Breakthrough

“Let us hold firmly without wavering to the hope that we have confessed, because we can trust God to do what he promised—the One who promised is faithful.”—Hebrews 10:23, Expanded Bible

It had been awhile, but the conversation picked up where it had left off back then, without skipping a beat. Divine connections in life can be like that. Little need for small talk to break the ice. Unopened menus. Hungry, but that can wait. Faith is hungrier. “What’s been happening?” is more than a throw-away line, it’s a lure that can’t wait to see what the catch of the day will be. And on this day, as it often is, the topic is “breakthrough.” It’s a catch-of-the-day just about everyone who journeys on this Walk longs for, both personally and on a much larger scale. Believing God to break through the expected, the impossible, the complacency, the struggle, the addiction, the routine of doing the religious Sunday morning thing, the ever-hanging cloud of darkness over people and life situations and entire communities and regions.

Really big stuff.

But as this conversation unfolds, a sudden realization that “breakthrough” in God’s eyes isn’t always the humongous expectation that’s in our own…

One tells of a small group of prayer warriors of every age and walk of life who gather faithfully to pray for “breakthrough” in all of its manifestations. There is no sudden surge of church attendance. No Great Awakening of thousands in their community. (Yet.) But there is life-changing breakthrough nonetheless as persistent prayers for one, then another, then a widow in need, then a husband and wife, then a mother and son, yield supernatural, miraculous results. Faith is stirred all around, including in the one telling the story.

The other tells of praying fervently for years for breakthrough among the nation’s young people, and suddenly finding his life journey taking him to a community teeming with college students. Thousands of them. The perfect setting for breakthrough hugeness. And there have been some. But none as huge as one out of thousands who, through thick and thin in his young life, swam against the current of culture and popular opinion because he just had to know—He had to know God in more than just a story in the Bible way. So he swam for four years, freshman to senior, strengthened with each push forward, until he headed out into the world for the next chapter in his life, fully alive and thriving on the firmest Foundation of them all. And faith is stirred all around, especially in the one telling the story...

In the economy of God’s kingdom, it would seem that the biggest breakthrough of them all is not an explosive “wow!” but when one person or a group of likeminded friends purpose to stay faithful and steadfast even when evidence seems small, or to keep swimming against the flow of complacency toward something Greater when it would be easier to quit and just go with the flow of life.

Because when faithfulness and steadfastness happens in just one or two or a few, the fruit of a life well-lived will inevitably result in breakthroughs for those we meet and pray for that are more “wow!” and huge and explosive than any of us could imagine.

“Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no unworthy affection may drag downwards; give us an unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out; give us an upright heart, which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside. Bestow upon us also, O Lord our God, understanding to know you, diligence to seek you, wisdom to find you, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace you; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”—Thomas Aquinas