Hey, everyone. All right, so we're starting our first session today, which is called getting
your breakthrough. And I know I did an introduction before, gave you a general idea of how to
go through the journal, a way to kind of position yourself for breakthrough. But before we got
into things like, you know, our next session, which is going to be, you know, who does God
say that I, that he is. And then the next session, who does he say that I am, et cetera.
I wanted to talk a bit more about breakthrough period. Like what exactly is it? What situation
are we currently in? Because what, because it's very helpful to understand that we're not in a
bad place. That's going to actually help us to get out of it, to realize that where it is that we
sin, that where it is that we are is a place that Jesus would the Bible describes was a place that
he was in. And so we're going to look today at even how, how he went through it, how he had
to struggle through his own wilderness experiences. And I'm talking about more than just strictly the
wilderness experience right after he was baptized by John the Baptist, and then was tempted by Satan.
I'm talking about even more than that, that Jesus went through it and therefore struggling
and going and being in a place where you need a breakthrough to get to a deeper level of intimacy
with God, being in that place is not a sin. So we first need to realize that we're not in a bad
place. So we're not, in other words, a sinful place. And therefore there's no reason for us
to feel shame or condemnation that we're here. So that's what I wanted to spend my time talking
about today is to just explain what breakthrough actually is. In other words, what, what,
what it actually is that we're needing breakthrough from as well as what actually breakthrough is,
is so that we can understand really what kind of a journey we're even on and to realize that
it's not as bad. If you want to put it that way, it's not as bad as we thought that it was.
And then it's actually a lot easier to get out of than we've even experienced thus far,
because usually if you're taking a program like this, then you've tried all kinds of other things
and you're frustrated and you don't understand why you can't seem to get out of this wilderness
and why you feel there's something in you that feels like you need something that's called the
word breakthrough that you just need some, it feels extreme. It's like you've got, you've hit
this brick wall or you've hit this edge and you cannot seem to penetrate it to get on the other
side. It's almost like you're being held back. So first of all, I wanted to share some stories
with you of my own personal experiences. You know, that I have, I've shared before that I have been
through many wilderness experiences in my life, but particularly talking about several big spiritual
wildernesses in my life. We'll be talking about several of them throughout the program.
Next week, we'll be talking, I believe about my crisis of faith, which is not something,
it's not a story that I tell very often, but it was where I almost walked away from the Lord
because I wasn't sure if I believed him, believe that he existed. And then if I believe that he
existed, I wasn't quite sure that I believed that he was good. And even if I believed that he was
good, do I even want to follow him? You know, do I even find it worth it? So it was a very major
crisis of faith that I did not believe somebody like me could even go through, but I've gone
through it. So like that, when I've gone through some very big, um, big spiritual wildernesses
that a lot of people share in common that are very deep spiritual that are rooted in very deep
spiritual basic principle, um, uh, struggles between us and the Lord. And, uh, I was going
through one of these. In fact, it was leading to my crisis of faith. So I don't know how, how
much early, how many months it was before my actual, uh, moment of crisis. So, but it was
somewhere around that time. And I had gone up front to get, uh, praying to get prayed for.
I believe I was fairly new at this church, uh, maybe just a week or two, something like that.
And I gone up front to get prayed for, for something. I don't remember what it was, but,
but it, I am not someone who likes to draw attention to myself, especially when I really
need something, when I'm feeling very weak and very vulnerable, some people are a lot easier.
Um, it's a lot easier for them to walk up front and get prayed for at the church in public. I
am not one of those people, or at least I haven't been. It's a lot easier for me now
because I realized the benefit on the other side. So I'm willing to go through it. But I,
in the beginning, you know, I wasn't quite sure of like, okay, yeah,
but is this going to work or not? Am I going to?
Or should I risk that much public vulnerability for something that may or
may not work is how I viewed it.
But I was, I was very, very desperate at this time.
So I was like, I'm going to go up front to this church that I hardly
know, cause I've hardly been here.
I've hardly met anybody and I'm going to go up front and, and
get someone to pray for me.
So the, everybody was all full and I, you know, full people
that they were praying for.
And so I sit down on the front, first row to wait for my person.
Um, and a lady was sitting on the second row, saw me, got up, came around
to the first row, sat next to me.
But I did not know at the time, but found out later is she was one of our pastors.
I think maybe the assistant pastor's wife.
I didn't know that though.
She was not on, she was not standing up there, um, offering ministry.
She's just sitting there by herself while her husband was at front with
a whole bunch of other people.
And, but she came and sat with me and she said that God had shown her
something about me when she saw me.
She said, God, she'd never met me before, but she said, God gave me a
picture of you kind of like a vision.
She said, I see you as a flower, a really delicate little flower
trying to come up through concrete.
And I thought, Oh my word.
God sees me because I thought that is the perfect picture
to describe what it felt like.
I was, I felt like this, this little delicate, fragile thing that was trying
so desperately to do the right thing.
So desperately to be good, you know, kind of like a flower is beautiful
and it's pretty and it's sunshiny.
And that's how I felt inside.
It felt like I'm just trying to do the right thing.
I'm trying to be good.
I'm trying to be obedient.
I'm trying to, to do the will of the Lord.
I'm trying to seek him, try to spend time with him, try to find him.
And yet I feel like my life is just nothing, but one torturous
situation right after another, where I feel like I felt like I was always
being beaten down while I was down.
And so when she gave me this picture of, she said that the Lord showed her that
I was like a flower coming up through concrete, it not only showed me that I
was seen, but it gave in and perfectly.
Pictured how I felt that I would, the situation that I was in emotionally,
but also it gave me hope because I was like, you know, that is true.
A flower kind of like a water on a rock, a flower as delicate as it is, does have
the power to break concrete as it's trying to grow and I thought, well, that's
exciting.
So it was very, very small level of excitement.
I understand because at that time I was also going through very major depression.
I'm trying to remember if I even knew it at the time.
No, I think I did.
I think I knew by that point and maybe even was on medication for it, but it
was still, it was still really, really bad.
And so anyway, I, I was feeling so despondent and so hopeless that it
was hard to feel much hope, but there was a little bit in there.
I was like, okay, so God recognizes that I'm just trying to do the right thing
and recognizes that my circumstances are apparently being affirmed to be as bad
and as hard as they feel like to me.
So it made me feel seen.
Um, and so, uh, so I just wanted to mention that to you, that that is how we
can feel when we're going through the wilderness experience.
We can feel like we're just trying to do the right thing and that our situations
are just making it too difficult.
Everything's against us, whether it's spiritually, emotionally, mentally,
or it's some physical situation.
We feel like everything's against us and that we don't deserve it.
That we're just, again, trying to do the right thing, right.
Trying to be obedient, trying to follow the will of the Lord.
So I wanted to explain what is actually going on when we're going through the
wilderness is a wilderness experiences, and we're going through these spiritual
and there are these deep spiritual questions that we have that we're
having to face during those times.
That's why we're struggling as we're facing very serious spiritual principles
and being asked to make a choice of what we're, what we believe is actually true.
And the reason that there's a struggle is it's the spirit
that is warring with the soul.
Remember that it says that the, in the Bible, it says that the spirit
and flesh war against one another.
The soul does not feel safe with the spirit because, and we're
talking about our own spirit, you know, because we're spirit, soul,
and body, it says in first Thessalonians.
So our spirit is one with Christ.
You know, it's, it's completely perfect.
It always believes it's father.
And that's what, remember, that's what sin versus faith is.
Faith is believing God's sin is not believing God.
So our spirit.
Mom with Christ always believes our father.
It always is operating in perfect faith, but our soul does not always
believe our father about everything.
And so when it doesn't believe, but our spirit believes and our spirit and
our soul and our body are one, then what do you have, you have a house
divided against itself and you've had that struggle.
So in that struggle, what it is that is being asked of us, what it is that we
are struggling and wrestling to hopefully come to a conclusion about
is what are we going to choose?
Are we going to choose that what God says is true or are we going to choose
that what he says isn't true and we've got to protect ourselves, which one is
that, you know, the spirit and soul warring against one another.
Um, so that's what the struggle is in.
That's why you feel so much pain is it's a house that is supposed to be
united, being divided against itself.
So really what it is is it's an, it's a, um, it's an expression of the
self of self-destruction because of course a house can't and shouldn't
be divided against itself, right?
Warring in and trying to destroy one another.
Um, so during this time, it's not a.
What we're going to get out of it by this struggle, because we can just
look at it from the way that we've typically looked at it, which is,
see, I'm in a bad situation.
I shouldn't feel this way.
I shouldn't be struggling.
I shouldn't be mad or I shouldn't be scared or I shouldn't be whatever
expression or feeling that we're feeling, um, or, or lie that we're holding on to.
I shouldn't have that.
And we get onto this part of ourselves, you know, this, uh, or we, or we feel
very shamed and self condemned because this, this soul that's having all of
these issues is, is having the struggle.
And so we think we're bad, right?
So we think I shouldn't feel that way.
I shouldn't doubt the Lord, et cetera, et cetera.
But really being in this, being in the struggle and being in this Russell is
not like, I keep saying, it's not a bad thing, what's going to come out of it.
And what this thing is all about is through that pain and through
that pressure is created space.
So let me explain that really quick.
So the way that the Bible talks about these types of struggles is he
compares it to a woman being in labor.
And you know, that the closer that a woman comes to actually delivering the
baby, meaning like when she starts labor and then, you know, as the hours
progress and her body begins to change and the closer that she comes to actually
delivering, the harder and the faster the contractions come, the more pressure
there is, and the more pain as things are being stretched, as things are being
squeezed, et cetera, and the closer that you come to it, the faster everything
operates and the more intensely that it does.
So God explains this in references.
The struggle in multiple places in the Bible, comparing it to a woman in labor,
including even talking about creation mentions in in Romans 8 22, it says for,
we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth
together until now waiting for the manifestation of the sense of God.
So not just creation, but it mentions other places in scripture of not of
creation and the souls of men going through pain and pressure, similar
to a woman in childbirth and what's happening with a woman in child, who
is going through childbirth, who's going through labor to deliver a child.
Nothing bad is happening, but it feels like it is right.
Because there's pain and there's pressure.
And we're used to associating those two things with it being with.
As warning signs that something bad is happening, that we have to make it stop.
And that's why people have to be, uh, what we call it.
I don't say trained, but trained prepared or whatever, through, uh,
through, uh, childbirth classes, Lamaze breathing, et cetera, because our
natural response is to fight what's going on and what we have to learn
through childbirth classes, et cetera.
Is to let go into release because the body, that pain and that pressure is
the body doing what it has to do to not only deliver the child, but to, and to
deliver it in a safe way, the safety of the child, but also the safety
and the health of the mother.
That pain and that pressure is needed.
So with that pain and that pressure, what's happening, the
opening is widening, right?
It's getting bigger and bigger.
And you're going from one centimeter to six centimeters to 10
centimeters, eventually, you know, it's opening wider and wider.
So the pain and that pressure.
is creating space for something new to enter and move it, to enter the world and to move into.
It's, it's kind of similar as well to what happens with, um, what Jesus was referring, uh, the
example that Jesus was giving to the disciples when he said that whenever something new
comes into the world, some new, um, new principle of the Lord, meaning like, you know,
they were under the old covenant and then Jesus was introducing the new covenant, right?
How did he explain how they needed to receive the new covenant? He explained that it would
no longer, that the new covenant in order to operate within it, it couldn't be executed in
the old model with the old structures because those old structures could only handle the old
covenant, the old model, the old way of doing things. So in order to receive the new covenant
at which Christ referred to as the new wine, he said, you have to have a new wine skin because
the old wine skin, if you put new wine into an old wine skin, into an old structure, an old way of
doing things, it's going to crack. But so you have to put new wine into new wine skin because the
new wine skin will be, uh, if it's, you know, if the wine skin being new will, will have more give,
it will have more flex because new wine is going to expand with, because of the fermentation
process, et cetera, it's going to expand and it needs something that's going to be able to give
it room to expand. So it's that, that, uh, so we see that this principle of creating space for
something new is repeated multiple ways throughout scripture. Uh, and so that's what is happening
when we're going through a struggle is we're actually creating space for something new to be
birthed from God and us into the world. So what's going to happen with this breakthrough is when you
get to the breakthrough new, when you, you're going to come to a higher level with the Lord,
you're going to come into greater intimacy, a higher level of relationship. You're going to
introduce something. You're going to birth something new into the world. And so what you're
doing right now with all this pain and there's all this pressure is you're creating new space
that doesn't currently exist for the new thing to be delivered into.
And for the aspects of your life to be able to contain that newness of a relationship with the
Lord, the newness of the intimacy, it's the pain and the pressure now is creating space. In other
words, it's creating a new wine skin or the thing for the new thing that you have yet to experience
that is yet to enter the world, but that new thing to come through, be birthed and land.
So what you're going through now is a preparation process so that when you go through the
breakthrough, what's born during the breakthrough will now have, have, uh, will now have a place to
land. It will, you will have more room in yourself, more room of who it is that you are to be able to
contain it, to be able to hold it, to be responsible for it, to be accountable with it, to be,
uh, to be able to operate with it, to be able to nurture it and take care of it.
In addition to all the other responsibilities that you currently have. So when we're going
through any kind of struggle, it's up leveling us. It's not like, Oh my goodness, I made a wrong turn
somewhere. And so now I'm being punished for it. So I'm now in the pit and I'm trying to get out.
No, what's happening is that God says you have done well in your last season, you reached the
max, you reach the ceiling of it and you can't, and you are yet unprepared to go to the next one.
So right now we're expanding you and we're expanding your horizons. We're expanding your
borders so that you can finally be big enough to handle, hold, be responsible for something new
that you've never seen, that you've never interacted with, you know, meaning like an
aspect of the Lord and aspect of the way that he's going to interact with you, et cetera.
Those types of things. We keep thinking that God will just give us stuff and that, and that it'll,
that all we're waiting for is God to just be more for us or do more for us or whatever.
And God says, no, that you have to be prepared to receive me. And so you've maxed out your ability
to receive of me. So we have to expand you so that you have more, you have more space to receive.
more of me that I'm now going to hold you accountable for that.
Now you're not going to, now I'm going to teach you and father you and mature
you into how to move in me in that new way.
And it's going to impact your life.
It's going to impact, you know, the birthing of this new thing.
You know, once you have the new thing, once you have the baby, it's going to be
growing and it's going to be, you're going to nurture it and you're going to
have to be responsible for it.
And it's going to create, you know, just like, just like little babies, it's
going to create confusion and, and a bit of, a bit of frustration and some
sleepless nights and whatever, but it's all a good thing.
And, and, and so God is just giving you more of himself and he's going to mature
you once you have the things going to mature you in how to operate in it.
But right now, what you're doing, you know, how to grow in how to grow in it and
operate more in it so that you can then max out that ceiling and that level of
relationship with the Lord, and then he'll expand you into another one.
But right now what you're doing is you're growing and stretching and it feels the,
and the reason I have to explain this is it feels like the opposite.
It feels like we're going through these times.
It feels like we're reverting.
Doesn't it?
It feels like we're reverting.
It feels like we're being punished.
It feels like we've gotten smaller.
At least it is for me.
Um, instead of feeling like I'm opening, it feels like I'm, I'm, I'm constricting
and that I'm getting S and that my world is getting smaller, et cetera.
Um, there's a lot of examples that the, in pictures that the Lord uses of this
feeling and scripture that we don't have time to get into, but sometimes what he
does with, but I'll mention this sometimes what he does during this time is he puts
us through a period in which we feel like we're in hiding or that we can't be meaning
like we can't be seen or that we pull away as a response, because there's just so much
of energy that is being taken up by all of this expansion within us.
Um, and, uh, so, but it, so my point is it feels like we're pulling away.
It feels like constriction.
It feels like restriction.
It doesn't feel like an opening.
And so I wanted to explain that's actually what the Bible points out to us is
happening is that we're opening, we're expanding, we're being prepared.
Um, but it's hard for us to feel and it's hard for us to, and it's hard for us to
recognize that what's going on, isn't wrong, that what's going on is the process
that we have to go through in order for our boundaries to be expanded in order
for our borders to be expanded.
Is it, I think it's Isaiah 62 talks about, um, uh, tells the
woman to expand her tent pegs.
In other words, you're having to do it in faith.
You're having to make room for something that you don't yet have so that you now
have the room for it to be filled.
Because remember, uh, another, another picture, an example of this, I keep
thinking of all of these pictures and other one is remember that a vacuum in
the physical realm and God's the one who created those laws and rules, uh, to a
lot of which, if not all of them reflect what is, uh, rules and, um, in, in
spiritual principles.
And one of them is that a spiritual principle that's mirrored in the, in
physics is that a vacuum will always seek to be filled.
So that's why whenever, whenever there is, um, whenever there's a, I don't know, a
vacuum of something that suddenly gets exposed, that gets exposure to air, air
rush in and something dramatic will happen because a vacuum always seeks to be filled.
Uh, all right.
What's the next thing I wanted to go over?
So yeah, you're being, you're, you're becoming acclimated to being closer with
God, to a greater level of intimacy.
Um, and then wanted to point out a, uh, from one of the Bible, uh, stories, a, an
example of the fact that Jesus considers this spiritual wilderness time to be a
very precious time to him.
So looking at Genesis 32, 24, um, this is after Jacob has sent all of his family
across the Jordan, I think it's across Jordan rivers, across the river.
Um, and then they were going to meet Esau the next day.
It's the first reunion with Esau, you know, since he left very dramatically
after having cheated Esau out of his birthright, uh, with, with Isaac.
And, uh, so of course, Jacob is very nervous.
So what he does is he sends his whole family across.
And then in verse 24, it says, so Jacob was left alone at night.
Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until day break.
When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of
Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
Then the man said, let me go for it is daybreak in that.
Fascinating.
So he saw that he could not overpower Jacob and even though he hit Jacob's hip.
So it, it hurt Jacob and it basically handicapped him.
Jacob still was holding onto the man to such a degree that the man had to say, Hey, look,
seriously, dude, let go.
And Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me.
And man asked him, what is your name?
This is the really, really cool part.
Jacob, he answered, then the man said, your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel.
And so what does Israel mean?
Because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.
And Jacob, and then of course, Jacob said, please tell me your name.
So he's just been given a new name.
He knows that names are very important and he wants to know the name of this man that
he's been wrestling with.
But the man replied, why do you ask my name?
And he blessed in there.
So Jacob got his blessing.
So Jacob called the place Peniel saying it is because I saw God face to face and yet
my life was spared.
So the reason I wanted to point that out is that was a very precious passage to me when
I discovered that God named his first born son, Israel, because remember Jacob's name
was changed to Israel and he, and God repeatedly throughout scripture refers to Israel as his
first born son.
And he could have names to God are very important.
You remember he changed Abram and Sarah's name to Abraham and Sarah, and he's now changed
Jacob's name to Israel.
Names are very important to the Lord.
He only does it, he only changes their name if he's trying to put some kind of a, a new
mark or stamp of identity on them, claiming them and it basically in a, in a new covenant.
And so he tells Jacob, he said, your name is no longer going to be Jacob.
It's going to be Israel and all your descendants after you.
So all of the descendants after him, the whole nation was called Israel.
And what does it mean?
Names are very important to the Lord.
Apparently this was very special.
So what does it mean?
It means he who struggles with God or he who wrestles with God.
You know, names, these types of names, the Lord, you know, that the name of his first
born son, that not only is he going to call out every time that he's calling to his son,
he's going to say he, who wrestles with God, because whenever he says Israel is saying
he, who wrestles with God, all of the nations that are his, the Israel's enemies there,
every time they say the name Israel, they're saying he, who wrestles with God, every time
it's been written in scripture, every time any of us talk about it, you know, in sermons
or with each other, we're all repeating and affirming over and over and over and over
and over with our words that we're declaring who Israel is, is he, who wrestles with God.
That is a very precious and a very intimate place to be with God.
And that is a very special thing that God considers between he and his son, because
that is the only thing that, that how do I explain it?
His sons are the only ones that he wrestles with.
It's not going to wrestle with those who are, or at least, you know, back then, you know,
the Gentiles, you know, he wasn't going to be wrestling with, with anyone that, I mean,
he's God, he can just wipe people out, you know, or he can give them what it is that
he wants, but, but relationships that are worth keeping are wrestled through.
There's conflict, things aren't easy.
You're fighting for it.
You're fighting for each other.
You're fighting for the relationship, not against them.
You're fighting for them.
And so wrestling with God, the struggle that you're in is a very precious and a very intimate
place.
Now, I remember I was, uh, again, going through this time somewhere around the crisis of faith
that I'll be talking about next time.
And somewhere around, maybe right after the, I had the prophetic word about the flower.
I was in my, uh, I was in my apartment and I was feeling tremendous anger.
I am one of those people that has stifled my emotions so much over my life that I've
had, that I've had to regain a sense of what, of what it is.
I actually feel because I, like I said, I had just stamped it out and snuffed it out
so much.
So for me to finally get to the point where I was that angry, I almost, I really didn't
know what to do with myself because I wasn't used to feeling emotion in that degree of
intensity.
I was, I don't, I don't know how to describe it.
I was.
I was furious with God and, and, and I remember exactly where I was standing,
I was standing, I had barely, I was barely standing inside my bedroom and I was standing there so mad
and, and God said, and I, and I, there was this wrestling with God himself that I was feeling.
And of course, what I was so mad about was I was mad at, at the situations that I was in.
I was just mad in the situation with God that I was in, that I couldn't seem to connect with him.
I was depressed. I just felt the world's going to hell in a hand basket. I mean,
my world is going to hell in a hand basket is what I thought. And I was so upset that
he wouldn't save me from it and that he had made or allowed my life to be like it was.
And he told me, he said, Ashley. And I don't, I think that maybe I was one, I was, I was thinking
about like turning my back on him because I was, I was so mad. I thought, okay, well, I can't be mad
to God, but I need to feel mad. So I don't know if I was like wanting to kind of like emotionally
and spiritually, like turn away from him, but he caught me. And he said, Ashley, he said,
you can struggle. You can struggle with me. He said, that's okay. We will get through it.
He said, I will always be there with you. He said, that's fine. He said, but whatever you do,
don't turn your back on me. So whatever you do, if you are struggling, even if you're struggling
in anger against me, he said, whatever you do struggle with me. Even if I'm the one that you're
mad at struggle with me, include me in it. Don't separate yourself from me. Don't turn your back
on me. Don't isolate me said face me. And we will, and I will give you space to wrestle.
We will do this together. And I've never forgotten that. That is just something that I never even
thought of because, and, and, and that opened my life, my, uh, I don't know, my, it opened my heart
to the Lord a bit because I realized, okay, so he could have chastised me, corrected me, struck
me by, struck me by lightning, you know, for saying, for thinking the things that I was for
feeling the way that I felt because he was my, he was the thing I was mad at, you know, wasn't mad
at something else. It was him. And in the midst of being attacked, he said, Ashley, I have got room
for that. I've got room for that struggle. I've got room for all of those questions. I have room
for that anger. I have space for that. We can do it. We will do it together. We will allow you to
wrestle. Yeah. I will allow you to wrestle with me, but face me and, and don't ever turn your back
on me. So I encourage you to, um, to approach the Lord with the struggle that you're going through
and include him in it, include him in, in the, in the times where you're questioning, where you're
doubting you're not believing, you know, whatever form that your struggle will take, just do it
with the Lord, include him, include his presence, allow him to see you. We already know as he's,
we already know he sees us, but I'm talking about an intentional, willful, permissive invitation
and bringing him in to whatever it is that you're going through while you're, while you're going
through it, because you won't be able to, to talk yourself out of where you are and heal.
Only the presence of God will be able to heal and rescue you from where you are.
So you have to bring him into it for that to be able to happen.
Um, there are multiple people in scripture that describe this wrestling that they went through
with the Lord. There was Joe, Joe three is 26. I have no peace or rest only turmoil. He struggled
very much with God. Remember struggling is not a sin. It's what you decide in the struggle.
That could be a sin. Are you believing God or are you not believing God? Remember that it's
the unbelief. That's the sin. What choice are you going to make? Are you going to let in this
struggle between soul and spirit? Are you going to let the spirit win your spirit? Are you going
to, are you going to side on the side of the spirit, not wish it was true and hope it was true
and please spirit overcome me. It won't, it's not going to do that. You're going to have to choose
that. This is what you're going to believe that this is how you're going to live your life,
that this is what's valuable.
to you, or are you going to choose to believe a lie about the Lord?
You know what your soul has been believing what it's afraid of your soul, by the
way, is the one making the decision.
Your spirit's already made a decision or it already knows what it's going to do.
And it can empower this soul.
If the soul needs to be strengthened, God will strengthen you again.
Part of the reason of going into his presence, when you're that upset and
facing him and wrestling, you know, through the situation with him.
Um, because he will strengthen and empower you and increase your faith.
Remember everything's a gift from God, including faith.
So faith is not something that we drum up.
Faith is the gift from God that we've already been given access to.
We just have to willfully choose to interact with it and access it.
Um, but anyway, so the spirit and the soul in wrestling, the spirit can give
strength to the soul if the soul allows it.
Basically in simple terms, the soul is making the decision it's choosing.
Am I going to go with my fears with what it is that I believed, or am I going to
go with and allow myself to be overcome by the truth of the spirit, what is going
to be the truth for the soul, for me and me, the soul and the body that is relying
on me to make decisions.
It's just receiving and, uh, and responding to my instruction and my
instructions are what it is that I believe or not believe about God.
So it's going to follow in my stead.
I am the gatekeeper.
I decide whether spirit, soul, and body is in union or whether there's going to be a
divide if I choose to decide against, or if I choose to decide for, so that's
really the decision that's being made.
And that's where you're making it.
You're making it in your soul.
Your spirit already has.
And your spirit, by the way, is the seat of your identity.
That's where, who it is that you are is seated.
It's in the spirit, which is already one with Christ.
So you're perfectly fine.
You've already made the decision.
You're trying to get the other parts of you to come into alignment, right?
So that you can all be so that you can all act as one, just as you already are
one, right?
So that you're no longer divided against yourself, fighting yourself, and you no
longer have that pain and that pressure.
Um, so also Jesus experienced this.
Uh, there's a couple of different passage.
I wanted to mention Luke 22, 44 and being in anguish.
This is when Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane says, and being in anguish, he
prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
That is a physical, uh, a medical phenomenon.
The, uh, phenomena phenomenon phenomenon.
I think that, I think that singular that, uh, happens when the body is under so
much stress that the capillaries near the sweat glands burst because there's your,
the blood is under so much pressure because of how stressed that you are.
And so that was that kind of a struggle.
Jesus was going through his soul and his body.
We were going through that intense of a fight.
Remember nothing had been decided because eventually God, Jesus makes
this decision says, Hey, Jesus, you know, or, or, you know, God, I'm
wanting to bring my soul into alignment.
I've got to wrestle with it until it comes into alignment, but Lord, it
will come into alignment and it did.
You know?
And so of course, that's why Jesus, you know, never was perfect and never sent,
but just because he's perfect and ever sin doesn't mean that he didn't go through
his own wilderness experiences that because his soul and his
body were not born in alignment.
He was born with, uh, as a, as a human.
Right.
And so therefore he had to, and his, and as human, his body was subject to, um,
death, just like all the rest of the humans.
And he overcame it, which is the example that he gave to us that we can as well.
But anyway, so there was just, there was all of that agony, all of it.
Anguish and all that strike because of the intensity of that struggle.
And so the, his capillaries burst and then blood came out of his foot glands.
The end in Matthew 26, 38 says, then he said to them, Jesus then said to the
disciples, I remember he'd been praying for a while and then he came to the
disciples and they were asleep.
He said, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.
Stay here and keep watch with me.
He said, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
So Jesus acknowledged to them.
He's like, look, why I want you to stay awake and to pray vigilantly with me is
because my spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak and I want, and I'm asking
you to intercede on my behalf to spiritually.
strengthen me so that it can overpower
and give strength to the soul.
So the soul will come into alignment, right?
So those are some examples from scripture.
Now, something that I want to mention really quick,
all of these, when we think of struggle,
one of the words that we typically use
when we're going through the intensity
of these times is desperation.
So I wanted to just point out
that you can't trade on desperation.
In other words, it has no currency with the Lord.
You can't earn anything.
You can't buy any favor with him by being desperate.
You can't gain more favor or speed up the process
with the Lord by being desperate.
You know, Lord, don't you see how desperate I am?
We think that that's showing the Lord,
well, Lord, I want you really bad.
And God's like, yeah, I made you too.
Everybody does.
You're just like, so what else is new?
So desperation doesn't help us.
The only thing that desperation does help,
in other words, it won't help you get breakthrough.
The only thing that desperation does do
is that it increases the pain to the point that,
hopefully to the point that you finally choose
to just let go and to surrender because you're so desperate
that you're finally willing to let go of everything.
So basically desperation can't come into the kingdom.
So desperation will has to, like I said,
the benefit of it is it builds to such a degree
that it finally is a tool that helps force you
to surrender everything, including your desperation.
You're not giving up, you're surrendering to the Lord
because surrender will help pass you through
into the kingdom.
And remember when I'm talking about the kingdom
and I'm not talking about salvation,
I'm talking about Christians who are already,
you know, one with Christ,
but who are wanting to operate more and more
out of their character and receive the benefits
of being one with Christ.
You know, although see the manifestation
of the spirits of God in their life, you know,
and the fruit of the spirit of God in their life,
you know, love, joy, peace, et cetera.
I'm talking about what is it like to live out of the kingdom
and all of it and to receive and to live
in this physical world, the benefits of being in the kingdom
versus you're a Christian,
but you don't get access to the kingdom,
not because you don't have access,
but because you're not receiving it, you're not grabbing it
and because you've chosen to hold on
to something else instead.
Desperation will finally build the pain up enough,
you know, as it builds and builds and builds
that you finally let go.
But when you let go, you have to let go of everything,
including desperation.
So I just wanted to mention that,
because remember that God can work with desperation,
but desperation won't get you breakthrough.
So, okay, just a couple more things and then we're done.
So I wanted to mention that for those of you
who are in the journal here,
I mentioned on all of these pages that have the brick wall
as the background, I'm mentioning some,
and I'm titling some particular struggle
that I'd been through.
And this particular one I wanna talk about
was what I call the brick wall.
And it was where I had just gotten out of college.
I had been in depression for over four years by that point,
but I didn't know it.
I just knew life was horrible
and I was in a tremendous amount of pain
and I just felt completely hopeless.
I just felt, I honestly felt like I was in a pit of despair.
Everything was very dark.
And I remember talking to the Lord and I told him,
I said, Lord, you know, I can handle anything.
And this is, you know, four years into the depression
and every, like I said,
everything was horrible and dark.
And I told him after all of that,
I was still going through it and I said,
but God, you know, because I'm just clinging to him.
I said, I can handle anything
as long as you don't remove,
as long as I can feel that you're with me
and you don't remove your presence from me.
I can handle anything.
So you know what happened?
God removed everything, but his presence.
I was shocked.
I was like, well, I didn't mean you had to do it, Lord,
but he gave me a sense of his presence
and I knew he was there.
And in fact, he would look at me.
I would talk to him and he, you know,
you can see in your spirit,
in basically the mind of your spirit,
you're not seeing it physically.
But you're seeing it in the mind of your spirit.
I hope to see it physically one day, but in the mind of your spirit, you can see it's
like, you can sense.
He's looking at you.
You're talking to him and he's looking at you, but he's not responding, just completely
blank faced.
And it felt like I was talking to a wall and that's what I told him.
It's like, Lord, I, you're hearing me and I can see you and I can feel your presence.
I can feel that you are really here with me and you are paying attention to me and you
are acknowledging me.
You know who I am and you were looking at me while I'm talking to you, but you will
not respond.
I mean, he didn't respond negatively.
He didn't get onto me.
He didn't correct me.
And he didn't say anything positive either.
He didn't say anything comforting, wasn't sympathetic, nothing.
No response.
It's as if I wasn't talking at all.
And I was driven crazy.
I couldn't take it.
There's actually, I heard about this years later that there was actually an experiment
that some of y'all may have heard before called the still faced experiment that this doctor
did with, with mothers and their babies.
And what he had them do is he, and he would video all of this.
He would show that what a child needs is he needs connection and he's always looking
for connection.
And one of the things that he needs to build and affirm that connection is he needs response.
He needs interaction.
It's not just enough that he has access.
He needs to be responded to, or he will go crazy.
He'll start acting out, you know, start misbehaving.
And so what he did is he had these mothers interact with the baby and respond whenever
the baby would point and they look just like the baby was pointing and they tell the baby
how wonderful it was and whatever.
And then the mothers would turn away, kind of gain their composure and then turn back
to the baby's completely blank faced, you know, just nothing.
They weren't mad.
They weren't sad.
They weren't happy.
It was just neutral.
And the baby, of course, I'm playing with mom the whole, this whole time and continues
to do all of those things.
And in fact, finally realizes, okay, well, new things aren't working.
Let's try some of the things I tried just a few minutes ago.
That got mom's attention, got her to respond to me.
There's the, even while I'm where the baby like points, he like looks back and forth
from it to the mom is like, or you can look, you know, this is before the babies can even
talk yet.
And the mom's not responding.
Mom's not looking.
Mom's not interacting at all with baby.
And all of a sudden the baby starts just almost like writhing in pain because it's
so tormented inside.
So it was just an interesting physical experiment that, that I believe reflects the spiritual
principle.
And that's the fact that we were made for interaction with God and response from God
and that he created that for us because he intends to give that to us.
And when we're going through a struggle with him, some, one of the things that you might
go through is this time where you've, where you're trying to connect with him and you
may, maybe like me, you may feel his presence.
You may know that he hears you.
You may know that he's listening.
You may know that he has your, that you have his attention, but you are not getting a response.
You're not getting direction.
You're not getting instruction.
You're not getting correction.
You're not getting sympathy.
You're not getting anything, nothing positive, nothing negative, nothing.
And and that can be one of the run of the deep, one of the experiences that we can have
and reflecting a, that the Lord can take us through.
But remember that that is not God being mean to us or whatever is something that we're
going through though, that God is using to allow to, so that will, will be stretched
in our faith so that we can have more of him.
So he's not withholding himself.
He's actually preparing us to receive more of him.
Because remember the fact that you're in this period of struggle means that you've maxed
out your previous period.
You've maxed out the level of maturity that you can go.
And that's only, so that's only the level and degree of the Lord that you can contain.
You can hold, you can have, you can interact with, you can enjoy, you can be blessed by,
and you have asked the Lord for more.
And so he's preparing you for more.
And something also I wanted to encourage all in, I have never forgotten this.
It has been one of the most encouraging things I have ever heard, probably the most encouraging
thing I've ever heard in my life.
While I was going through that time, I met with him.
I met a man that I had been listening to his teaching school.
really, really admired and entrusted spiritually.
And one of the things about him is he doesn't know how to,
he says that he does not know how to exist
outside of the presence of God.
He's so familiar with the Lord
and he has just sacrificed his whole life for God.
And he was doing a teaching,
I had been ministered to by his teachings
whenever I would get home,
that summer I would get home from work
and I would sit down with probably,
I don't know,
I was probably doing some like little hand project
and I would sit and write notes in the dark
with his teachings
because I would depress people in the dark
for hours until I would go to bed.
And then I would get up the next day,
go to work, come back,
start his teachings while working on my project.
And I'm telling you what,
I was crying out for the Lord,
trying so desperately to connect with him.
And the only way that I knew how
was to read scripture and to listen to teachings.
So that's what I did.
So I finally got to meet him in person
and he told me,
he didn't tell me then,
I don't remember when he told me,
it was a few,
I don't know, it was a few months,
maybe even a year later or something like that.
Yeah, maybe that's what that was.
And he told me, he said,
actually he said, I've met thousands of people, thousands.
He said, I don't remember where I met them
because I know so many people.
And I sometimes can recognize their faces
and realize that I've met them before.
He said, but I don't know where I met all these people.
He said, but I'm telling you,
I know exactly where I met you.
I'm thinking, okay.
He said, you walked into that hotel room
or it wasn't a hotel room,
it was like a hotel ballroom
where he was teaching all of these people.
And he said, you walked in,
cause my dad and I had been looking for the hotel,
couldn't find it, so we were late.
So we walk in and while the teaching had already started
and he said, he looked up at me and he,
because he said, he said,
actually the spirit of God came into the room with you.
He said, that is how I remember where I met you
because I remember that moment.
You walked into the room
and the spirit of God walked in with you.
I cannot tell you how encouraged that it was
because understand what I was going through at that time.
I was almost on suicide level.
It was so bad.
In fact, I didn't even, the suicide thoughts,
things were so bad
that they were leading to my suicidal thoughts
and I hadn't even gotten there yet.
I was like, and that was already four years in.
It was a really, really, really hard journey.
Everything was dark and depressing
and I'd never felt so mad and so hopeless in my life.
Though it was around that time where I couldn't,
I had no longer sometimes the will to stand.
So I would just kind of like slide down the wall
until I just sat on the floor
because I just, I had no motivation to live anymore.
And in that time that I was seeking God so bad
and he would not respond to me,
a man tells me that during that time,
the presence of the Lord walked into his room
that he was teaching, walked in with me.
So I say that as an encouragement to you
that just because you either can't feel God
or don't feel connected
or don't feel like he's acknowledging you,
don't feel like he's responding,
don't feel like you matter at all to him,
I promise you that not only is he there,
but that you have so much favor
that you are carrying his presence.
It's not just me, that God just had that man tell me that
as an encouragement to me,
but understand we're all,
everyone that I'm speaking to, we're all believers.
We all carry the presence of the Lord
and know that, you know, just take my story,
take that and claim that for your own
and know that that is what God is doing with you,
that you, that he is favoring you so much,
that he is, that you are bringing his presence
into a room with you because he's dwelling with you.
He's choosing to be around you, to be on you,
to be in you, to spend time with you,
to fill up the space that you're in
and he could be anywhere.
He's God, he could choose to be anywhere
and you are his choice.
All right, so the last thing I wanna talk about
is remember that eventually you'll have to get
to a break point, a point where you finally let go
and you finally just choose.
And we want to let go during this whole time
that we're going through a spiritual struggle,
but the reason why we're still struggling
is that we're refusing to let go
and we're eventually gonna have to,
that can't ever be avoided.
So as hard as it is to say this,
I just say this so that.
that you will know, um, and be prepared that it won't get easier from here.
It just gets more painful.
So the thing is that you'll eventually have to make the choice and let go.
So what we'll be talking about a lot of is how to, how to do that,
how to actually let go, how we're holding on to things and how to finally release
them, because sometimes we don't recognize how we're holding on to them.
We want to let go, but we're like, well, how am I holding on to something?
I thought I've already let go of everything.
We'll be talking about that, but, um, uh, Eventually you'll have to get to the
break point where you finally, finally let go and you finally choose and you
finally surrender it, it won't get easier.
You won't eventually not have to let go of that thing.
You'll have to let go.
Um, but so I say that to say that there's no escaping it.
And when I, and even though that's a hard thing to say, and because I know
that it's a hard thing to hear, the reason that I want to tell you that is
so that you'll be prepared for what you're eventually going to have to do so
that maybe you'll make the choice earlier in order to avoid the pain of making it
later, because the only difference between now making it now and making it
later is that later will encompass more pain and the pain will just get stronger.
Is, is that's the only difference, but you have to make the same choice here
that you'd eventually have to make here.
Point.
The problem with here is that it's more painful.
Um, and, uh, let's see.
So yeah, you'll have, we'll have to let go, um, in getting the break
and getting the breakthrough.
And so the last point that I want to, um, leave you with is that one of the
things that you have to let go of is let go of getting the breakthrough.
In other words, you have to surrender that because what happens is we're
holding on to something that we want from God, and basically
we're holding it against him.
God, why haven't you done it yet?
Why haven't you given me freedom yet?
Why hasn't it happened yet?
And we're using that in accusation as a weapon against the Lord.
And we can't ever get through by using that as a weapon against the Lord.
We have to finally release him of the obligation and accountability
to us of giving us breakthrough.
We have to let it go.
You're not giving up on getting it and you're not giving into your
situation like, well, yes, it's just the way it is.
No, no, you're just surrendering it.
And you're finally no longer holding it against God.
You're saying, okay, God, do whatever you want.
I'm choosing to seek you, which is something that we'll be talking about
in the next few sessions is, uh, is about what it is that the Lord, I
think it's in three more sessions.
What it is that the Lord wants from us.
One of the things is to seek him, which all sounds great.
And we all know that, but we're going to be talking more in depth of, okay,
well, how am I supposed to be seeking him in a way I haven't been doing it
so far, because apparently if, because if it works, you know, that God's, God
says that works and this isn't working.
Okay.
Well then that's just not seeking him.
We misunderstood what seeking him in.
So we'll talk about what God really means by seeking him.
Um, and anyway, we'll be getting to that, but we're holding God
hostage to a particular outcome.
If we're, if we're emotionally.
So desperate for breakthrough that we're mad at God for not giving
us the breakthrough yet, right?
We're then emotionally holding God hostage to an outcome.
And we're caught in, in that outcome is something that would call breakthrough.
That breakthrough could be relief, could be connection with him.
And remember that God wants to give it to you more than you are desperate to have it.
So God wants this more for you than you want.
You don't have to convince them of the importance of it or of the necessity
in your life of being relieved from your current situation or whatever.
He wants this more than you do.
That's why you are aware of it because he created that need within
you because he wants you to have it.
So this is all his idea is to give it to you.
What you're experiencing is your natural response that he
created within you towards him.
So I hope that that was helpful in understanding a bit more about like
where it is that you are right now.
And then what it is that you're moving towards with breakthrough from your
spiritual wilderness and your spiritual struggle so that the things that I would
recommend that you take away the most from this are that.
The spiritual wilderness that you're going through is not a bad place.
It's not a simple place that God's like, you're not ever supposed to be here.
Nope.
God guided the Israelites into the wilderness and the Holy spirit guided
Jesus into the wilderness when he, after he was baptized, the wilderness is God's
idea and it's not as a punishment.
It's actually a place in which you don't have to provide for yourself
because God's providing for you.
Remember what, what happened with Jesus?
You know, he was given bread and water and ministered to by the angels.
Um, when Elijah was desperate and was running away from a Jezebel and he was
on his way to the mountain of the Lord, but hadn't gotten there yet.
He just lay down and just told God, I know better than my ancestors.
Just kill me now.
And he's, and God sent an angel to give him food and water in between.
Elijah's resting like literal sleep and naps.
And then of course, God guided the Israelites into the wilderness and
made sure that not only did they have, uh, bread and meats and water, but
it said that even when they were, uh, they had rejected God's invitation
to go into the land of Canaan.
And they didn't believe that he was big enough and that he could help them
enough, even entered those under those situations, even though they were all
going to die, all of that generation was going to die and wasn't going
to enter the promised land.
God said that there, uh, that he always provided all of their food and that
not a single sandal strap, you know, when none of their ledger, the leather
straps of their sandals broke kind of always provided for them, but the
desert doesn't feel pleasant, but they're being prepared for Canaan.
They're being prepared for what's on the other side.
Remember Jesus's ministry started after he went through the wilderness.
Um, I know it sounds like a very weird thing to talk about right now, but I'm
just going to mention this in closing just really quick, cause I thought of it.
What happened, uh, with, uh, with Israelites is the same thing
that happened with Jesus.
And then both times they were declared.
At sons of God and affirmed as such publicly before they went into the
wilderness, so God wanted them to know and wanted everybody else to know that
they had his stamp and his identity.
And that was before they went into the wilderness.
So the wilderness in the wilderness will be completely provided for by the Lord.
So what it is you're going through right now, this is not a lack of God in your
life, because that's how it can feel.
Especially if you're trying to connect with him, it's not actually a lack of God.
What we have to do is we have to like the Israelites.
We have to open our eyes, see and acknowledge and honor how God is providing
for us, how he is displaying himself, how he is showing us, cause he's always
trying and showing us himself because he's always trying to point us to him.
So with that, I will leave you and, um, hope that this was very helpful.
Um, I'll, we can talk about questions and all of that when we get together
Thursday and I hope all of y'all have a good rest of your day.