Break Out!: 5 Keys to Go Beyond Your Barriers and Live an Extraordinary Life (10 page)

Whose report will you believe? The financial report may say you will never get out of debt, or that you could never afford the house you want, or you will never take a mission trip. You see the numbers. You’ve run all the projections. That’s one negative report. Don’t deny it, but choose to believe the report of the Lord instead.

God says, “Whatever you touch will prosper and succeed. You will lend and not borrow.” Get in agreement with God. Other reports may say, “You’ll never accomplish your dreams. You’ll never meet the right person. You’ll never get that promotion.” God’s report says, “Because you delight yourself in me, I will give you the desires of your heart.”

If you are to have unshakable faith and become everything God created you to be, then learn to ignore the negative report and choose to believe the report of the Lord. One time Jesus saw some men on the beach folding up their fishing nets, putting their equipment away. They had been out fishing all night. Jesus asked them if He could borrow their boat so he could push away from the shore and teach the gathered crowds. They didn’t know each other, but the men agreed and He borrowed the boat.

When Jesus was finished teaching, he thanked the fishermen by telling them to launch into the deep where they would catch a great number of fish. These men began to reason in their minds, and doubts rose up. They thought: “This man is a teacher. We’re professional fishermen. This is how we make a living. We know when the fish bite and when they don’t. We’ve been doing this for years. We are experts and this is not the time to fish. Nothing is biting.”

The problem with some people is they know too much. They know all the reasons why they can’t get well and why they can’t get out of debt and why they won’t be successful. Sometimes our intellects get in the way of what God wants to do.

A lady once told me after a Lakewood service that she had a rare form of cancer and a very short life expectancy. Even though I’d just talked about someone beating cancer three times, she had no hope. She told me all the details of why she couldn’t get well. She gave me story after story of people who didn’t make it. She went on and on about how the medicines that worked for other forms of cancer didn’t really affect her type.

By the time she finished, she had convinced me. I was depressed, too. I wasn’t even sick, but I was ready to plan my funeral! Do you know what her problem was? She knew too much. She analyzed it and reanalyzed it and studied it and thought about it and researched it. No wonder she didn’t have faith.

It’s good to have information. I’m not saying you should live with your head in the sand, but at some point you have to say, “I will not fill my mind with any more doubt and disbelief. Yes, I want to know the facts, but I don’t need to know all the details of why I will not get well or why I’ll never be debt free or why I’ll never accomplish my dreams.”

Sometimes you have to turn off your mind. If you listen to the experts
long enough, they can talk you into the ground. With all the facts and statistics and details, they can make you feel defeated. It’s like this guy I heard about who was standing on a bridge about to jump. He was so depressed, so discouraged. A man ran up and said, “Please, please don’t jump. Just tell me what the problem is.” For the next three hours, in great detail he told the man all of his problems. When he finished, they both jumped!

That’s why I want to know the facts, but I don’t want to know too much. If you don’t cut off negative information it will depress you. Step out of the natural and say, “This may be impossible with men, but I know with God all things are possible.”

The fishermen said to Jesus, “We’ve fished all night. We didn’t catch anything. We’re very experienced. We’re very knowledgeable. This is not our first time out here. We appreciate your advice but we’re the experts, we know the facts. The latest fishing report was e-mailed to us this morning, and nothing is biting.”

Jesus told them in effect, “What I’ve promised you may not make sense in the natural, but I have supernatural power. Your report may say there are no fish out there, but you have to understand, I control the fish. They may not have been there last night, yesterday, or last week. But I can assure you the fish are out there right now.”

Jesus finally convinced them. Even though it seemed like they were wasting their time, one of the fishermen said, “Nevertheless at your word I will let down the net.”

They had to turn off their doubt-filled minds. They had to ignore what their reasoning and logic and experience told them. I’ve learned God is not always logical. His ways are not our ways. They went out and caught so many fish that their boat began to sink. They had to call other fishermen to bring another boat.

Make sure you don’t talk yourself out of what God wants to do in your life. It may not seem logical. All your reasoning may say it will never happen. You may feel you’re too old, or you don’t have the experience. It may seem that the report is too bad and all the odds are against you. But dare to do what the doubt-filled fishermen did and say, “God, this promise You’ve given me doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t seem like it will ever come
to pass. I don’t know why I should even get my hopes up. Nevertheless, if You say so, I believe so.”

Mary, the mother of Jesus, did just that. She was a teenage girl living in Nazareth. One day an angel appeared to her and said, “Mary, you are a highly favored child of God. You will give birth to a baby without knowing a man, and He will be the Son of God.”

God spoke an incredible promise to her. You can imagine the doubts that bombarded her: “You can’t have a child without a man. That’s impossible. That defies the laws of nature.”

If Mary had just looked at what was possible in the natural she would have given up. But Mary understood this principle: She didn’t consider her circumstances. She considered her God.

I love the way she replied to the angel. Mary didn’t say, “This sounds really far out. It’s not logical, I don’t see how it could happen.”

Instead, she was bold. She said, “Be it unto me according to your word.”

Mary was saying, “I’m in agreement. Let it happen. If God says I’m highly favored, then I will not talk myself out of it. I believe I’m highly favored. If God says the impossible can happen, then I believe the impossible will happen.”

That’s the way we need to be when God puts a promise in our hearts. We may not understand how something can happen, but we don’t reason it out. We don’t come up with excuses. We do as Abraham did and become fully persuaded.

You may be sick, but God puts the promise in your heart that He will restore health unto you. You can say, “The doctor’s report doesn’t look good. My great-grandmother died of this same thing. It’s been in our family for five generations.” You can talk yourself out of believing the best, or you can do as Mary did and say, “God, if You say I will be well, then I believe I will be well.”

Mary said something interesting when the angel told her she would have a child. She asked how that could be possible, since she had never been with a man. She was talking about the physical, but I believe there’s a deeper meaning to her question. God was saying, “My promises are not dependent on man.” You don’t have to have a certain person to fulfill your destiny. You don’t need your boss to give you a promotion. You don’t need
someone with power to help you catch a break. God’s promises are not dependent on who you know or who you don’t know. The main thing is for you to know Him. God controls it all.

The Scripture says promotion doesn’t come from people, it comes from God. When it’s your time to be promoted or healed or restored, God doesn’t check with your friends, your boss, or your family. As the angel told Mary, God will make it happen without a man.

If God can do it without a man, then He can do it without a bank. He can do it without medicine. You may have spent long enough considering your circumstances. It’s time to start considering your God. He is the all-powerful Creator of the universe. What He has spoken over your life may seem impossible. It may look too big. When you run the numbers, it may not seem logical. But don’t do as the fishermen did and overanalyze. Don’t try to reason it out, because you’ll talk yourself out of it.

Do as Mary did and say, “God, I don’t see a way, but I know You have a way. Let it happen.” When negative thoughts come, learn to ignore them. That’s one report, but God has another report. He’s saying, “What I have spoken over your life I will bring to pass. What I have promised I will do.”

Because you have this unshakable faith, because you are fully persuaded then, like Abraham, God will do supernatural things in your life. He is bringing you out of debt into abundance. You will live healthy and whole. You will break every addiction. You will see your family restored. You will meet the right people. You will accomplish dreams greater than you ever imagined.

I
t’s easy to focus on what we don’t have. People tell me often that they don’t have the talent, the education, or the personality they’d like to have, but as long as you think you’re lacking it will keep you from God’s best. It’s not enough to just have faith in God. That’s important, but you should take it one step further and have faith in what God has given you. You have to believe you are equipped. You are empowered. You have the talent, the resources, the personality, everything you need to fulfill your destiny.

Here’s the key: you don’t need a lot of talent. You have exactly what you need. If you will use what God has given you, He will get you to where you’re supposed to be. I’ve learned it’s not necessarily the amount of talent, the amount of education, or the amount of money. What makes the difference is God’s anointing on your life. You can have average talent, but when God breathes in your direction, you’ll go further than someone with exceptional talent.

You can have an extraordinary problem, but with the favor of God, He can provide an ordinary solution and make you victorious. That’s what happened with Samson when a huge army surrounded him. He had no weapons, no protection. All the odds were against him. He began to look around to try to find something to defend himself. All he could find was the jawbone of a donkey. He could have thought, “Oh, great, just my luck. I need a sword. I need a shield and all I have is this jawbone.”

It was small. It was ordinary. But Samson didn’t dismiss it. He was smart enough to realize that this jawbone was part of his divine destiny. He picked it up and used it to defeat the entire army. Even though that jawbone was ordinary, it became extraordinary when God breathed on it.

You don’t have to be bigger, stronger, or tougher to overcome your obstacles. You don’t have to have great talent in order to do something great. When you honor God with your life, you have the most powerful force in the universe breathing in your direction. God knows how to take something ordinary and make it extraordinary.

Get in agreement with Him and be confident that you have exactly what you need. Don’t ever say, “I don’t have the strength. I don’t have the looks. I’m too tall. Too short. I’m too young. Too old.”

Zip that up and declare, “I am anointed. I am equipped. I am empowered. I am the right size, the right nationality. I know the right people. I have the right amount of talent.”

The Bible tells us about a day when Jesus had been teaching thousands of people. It started to get late and the people were hungry. Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “I want you to give them something to eat.” They were out in the middle of nowhere. There were no grocery stores and no other source of food. It seemed Jesus was asking the impossible. But here’s a key: God will never ask you to do something and then not give you the ability to do it. I hear people say, “I know I need to forgive, but I just can’t do it. It’s too hard.” Or “I know I should take that management position, but I don’t feel qualified.” The truth is they have exactly what they need.

The disciples weren’t confident that Jesus could provide food for all those people. They said, “It’s impossible. We don’t see a way.”

When Jesus heard all their excuses, He finally said, “You’ve told me all about what you don’t have. All I want to know is what you
do
have.”

They said, “Jesus, we just have five loaves of bread and two fish. But what is that among so many?” They looked at what they had and dismissed it as not enough.

They were like those who say to me: “I’d believe if I had more talent, more education, and just more going for me…”

I tell them God says to you what Jesus said to his disciples: “Give Me
what you have. Don’t make excuses. Don’t sit on the sidelines of life intimidated, thinking that you’re unqualified. Put your life, your dreams, your goals, and your talent into God’s hands.”

You know the story: Jesus took the five loaves and two fish and prayed over them. It all was multiplied. And somehow it fed more than four thousand people. That’s what happens when you give God what you have. He will multiply it.

Now what you have may seem small compared to what you’re facing, compared to the financial difficulty, the medical problem, or the size of your dreams. You could easily be intimidated. But God is saying, “Just give Me what you have.”

If you’ll be the best you can be right where you are, living with confidence, believing that God is breathing in your direction, then God will do for you what He did for the hungry crowd. He will take the little and He will turn it into much.

Still, people say, “I’ve got a big problem, but I don’t have big resources.” That’s okay. God does. He owns it all. He’s got you in the palm of His hand. Your obstacle may be high but our God is the Most High. That enemy may be powerful, but God is all-powerful. He has the final say.

Here’s what I’ve learned: God is not looking for supertalented people. He is looking for ordinary people who will take the limits off Him so He can show His goodness in extraordinary ways. Be confident in what you have. When David went to face Goliath, all he had was a slingshot and five smooth stones. It didn’t look like much.