Positioning for Breakthroughs!

Sometimes we can feel beaten by life and we shelve all our dreams and aspirations especially if they did not eventuate according to our timeline and even lose our faith in God for a breakthrough. How can we position ourselves for a breakthrough and enter into the things that God has planned and purposed for us even in times of adversity. 

The story of the Shunammite woman who lived in Elisha's time from 2 Kings 4:8-37 gives us some keys on how to plough through in faith. The story starts with this woman creating a room for Elisha, a man of God to come and stay in her home. She said to her husband, "I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God. Let’s make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us.” On one of the visits of Elisha, he asked his servant Gehazi on what can be done for this woman in return for her hospitality.

2 Kings 4: 14 - 17
“What can be done for her?” Elisha asked. Gehazi said, “She has no son, and her husband is old.” Then Elisha said, “Call her.” So he called her, and she stood in the doorway. “About this time next year,” Elisha said, “you will hold a son in your arms.” “No, my lord!” she objected. “Please, man of God, don’t mislead your servant!”  But the woman became pregnant, and the next year about that same time she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.
This Shunammite woman positioned herself to receive her blessing by “Creating Room" for God in her life. Though her dream had not eventuated according to her timeline, she continued to make space for God and this positioned her for Elisha to proclaim prophetically that her dream of being a mother would be realised in a year's time, even when she dared not believe in her dreams anymore because she did not want to be disappointed.

The story does not end here. This precious son of the Shunammite woman grows up and suddenly dies. Sometimes, we may start well on a dream or vision and then we run into roadblocks like this woman does. We can wallow in self pity, discuss our problems with everyone and be paralysed in our situation and give up again when we are faced with the impossible. But that's what this Shunammite woman did not do when faced with the impossible. 

2 Kings 4: 18 - 24 
The child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers. He said to his father, “My head! My head!” His father told a servant, “Carry him to his mother.” After the servant had lifted him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died. She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and went out. She called her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and return.” “Why go to him today?” he asked. “It’s not the New Moon or the Sabbath.” “That’s all right,” she said. She saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Lead on; don’t slow down for me unless I tell you.” So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
Wow, what a response! She did not waste time in even telling her husband that their son was dead. She fled to have God intervene in her situation through Elisha. God honored her faith - Elisha prayed to God and stretched himself on the boy and he came to life after sneezing seven times. The woman received her son back again!

The story does not even end here. God's favour was with her when she again faced adversity again (2 Kings 8: 1- 6). When she left her home and lands to escape the famine in the land, her property was repossessed and she went to appeal to the king. 

2 Kings 8: 3-6
At the end of the seven years she came back from the land of the Philistines and went to appeal to the king for her house and land. The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and had said, “Tell me about all the great things Elisha has done.” Just as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, the woman whose son Elisha had brought back to life came to appeal to the king for her house and land. Gehazi said, “This is the woman, my lord the king, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.” The king asked the woman about it, and she told him. Then he assigned an official to her case and said to him, “Give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now.”
Wow, what favor, what a restoration! If we are faithful in following God no matter what adversity we face and persevere, God will honor us just like he did to this Shunammite woman.

Yes life may have been hard on you lately - what is your response? Do you feel like shutting God out of our life or do you want to continue to create room for God and persevere in faith when faced with the impossible like this Shunammite woman did? If you do, God will provide a breakthrough for you and you will find favor and restoration - not according to your timeline but according to His for His glory!

This is How I Fight my Battles!

I love the song by Michael W. Smith "This is how I fight my battles".

It may look like I'm surrounded but I'm surrounded by You!
Nothing is as strong as Your blood
This is how I fight my battle
Right here at the table
Your blood and Your body has overcome!
How powerful to sing this in worship and make it our battle song!

However when troubles and problems may surround us on every side, we tend to feel we are alone and we are overcome by the enemy. We forget that God is for us and on our side and is fighting the battles we face and He will bring us victory! A good story that illustrates this is from 2 Kings chapter 6. The nation of Aram was at war with the nation of Israel.  Every time that Aram attacked the nation of Israel, Israel was prepared and escaped the Aramean strategy. This was because God was revealing the war plans of the enemy to Elisha and he would duly inform the king of Israel. When the king of Aram got wind that Elisha was the one helping Israel to win, he sent an army to get Elisha.

So you can imagine the shock and panic that Elisha's servant felt when he woke up one morning, surrounded by the enemy and totally outnumbered. Let's pick up the story here.
2 Kings 6: 5 - 17
When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked. Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, LORD, so that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.What an experience for Elisha's servant when his eyes were opened by the Lord and actually saw the Lord's army!

In the natural it felt that Elisha and his servant were far outnumbered and without any hope. In reality, it was the opposite – those who were for Elisha and his servant far outnumbered the enemy and there was definite victory! Yes, this is how we fight our battles, by standing on the victory that Christ has won for us by the shedding of His blood.
Romans 8: 37 - 39
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What is your reality today – do you feel outnumbered and defeated or do you know beyond a shadow of doubt that Christ is for you and with you, no matter what you have to go through. Ask the Lord to open your eyes and your heart to the truth and then stand on it! This is how we fight our battles! We are more than conquerors!