Spiritual Breakthroughs
When was the last time you had a real “Wow!” experience? For many people it was on an Emmaus Walk. Maybe it was during a powerful revival meeting. For others it was at the birth of a child.
If your last “Wow!” experience was years ago, in my personal opinion, it has been too long. However – let not your heart be troubled.
The truth is, we cannot and should not try to manufacture a wow moment or a spiritual breakthrough. But they still happen and can happen for you.
To give this a Christmas context, both Mary and Joseph had their own spiritual breakthroughs. For Mary it was after Gabriel told her she was going to have a baby. Mary’s initial reaction was – “How can this be since I do not know a man?” It was an honest question. It was natural for her to think a thought like that.
For Joseph, his spiritual breakthrough happened after he heard that Mary was with child. They had been away from each other for months fulfilling their betrothal vows of purity. Now she is with child. He decided to put her away privately. Meaning, he decided to end the betrothal agreement. He decided to divorce her.
In both cases, they experienced a spiritual breakthrough because of God working in their lives. What keeps us from having more spiritual breakthroughs?
I believe there are as many as five reasons. First, our thought life. Some of us are analytical thinkers and we over analyze things.
Second, we do not like pain. To say this another way – we take the easy way out.
Spiritual breakthroughs often contain an element of pain. It is something like what happens after a seed of corn is placed underground. Beyond our ability to see the transformation, the corn seed experiences a cracking. If the corn seed could speak it would say, “Ouch. That hurts.” For corn on the cob to happen there must be a breakthrough of the outer shell.
We protect ourselves from pain. We resist pain. We tend to self-medicate to soften or avoid pain. As a result, many times we miss-out on what God wants to do in and through us.
Third, we do not desire spiritual things as much as we should. That is true for all of us at one time or another. That is just the way it is. We just want to have fun. We think we know what is best. We desire to be entertained. Sometimes, we just do not desire God as much as we should.
In the fourth place, we love the world even though the Bible says, “Love not the world…” Finally, we like personal comfort. We know what we like and we like what we know. We protect ourselves from change and that which is outside our comfort zone.
It is my hope and prayer you will have a spiritual breakthrough during this Christmas season.
