Break Out!: 5 Keys to Go Beyond Your Barriers and Live an Extraordinary Life (33 page)

What happened? Just like those lepers, my father took a step and saw God’s goodness. As he demonstrated his faith, he saw God show up in amazing ways.

You may have a dream that’s on hold. Like my father, you have waited and waited for everything to fall into place, thinking once it does then you’ll stretch, and then you’ll make a move. And yes, it’s good to have a plan, it’s good to stay in God’s timing, but you cannot wait around your whole life. At some point you’ve got to say, “I’m taking a step of faith to put actions behind what I’m believing. I’m going to show God I’m serious about fulfilling my destiny.”

When I was growing up my father traveled overseas for ministry work, often for weeks at a time. My mother stayed home to take care of all five of us by herself. When my father was away on these long trips, invariably a couple of us kids would either get sick or have some kind of accident that made it even harder on our mother. One time I cut my leg playing in a Little League baseball game and I had to get stitches.

It seemed like these little emergencies always occurred when my father was away. My mother began to dread him leaving. If he had a trip
planned, we’d seem to catch cold or run a fever before he started packing. My mother would think, “Here it goes again.”

My father got fed up. He said, “God, I’m going away to do Your work, to help people, and here my own family is falling apart again.” My father was bold. So he decided he would make sure God could see his faith. Instead of just praying over us he asked all of us kids to come outside. The oldest, Paul, was about thirteen and the youngest, April, was about three at the time.

He lined us up from the oldest to the youngest, and we had to grab the shoulders of the person in front of us, like a choo-choo train. My mother and father stood at the front.

Our dad led us around the perimeter of our property saying, “Father, I want to thank You that no weapon formed against my family will prosper, and You said Your angels will watch over them and no sickness would come near our dwelling.”

He had us repeat his words, “No sickness, no disease, and no accidents.”

We were in the backyard, and I was hoping he wasn’t leading us out to the front yard. The neighbors already thought we were crazy. We were about to prove them right. Sure enough, my father marched us right out to the front. I was so embarrassed I had my head down. I saw friends going by staring, neighbors looking out the windows, cars slowing down.

Do you know from that day forward when my father went on those long trips we never got sick again while he was gone? We never had any more of those accidents when Mom had us on her own. Years later, when we were trying to acquire the former Compaq Center to be our church, Victoria and I would go to it at night when nobody could see us and walk around it.

We circled the arena saying, “Father, thank You that this building is ours. Thank You that You’re fighting our battles for us. Thank You that You’re making a way where there is no way.”

Can God see your faith? Are you doing anything to demonstrate your trust? It’s not enough to just pray. It’s not enough to just believe. The Scripture says, “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” I know good people who have faith and love God, but they’re not living an abundant life. They have faith, but it’s not doing what it should be doing.
It’s not helping them overcome obstacles. It’s not helping them accomplish dreams.

Why is that? Their faith is dead. They’re not putting any actions behind it, so it’s not activating God’s favor. It’s not activating God’s goodness.

Your action doesn’t have to be something big. When you go to work each day and give it a hundred percent, that’s demonstrating your faith. Sometimes just getting up in the morning and putting a smile on your face is putting action behind your faith. Just the fact that you go to church is an action of faith that God can see.

You could be resting, working, running errands, but when you take time to honor God, He knows it. Right now, reading this, you are putting action behind your faith. That tells me your faith is not dead. Your faith is alive. Your faith is activating God’s power. Your faith is allowing God to fight your battles. Your faith is opening the door for the extraordinary.

I heard about this lady diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She was trying to stay positive and hopeful, but she was so afraid. She had two children. The doctors had given her only a 15 percent chance of surviving. She prayed and believed, and she had friends and family supporting her.

One day somebody gave her a little gray rock with the words “Expect a miracle” written on it. We’ve seen little trinkets with Scriptures on them and such. But when she was given that simple rock, something on the inside came alive.

Her faith was ignited. She knew: “It’s going to happen to me. I’m going to be well.” From then on, everywhere she went, she kept that rock with her. All during the day she would keep it in her pocket. At night when she went to bed, she put the rock right by her pillow. It was a reminder to thank God that He was working and to thank Him that He was restoring her health.

The little rock in itself was nothing special, but it was her way of putting actions behind her faith. When God looked down and saw her always carrying that rock, He recognized a faith that he could not just hear, but a faith that He also could see.

The woman went through chemotherapy and several surgeries. After months of fighting the good fight, it came time for her doctors to perform biopsies to determine whether the treatments had worked. The doctors
examined one hundred different places where they thought it could have spread. They told her not to get her hopes up. There was little or no chance that they would all come back cancer free.

She went to the exams with her rock right by her side. When she woke up after the procedures, she saw a beautiful older lady dressed in a bright white dress. She thought she was a nurse. The lady said very gently, “Are you the one expecting a miracle?”

This cancer patient was kind of groggy, but through the haze she wondered how this strange lady could know that she was hoping for a miracle. She answered, “Yes, I am.”

The lady in the white dress handed her a small plaque that read, “Miracles happen every day.” When the patient read it, she felt a warmness go all through her body. The next thing she remembered was waking up and seeing her husband leaning over her with a big smile.

He said, “Honey, the results are in. There was no cancer in any of the one hundred biopsies.”

She never found out who that lady in white was, but she still has the plaque on her wall. “Miracles happen every day.” Let me challenge you to have a faith that God can see. Put actions behind what you believe. It’s not enough to just pray, not enough to just believe. Take it one step further and demonstrate your faith.

You may not see how your dream could ever work out, but like those lepers, as you take steps of faith you’ll see God begin to open new doors. You’ll have the strength to do what you could not do. You’ll see His favor in unusual ways.

T
he moment God put a dream in your heart, the moment the promise took root, God not only started it, but He set a completion date. God is called the Author and the Finisher of our Faith. God wouldn’t have given you the dream, the promise wouldn’t have come alive, if He didn’t already have a plan to bring it to pass.

It doesn’t matter how long it’s been or how impossible it looks. Your mind may tell you it’s too late. You’ve missed too many opportunities. It’s never going to happen. “No,” God is saying, “it’s not over. I have the final say. I’ve already set the completion date.” If you will stay in faith and not talk yourself out of it, it’s just a matter of time before it comes to pass.

Maybe at one time, you believed you could do something great. You had a big dream. You believed you could start that business. Believed that you’d get healthy again. Believed that you’d fall in love and get married. But it’s been so long. You tried and it didn’t work out. The loan didn’t go through. The medical report wasn’t good. Now, the “never” lies are playing in your mind. “I’ll never get well.” “I’ll never get married.” “I’ll never accomplish my dreams.”

No, you have to have a new perspective. The Creator of the universe has already set that completion date. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. God has already lined up the right people, the right breaks, the right answers. Everything you need is already in your future. Now, you’ve got to shake off the doubt, shake off the
discouragement. Whether it’s been a year, five years, or fifty years, what God promised you He still has every intention of bringing it to pass.

In the Scripture, an angel appeared to a man named Simeon and said, “You will not die until you see the birth of Christ.” You can imagine how far out that promise seemed.

Years went by, and Simeon didn’t see any sign of the Messiah. Five years. Ten years. I’m sure the negative thoughts came: “You heard God wrong. It’s been too long. It’s never going to happen.”

We have the same type of thoughts today: “Do you really think you’re going to get well? You saw the medical report. Do you really think you could accomplish those dreams? You don’t have the funds, the connections.”

Let those thoughts go in one ear and out the other. I can see Simeon thinking all through the day, “God, I know You’re a God of completion. You said I wouldn’t go to my grave without seeing this promise come to pass. So, Lord, I want to thank You that it’s on the way.”

Simeon awakened every morning believing, expecting, and knowing that it would happen. Twenty years later, he saw Christ born. The promise came to fulfillment.

God is saying to you what He said to Simeon: “You can’t die yet—there are too many promises that have not come to pass in your life.” God is going to finish what He started. No one can stop Him from fulfilling His promises. Bad breaks can’t stop it. Sickness can’t stop it. Death can’t even stop it.

You need to get ready. God will complete your incompletions. You will not go to your grave without seeing your dreams come to pass—even the secret petitions of your heart. It may seem impossible, but remember, our God is all-powerful. He spoke the worlds into existence, and He has you in the palm of His hand.

God did not create you to be average, to drag through life unfulfilled or unrewarded. He created you to do something amazing. He’s put seeds of greatness on the inside. He’s whispered things to you in the middle of the night that may seem too big, far out, impossible. But God is saying, “That was My voice. That’s My dream for your life. It’s bigger, it’s more rewarding.”

It may look impossible, but if you’ll stay in faith, everything God promised
you will come to fulfillment. I met a 106-year-old man in our lobby after the service a while back, and he was so happy. He looked at least thirty years younger. I asked him how long he planned on living. He said he was going to be around awhile, because he has seven children, and one of his sons had gotten off course.

“I can’t die yet because God promised ‘as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,’ ” he said. “I can’t go to heaven until I see God bring every promise to pass.”

Life will try to push you down, steal your dreams, and talk you into settling for mediocrity. But I want you to have this new attitude and believe that whatever God started in your life, He will finish. Here’s the real question: Will you keep believing even though it looks impossible? Will you stay in faith, even though every voice tells you that it’s not happening?

My friends Jeff Hackelman and his wife, Eileen, pastor Family Faith Church in Huntsville, Texas. Jeff told me that when he was in high school he drove down to the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston, Texas, to go fishing one day. Jeff had done this many times before, but this day, he and his friend decided to fish an area he was not familiar with, one near some offshore gas wells.

As Jeff was launching the boat, he asked the man at the dock how to return to the dock from the area near the gas wells. The man said, “We’re directly north of them. If you’re anywhere around the gas wells, just go due north and you’ll make it back to this dock.”

Jeff and his friend traveled an hour in their little boat before reaching their destination near the offshore rigs. They were having so much fun and catching so many fish. What they didn’t realize was that a heavy fog had set in. It happened so quickly they were caught by surprise.

Suddenly, they could see only twenty to thirty feet in each direction. The sun started to go down, and Jeff became concerned about finding his way back in the fog and darkness. He told his friend, “Pull up the anchor. We need to go.”

In the fog, Jeff had lost his sense of direction. He couldn’t see any shoreline. The stars weren’t visible yet. All of his logic said, “We need to go this way.” His friend, who’d grown up fishing with his father, said, “No, Jeff, it’s not that direction. It’s this way.”

Then Jeff remembered he had a compass on board, so he checked it. It showed that they were both wrong. Against all of his instincts, Jeff cranked up the motor and started traveling due north. Everything in his mind told him, “You’re making a big mistake. You’re going the wrong way. You better turn around.”

His mind flashed back to what the man at the dock said. “Go due north and you’ll make it back.” He kept the engine speed down, creeping along because he couldn’t see in the fog and fading light. They traveled fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, forty-five minutes, then an hour had passed.

Now it was totally dark. Jeff’s inner voice told him, “If you were headed in the right direction, you should be seeing the shoreline by now.” How many times as we’re believing for what God promised us do we hear these same type of voices. “If you were going to get well, you’d feel better by now. If you were going to get married, you would have met somebody by now. If you were going to be successful, you would have been promoted by now.”

There will always be voices trying to convince you that you are headed in the wrong direction, that it’s never going to happen, or that it’s too late to fulfill God’s promise. Others may try to convince you that they know better, just as Jeff’s friend did.