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chapter_eight.docxChapter Eight
A Promise Chosen
Every one of us can think of times when we knew all we needed to know to get started on a project, but failed to actually get started because of distractions, confusion, or lack of interest. We face a similar danger with promises: just because we know what to do doesn’t mean we’ve experienced a breakthrough.
The book of James talks about the difference between hearing the promises and living by them: “Don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like” (James 1:22-24).
Far too many people have uncovered the treasure of a promise only to walk away unchanged simply because they never took ownership of that promise.
I’m reminded of a sermon illustration I once used that seemed like a better concept than it was an actual action plan. That Sunday morning I found myself next to a firefighter, wondering what I had gotten myself into. That’s because he was standing with me seventy feet up, almost touching the ceiling of our church auditorium as I was getting ready to step off a thin platform onto nothing but air!
It seemed like a great idea in the safety of my study. Earlier in the week, I had been working hard on my sermon on the topic of the Wall of Fear. While sitting in my study, the idea came to me of rappelling, an obvious occasion when you have to trust in something (like your harness, the rope, your carabiner, the person on belay below you). And most of our congregation is aware of my fear of heights.
When it was only theory, rappelling seemed perfect. I called a friend of mine who works for the Austin Fire Department and is also a member of our church. I knew he was an expert at these things, so I shared with him my great idea for that Sunday’s sermon.
How about if, on Sunday morning, he and I hid up in the rafters of our very tall church sanctuary? Then, when it was time for the sermon to start, instead of me just walking out onto the platform, I—the fearless pastor—would rappel straight down seventy feet, land safely on the stage, and begin my message? Unfortunately, the firefighter friend thought it was a great idea as well.
The answer to the question I’m sure some of you are asking is, yes, a video does exist of what happened that Sunday. You can see it at www.FaithBreakthroughs.com.
Let’s go back to the moment when I was looking over that ledge at the people and sharp objects far below me. Up until the moment I got strapped in, I was just thinking what a great object lesson this would be for the congregation. But the one who had the greatest lesson coming was me.
If you’ve never rappelled, it’s not the most natural thing to do. You stand up some place that is way too high. Then you stand way too close to the edge. And then your friend smiles at you and says, “Go!” and you actually step backward and prove the law of gravity.
Of course, it helped that my friend knew exactly what he was doing and was more than worthy of my trust. It also helped that he was up there with me, assuring me that the locking mechanism would stay locked and that I wouldn’t end up as the top-rated video on YouTube.
But whether it was a controlled descent or not seemed irrelevant at the moment it was time to step away from the platform. All the knowledge was just theory until I trusted my life to the promises I had received. It was in that one big step backward that I really chose the promise of protection and safety. And without that step, I would have missed out on a great memory that I’ll enjoy for the rest of my life.
Why Wall Breaking Is Confirmed with a Promise Chosen
’ve already shared how God’s Word, and especially his promises, has the power to blast through spiritual walls. In the last chapter, I asked you to grab your Bible and start looking up promises that can attack your wall. But while discovering promises is the first step, the second one is a doozy.
Making a Faith Breakthrough involves something more foundational, more serious, and frankly more challenging than mere discovery. It challenges a person, often in the midst of a trial that has led to his or her wall, to trust that what God says in that promise is true. The choice to trust requires us to lean back into the risk of the lifeline, our only hope, until we land safely on the platform below—like I had to do in not one but two morning services (with the second try significantly less stressful than the first).
Let me say again that some things people think are promises are not. It is important to evaluate the lifeline you’re about to choose before relying on its security. Remember, God does not promise that we won’t have trials and tests, or that we’ll bypass pain and suffering. He does promise a way through those things here on earth, and he does promise us a life without tears or sickness or sadness or death in the world to come!
n our days on earth, God doesn’t promise that all our investments will triple or that we’ll never go bankrupt or that we’ll never get sick or die. But he does promise us life and hope, freedom from anxiety, courage, forgiveness, and a hundred other things we can claim in this life—as well as the promise of eternal life with him after death.
No one is asking you to lean back on an uncertain rope that was never intended to support your dreams. Texans love their football, but there is no promise that the Dallas Cowboys won’t lose, because there is no biblical promise that says they’ll always win (even though my brother-in-law wishes there were!). It’s a fruitless endeavor to trust in false promises, and even more dangerous to make wrong choices based on them.
Rather, it’s when we choose to trust—not just in the promises of God, but in the God of the promises—that amazing things can happen . . . even in the most challenging times and circumstances.
Here are four things we teach at Bannockburn to those in the early stages of learning a promise chosen:
1. A promise chosen starts with prayer. The first and most important part of choosing God’s promises is to pray those promises to God. Let him know what you have found in his Word, and express to the Lord that you are choosing to walk in that promise. I cannot overstate the power and importance of this step! When we pray, things begin to change. And when we fail to pray, I can promise you that things will not be the same as they would have been had we prayed for them.
At Bannockburn, one of our four core values is “prayer with expectation.” Expectant prayer is more than wishing things will come true; it is boldly asking for what God is fully capable of doing and looking forward to his answer.
2. A promise chosen requires commitment. Before taking one step forward, you must determine that there is no turning back. Always remember that actions dictate feelings, not the reverse. If you feel like you want to go back to life behind your wall because “it’s just not working” or “the change isn’t happening fast enough,” you cannot allow your feelings to dictate your action. Don’t wait until you feel like trusting the promise you’ve claimed. Get moving in faith. Amazingly, when you start moving, the feelings change—but your feelings will change only after you start moving in line with your commitment.
3. A promise chosen requires self-control. Do you know what the word self-control means in the Bible? It literally means “to pull in the reins.” That’s the picture of a horse running away and its rider reining it in to stop it. When challenges come, you will be tempted to think, I’m going back to hating that person. Just look at what he did now. If you let negative thoughts run wild and don’t pull in the reins, your emotions can take you away from where you want to go, away from God’s best.
4. A promise chosen requires having a plan. Aristotle once stated, “You stand a far better chance of hitting the target if you can see it.” Those words may sound obvious, but they carry a great deal of simple truth we often forget: having a plan provides an important nudge to get moving.
The difference between goals and dreams is that goals involve assigning a timetable in which you plan to arrive there. Clearly, some elements of a breakthrough cannot be placed on a calendar, but some elements of claiming God’s promises allow—and even require—a plan. For example, you can determine right now to memorize three key promises from Scripture related to your wall in the next three weeks. Beginning today you can commit to pray every morning toward the promise you are claiming. You can schedule a gathering of friends six weeks from now in anticipation of celebrating your breakthrough.
The people of our church have made bold choices that have radically transformed their home lives. For some, these at first uncomfortable choices have been the difference between romance and divorce, between obedience and rebellion, between faith and fear. But no place have these breakthroughs made a greater impact than in the lives of families who have made these principles the foundation of their homes. In fact, the idea of experiencing a breakthrough that doesn’t impact home life doesn’t really make sense. How can we really believe God and his promises but exclude them from everyday life?
But let’s be honest. When it comes to home life, not everyone has grown up with a positive model of someone committed to making Faith Breakthroughs. In fact, some people have grown up in environments so dysfunctional, or even evil, that they assume they have no choice but to do the negative things they’ve seen.
A Promise Chosen and a Legacy Changed
Let’s look at a biblical example of a young man who made an incredibly courageous choice in spite of the longest of long-shot odds.
Josiah was one of the rulers of the southern kingdom of Judah during Israel’s divided monarchy. At that time, the reign was passed from father to son, generation after generation.
Before looking at Josiah’s life and choice, it’s interesting to look at what the two kings before him chose. That would be his grandfather Manasseh and father, Amon. Their stories can be found in 2 Kings 21, where we read a synopsis of his grandfather’s life first:
Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. . . . He did what was evil in the L ORD’s sight, following the detestable practices of the pagan nations that the L ORD had driven from the land ahead of the Israelites. (2 Kings 21:1-2)
Already it’s pretty obvious that this man made some terrible choices. It began with forsaking the godly reign of his father, the righteous Hezekiah, and once again setting up the sacrificial sites and altars to Baal, the false god of the Canaanites. Talk about turning the clock back to horrible times!
But then Manasseh’s choices became even worse:
Manasseh also sacrificed his own son in the fire. He practiced sorcery and divination, and he consulted with mediums and psychics. He did much that was evil in the L ORD’s sight, arousing his anger. (2 Kings 21:6)
“Arousing [the Lord’s] anger.” I would think so! Manasseh’s reign was characterized by wholesale wickedness, including child sacrifice.
So that’s what Josiah’s grandfather was like. Unfortunately, as too often happens, Manasseh’s son looked at his father, and when it was his turn to rule, he kept walking in the same horrible direction:
Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. . . . He did what was evil in the L ORD’s sight, just as his father, Manasseh, had done. (2 Kings 21:19-20)
One problem with evil people is that they hang around other evil people. You may have noticed that while Manasseh reigned fifty-five years as king, Amon reigned only two years because, the Scripture tells us, his servants plotted an assassination and killed him in his own house.
So, with the king murdered, it was now Josiah’s turn to walk in the deep footprints that his grandfather and father had walked in before him. In all likelihood, Josiah was at home when his father was slaughtered, right in the royal palace.
With all the sin and sickness he had seen in his young life, imagine what would be written about Josiah by the vast majority of today’s sociologists, psychologists, and social scientists. I’m pretty sure they would capture Josiah’s life story in this way: “And Josiah walked in the ways of his father, Amon, and he did as much evil, and more, than his father and grandfather had done . . . but he didn’t really have a choice.”
If a sociologist today looked at Josiah’s background—especially factoring in things like child sacrifice, witchcraft and the occult, murder, and more—the historic trauma and emotional abuse this poor boy suffered was enough to lead anyone to a life of evil like his ancestors. But amazingly, that is not how this story ends. Josiah made a choice that changed his legacy forever. He chose God’s promises over living life behind the Walls of Sinful Living, Arrogance, and Excuses about Ancestry. Let’s read his choice in the actual words of Scripture:
Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. His mother was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah from Bozkath. He did what was pleasing in the L ORD’s sight and followed the exampleof his ancestor David. He did not turn away from doing what was right. (2 Kings 22:1-2)
Do you notice a difference between this lineage and the last one? Amon walked in the ways of his father, Manasseh. But Josiah did not walk in the ways of his father. Josiah’s dad had also had an incredibly evil father. But Josiah made a profoundly bold choice about his ancestry.
He chose a different father: “He did what was pleasing in the L ORD’s sight and followed the example of his ancestor David.”
In fact, the word used here for “ancestor” means “father” in the original text. Here was a young man who made a godly choice to pattern his life after a godly, surrogate father, a man named David, who not only walked in the ways of the Lord, but who also wrote about them in Scripture! Josiah chose to follow in the footsteps of the psalmist King David.
Footsteps like these:
Now I stand on solid ground, and I will publicly praise the L ORD. (Psalm 26:12)
And these:
Teach me your ways, O L ORD, that I may live according to your truth! Grant me purity of heart, so that I may honor you. (Psalm 86:11)
And these:
Make me walk along the path of your commands, for that is where my happiness is found. (Psalm 119:35)
These are all passages from the book of Psalms, revealing David’s mind-set in his life—and the mind-set that Josiah, who modeled himself on David, sought to replicate.
That choice is incredibly important to understand as we continue to look at our own walls and how God’s promises pave the path toward our breakthrough.
No matter your background . . . no matter what you’ve been through . . . no matter how many terrible things you’ve seen or lived through or been exposed to— you still have a choice. A choice to walk in godly footsteps. A choice to lay claim to God’s promises. A choice to see your walls fall down, regardless of how hopeless the “experts” might say the situation is.
Still not convinced? Still not buying that God’s Word and promises can reset the direction of your life, not with what you’ve been through, not with a wall as high as yours?
Then I’d ask you to read one more story about choice in even the most difficult of situations.
Dancing in Front of a Devil
On May 22, 1944, sixteen-year-old Edith Eva Eger, along with her mother and sister, were inside a cattle car filled with Jews. The train pulled up to a siding just outside the walls of Auschwitz. As they were ordered from the railroad car, Josef Mengele himself was standing there! Mengele was already infamous as a doctor who performed inhuman experiments on people in the Nazi concentration camps.
As they were ordered from the railroad car, Mengele stood and pointed at people. He directed some to one line, others to another. Edith’s mother was sent to the left line, and she and her sister to the right. Edith followed her mother, but Mengele stopped her. “Your mother is going to take a shower,” he told her, turning her back to the other line.
Sometime later Edith asked a woman guard when she would see her mother again. The guard pointed to one of the gas chambers where smoke was curling into the air. “She’s burning there now. Now you can talk about your mother in the past tense.”
That moment was forever etched in young Edith’s memory. So, too, was the memory of another terrible evening. Edith had been a ballerina. Someone discovered this, and one night she was brought before Mengele and ordered to dance for him. When she finished, Mengele dismissed her with a small piece of bread—bread from the hand of the man responsible for killing her mother and so many others she had known.
Edith spent nearly a year at Auschwitz before being transferred to a work camp (which most assuredly saved her life). But deep down inside, where memories and walls hide, she was still a prisoner of her past. It was not until she finally took an honest look back that she began to grieve.
“I grieve over the childhood I never had,” she said years later. “I grieve over the fact that I danced for Dr. Mengele in Auschwitz. I grieve that I was beaten so severely that I couldn’t dance anymore.”
What prompted Edith to process more deeply the traumas she experienced? Years later, after she had moved from Germany to New York City, she was asked to be a consultant on a stage play. The play was about the Holocaust, but the focus of the play was on painful relationships.
After seeing the play, she commented to reporters, “I feel it is important for everyone to see this play so they can go home and liberate themselves from their own concentration camps and to know that they have choices.”
There’s that word: choices.
She went on to say, “Many people today feel they have no choices. But even in Auschwitz we had choices.” 9
Even in Auschwitz we had choices.
If Holocaust survivors like Edith had choices in Auschwitz, then you and I also have choices, even in the most abominable conditions, even with the most abhorrent memories.
In the cattle car on the way to Auschwitz, Edith’s mother had told her that no one could take from her what she put in her head. What you and I put in our heads is a choice. What will it be? Hatred or love? Bitterness or kindness? Vengeance or forgiveness?
Josiah chose to follow a different father. Edith chose to move forward in spite of her memories. And now it’s your choice—that is, if you’re serious about tearing down walls. So, it’s time to make a choice.
It’s a choice to take the time to discover God’s promises that apply to your wall. And it’s a choice to trust in those promises in spite of what has happened in the past or what is happening now in the present. It’s a choice to allow God and his Word to break down your walls.
Will you make that choice? Today?
If I could stand beside you as you read these words, as a pastor and friend, I’d put my hand on your shoulder and pray for you:
Oh, gracious heavenly Father, thank you so much that you were there every time I felt so alone. That you are there when I’ve failed and during those times when I’ve felt so . . . ordinary. Thank you for standing closer than my shadow and for caring far more than anyone else ever could. And thank you, Lord, for choices. Lord, help my friend right now, today, to choose a promise that you’ve written just for him or her. Help my friend hear your words and claim the power you’ve put in your Word to tear down walls. To experience the Faith Breakthroughs you have in store.
Thank you for being the great Wall Breaker who conquered death and who can teach us so much about life. Help my friend reading this prayer to choose freedom. To choose life. To choose a different mother or father like Josiah did if necessary. And to choose and believe that the future can be better than the past because of your love.
