. Amazing. Thank you.
We have agency to do whatever we need to do, but when we sit on our butts and complain that the breakthrough hasn’t come, we give away our power and miss an opportunity to enter God’s gates with Thanksgiving.
Big breakthroughs happen, and it’s such fun when they do, but by managing my expectations and looking for the mini-wins I learn to be content whether abased or abounding.
This, I’m convinced, is how you build a very good life.