DOORS OF BREAKTHROUGH, ROOMS OF BLESSING
“Can you preach a message about what to do when things don’t work out?”
She greeted me half way down the isle after a double service morning. I had just delivered a message on the breakthrough power of praise. The Church was on its feet in both services, cheering and shouting down their obstacles. I felt like I’d run a marathon, given it my all and I was on my way out of the auditorium when she met me.
“I did all those things you talked about just now, and it still went bad. Can you write a message on what to do when everything goes wrong?”
Her eyes I will never forget. Her frame. Her longing.
This is real life, I thought to myself. This is where the rubber meets the road.
How to deal with disappointment, she was asking me. How to stay in the flow of breakthrough even when things go catastrophically wrong.
I love this idea that we can host God. That we can serve Him, wait on Him, make room for Him, feed Him, rest Him, bless Him. In fact ,we see it all through out the scriptures, it’s simply incredible.
God is after hearts of sacrifice, generosity, openness and hospitality.
Regardless of financial position, family background, work condition, health situations or any other external factors, each of us are charged with the responsibility of cultivating a healthy heart. And by healthy I mean soft.
Broken and whole alike have the capacity to be hardened.
Broken and whole alike have the capacity to be soft.
Prospering and wanting alike have the capacity to be self-centered.
Prosperous and wanting alike have the capacity to be alert and active.
In Second Kings chapter four we read of a couple that made room for God’s presence. This Shunemmite couple was generous, softhearted, willing, poised and alert. They made room for God – for His presence, for His residence, for His blessing.
I have noticed that quite often God waits for an invitation. More often than not, scenarios like this involve a person convincing the man of God, the angel, or Jesus to come and dine with them. The principle of invitation is common enough in scripture that I would say:
God works predominantly in response to our seeking him
Unbeknown to the individual at the time however, God’s response always far exceeds their desired outcome.
All the Sheunemite woman was asking for was to encounter the presence of God. She built a room onto her house for the prophet to stay in on his visits because she just wanted to be in His vicinity. That was it. “Just spend time with us when you get the chance.”
I remember coming back to God when I’d made a royal mess of my life and my cry was simply this, “God please come and be with me. Even if You never fix this mess, that’s okay I just want Your presence with me. I know now that life without You is a loss. And all I’m asking is that You would be with me.”
The first step toward breakthrough is asking the invitation.
The Prophet finds the one area of lack in her life and speaks into that sore and hidden pain. He bears light on the darkest secret hope she had long ago tucked away. He prophesies future generations into a barren couple.
And here she is in this amazing moment. She has invited the presence of God into her home. She’s gone beyond the call by making a room for him to reside. She has turned down the offer to be repaid for her generosity. She finds herself standing in the doorway she had built. This is the first of three profound doorway encounters in this passage.
Catch the power of this! Elisha calls for her and she stands in the open doorway.
She is called back to the threshold of her generosity.
Positioned in the very place where she created opportunity.
This place that was once a dead end, but she had the faithfulness to fashion an opening through. What was once a boundary, she chose to make a point of breakthrough.
Not satisfied remodeling an existing room; she wanted to create something out of nothing. She had faith and vision to extend her home. In her thinking, the only place fitting for God was a place of faith and that required a door of breakthrough at the place of limitation.
Are you catching this?
Identify your boundaries today
Face up to your limitations
Stare down your wall and build a doorway through it
He calls her back to that very place where limitation and boundary once ruled but were penetrated by her faith. In that place she has her first doorway encounter and the man of God puts words to the unspoken cry of her heart.
You can’t out-give God!
When you give out of a pure hunger to abide with Him the things you thought were impossible become your inheritance! The things you couldn’t even ask for become your portion!
Are you with me? This is not even the good bit yet! We’re just getting warmed up…
We know that the story doesn’t end there.
You and I both know it’s not always peaches and cream with God.
The Shuenemite was a profound woman. Not given to circumstance or wild emotions but governed by her understanding of spiritual laws more real than natural laws.
The child grew up. One day he went to his father, who was working with the harvest hands, complaining, "My head, my head!" His father ordered a servant, "Carry him to his mother."
The servant took him in his arms and carried him to his mother. He lay on her lap until noon and died.
She took him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut him in alone, and left.
(2 Kings 4: 18-21)
This is the revelation that brought me to tears…
When you’ve built doors of breakthrough and rooms of blessing you have somewhere to take your broken dreams!
I don’t pity those who go through hardships – we all do at some stage.
I do pity those who have not built rooms.
When you’ve defied your limitations by faith and created holy dwellings where boundaries once stood – then you have a place to go, a place to breathe, a place to wrestle, a place to find reassurance.
Here she has her second doorway encounter. The first time she stood in this doorway, she was childless and receiving a promise from God. This time approached the threshold childless again but this time she went beyond the threshold of the open door and into the space she’d built for the presence of God.
When her dream died – she had somewhere to take it – the room she’d already created in her world. She had room to move. She had somewhere to go.
And today, if I could meet that precious woman in the isle one more time, I’d ask her about the rooms she’d built.
I’d ask her how she furnished them and what limitations she had to deconstruct to make room for God.
I’d ask her what the light felt like streaming through the window of that room.
I’d ask her if she had spent time in there on her knees.
If she had encountered the presence of God in that place she fashioned with her own hands at her own expense.
And as I have done since with other kingdom heroes who have sat across tables from me, I would congratulate her for building rooms. I would thank her for being faithful, brazen and compelled with foresight.
I would wrap my arms around her and remind her,
