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A Promise Shared

Because we live in a culture that encourages us to keep things to ourselves and hide our weaknesses and past hurts, many of us have forgotten—or have never learned—that promises were made to be discovered and lived and then to be shared with others. The Hebrew people of Jesus’ day were very intentional about following God’s commands to share festivals, milestones, miracles, and memories. In fact, the Jewish nation around the world continues to lead the way in carrying on strong traditions that serve to remind one another of the promises of their history. It’s time for people who are serious about breaking through to rediscover this lost art form.

Victories Are Made to Be Shared

It was a game for the ages. Even if you didn’t follow basketball, the 1991 NBA Eastern Conference Championship at the Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan, was must-see TV. That’s because it starred none other than Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls on one side, as they fought to break through their chief nemesis and the defending champs. The “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons’ twin defensive hammers, Bill Laimbeer and Dennis Rodman, anchored an intimidating crew led by Joe Dumars and Isiah Thomas. It was the irresistible offensive force of the Bulls, meeting the immovable defensive object that was the Pistons. And I wasn’t watching it on TV—I was there!

Not just there, but somehow my father had gotten us great seats for what turned out to be the deciding fourth game. The stadium was packed, and the game was as intense as advertised. We were all sitting on the edge of our seats until the middle of the fourth quarter, when it became fairly clear that the mighty Bulls were going to move past their greatest rivals. The Pistons had realized the same thing, and the home-team Detroit fans filed dejectedly toward the exits.

Throughout the game, my father and some friends who were with us kept commenting on the clothes I’d picked to wear to the game. As a Michael Jordan fan, I wanted the Bulls to win. But as an outsider in the opposing gym, I also wanted to get out alive. So in a personal compromise, I had worn a red button-down shirt (Bulls colors) and blue Dockers pants (Pistons colors). The reason everyone kept commenting on my choice of clothing was that I was dressed exactly like all the ushers at the Palace that afternoon!

And so with just five minutes left in the game, my father encouraged me to try something fun. “Ryan, just walk down the stairs and see how close you can get to the court. No one will stop you. I’m telling you, you look exactly like one of the ushers!”

I rarely get accused of being shy, so I grabbed my camera and started walking down the stairs, toward the court where the game was still being played. With each step toward the arena floor, I kept waiting for someone to step in front of me, to ask for my credentials and tell me to head back to my seat.

But to my amazement, each time I arrived at the start of another section, the usher in charge of that area would just nod and wave me through! Down through the really expensive seats and right onto the floor behind the benches. Perhaps people thought I was there to work security, because when the final buzzer sounded, I was standing on the end of the court, right by the tunnel where the coaches and players were celebrating! I was right in the middle of it!

I had a camera with me, but I had to snap my pictures without placing it up to my face. I couldn’t blow my cover. So I got some incredible snapshots of MJ, Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, and others with only half of their faces in the frame.

Just because of my mix-and-match wardrobe choice, I got to be in on the celebration of one of the most historic teams in basketball lore—at the very moment when they broke through the barrier that had haunted them for years. I got a glimpse at what happens when a wall comes down and the victory is shared among those who have journeyed together.

There are actually some significant parallels between the joy and exhilaration on that court and what a promise shared is all about. In the same way that Chicago fans couldn’t stop cheering, there is a powerful sense of joy when we see almighty God break down walls in our lives. It’s something we love to share, a reminder of what God has done in our lives. It’s inviting people to come down courtside and celebrate with us as we lift up the Lord!

I promise I’ll stop with the sports analogies, but they are a good way to highlight the excitement that comes with sharing something that’s been extremely meaningful to someone, and sharing promises is a key element we’ve built into the culture of our church.

At Bannockburn, we encourage people at every age level to rejoice together in a Faith Breakthrough they have made. Whether a junior high student or one of our senior adults, people are encouraged to share and celebrate what God has done and is doing in their lives.

For example, we honor our high school graduates each spring with a wonderful commemoration of a promise shared. During the course of the spring semester, we offer a special Conviction Breakthrough course for those seniors to help them understand the primary worldviews they will encounter when they leave home, the differences between those worldviews and the Bible, and why they can have confidence in God’s Word. On that graduation Sunday, we acknowledge those who trained for the Conviction Breakthrough with a special honor cord similar to those given for student awards. Their Walls of Doubt or Confusion may come later (during that freshman philosophy class, perhaps), but the students will already be prepared with the promises necessary to move past the walls.

A second way we encourage people to share their Faith Breakthrough is through baptism, which is the most timeless picture in the church of a promise shared. In every case, the goal is the same: to give a visual and special reminder to others of what the Lord has done and will do.

As word has spread, we have had the privilege of teaching other churches how to do the same thing through Faith Breakthrough church leader workshops. Much of that training is simply telling the stories of what has happened in the lives of our people. There is no more credible teacher than someone who has lived the power of a breakthrough.

You might wonder why Jesus said more than once to different people, “Go, and tell no one” after he healed them. Does that command contradict the power of sharing our promises? No. Whenever Jesus said those words, he wanted people to focus on his message, and he wanted to be sensitive to the timing of that message. Later, after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the disciples were to go and tell the world what he had promised and done!

In other words, it is right and good to celebrate and even to memorialize what God has done in our lives. Joshua was asked to set up a memorial after God’s people had marched through the Jordan River, a wall of water keeping the Israelites from the Promised Land. Likewise, memories of a promise shared leave a lasting impact of an event that may have only lasted a moment. Markers of a promise shared are more common than you think. You see them in the baptism of a renewed life, the wedding of a couple with new rings on their fingers, and a family’s dedication of a child.

When Everyday Moments Become Promises Shared

When we were coming up on Lily’s first birthday, we all knew that this milestone meant more than just a year had passed. For her, a year of life meant that she had beaten the odds and God had answered many prayers. We wanted to celebrate more than just the anniversary of her arrival. We also knew this was an opportunity to remind ourselves, and the hundreds of friends who had prayed for our little girl, that God had kept his promises. He had never left us. In fact, his hand had brought her through more trials and challenges than most people experience in a lifetime.

We tried to think of a fitting tribute, and Lana had a great idea. Rather than hosting the average birthday party, we asked everyone to forgo bringing presents and instead to bring a gift for the Ronald McDonald House, an organization we had learned to appreciate more than we could have ever imagined. We also captured the memories on paper and film that day with a roaming video camera and actually captured many of the comments, prayers, and encouraging words through our online blog. We wanted to hold on to those testimonies so that years later we could sit down and share with her the miracle of her life.

As was only fitting for Lily’s party, we actually had to postpone it a week because she was hospitalized. But when it happened, I can’t begin to describe how amazing it was to be around all those people who had prayed so long and so diligently for healing. We had the opportunity to say thank you and to voice before all of those people some of the promises that had carried us through the year that had just gone by.

Milestones and anniversaries that are already a routine part of life can often become a natural and profound part of your Faith Breakthrough. Birthdays, retirement parties, Christmas celebrations, Thanksgiving meals, weddings, first days of school, and anything else you can think of can be transformed into incredible opportunities to share with others the promises that have become a part of your Faith Breakthrough.

Sharing Your Breakthrough Story—Scars and All

Let me share a story about something I carry around with me every day. I got it the day I was preparing to go hunting with my father-in-law. I hadn’t been hunting since I was young, so I borrowed one of his guns—a .30-06—and went to a local shooting range for the first time. What a mix of testosterone and gunpowder! They put you in a booth next to similar booths facing a long tunnel with targets at the end. I could tell right away that this was going to be fun. Everyone else in the room besides me was shooting handguns—weapons that, while powerful, made more of a cap-gun sound, at least with the ear protection we were wearing.

But not my rifle. When I fired it the first time, it sounded like an explosion. And every shot I took grabbed the attention of everyone in the building, like a cannon announcing its presence on the battlefield.

Shooting a deer rifle isn’t rocket science. You look in the scope and place the target in the crosshairs. And shooting a gun was like riding a bike for me; I hadn’t done it for years, but the principles came back pretty quickly. After two or three successful shots, I thought I might as well have some fun. After all, you never know when you might have to get more creative in the deer blind. So I took a shot while kneeling down. Then I fired a round like a soldier hiding behind a barricade, with my back against the wall and the gun barrel facing to my side. And each time I got the same result: bull’s-eye!

But that’s when my confidence got ahead of my wisdom, and I did something that I’ve wished I could do over ever since. Do you remember in the old westerns when John Wayne would take a few shots from his six-shooter? And when he was out of bullets, he’d grab his rifle and hold it up like a handgun and shoot it? Well, it turns out this only works in the movies. One of the foundations of gun safety is that when you shoot a gun, there is going to be a “kick”—a reverse impact from the force of the bullet leaving the rifle. And if the gun isn’t secured against your shoulder, it’s still going to blast backward.

The instant I pulled the trigger for that fateful shot, the bullet went one way and the scope of that rifle slammed right back into my forehead. Wham! Blood poured down my face. Of course, the audience I had created with the volume—and creativity—of my shots was enjoying the entire saga. As much as I tried to conceal the severity of the wound, the bleeding gave it away. I carefully put the gun away and headed for the checkout counter, deftly dabbing a Kleenex on my open wound. But I couldn’t ignore the smirks of everyone in the store, which finally turned to laughter when the clerk offered, “Would you like a Band-Aid for that, cowboy?”

I ended up with ten stitches later that afternoon—and a half-moon scar between my eyes that I’ll carry the rest of my life.

I wouldn’t wish a permanent facial scar for anyone else, but it’s really not so bad. As the years have passed, it has been fun to share the story. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met who made the same mistake!

I tell that story because there is something about scars that leads to sharing. The story of your scars may be difficult to tell, but it may be the very thing it takes to help others move past their own hurts and challenges. Part of sharing your story is to firmly establish the breakthrough in your own life, but sharing is also a blessing to those around you who need to break down their own walls as well. When we’re willing to share our scars, we open the door for real healing in the lives of those around us—as well as in our own.

Don’t Wait to Share!

You don’t have to be miles beyond your wall to share. In fact, it can be a trap to think you have to have everything resolved before you let others in on what God is doing in your life. You can—and should—celebrate your very first blow to the wall! Sharing with others while you’re still on the journey gives weight to the decisions you are making, and it allows others to cheer you on as you experience the breakthrough.

Statistics tell us that people are always more successful at an exercise program when they have a workout partner. The reason is fairly simple: we don’t want to let someone else down, and we’re motivated to keep going when we realize that our partner is counting on our keeping our word. Sharing our breakthroughs works the same way: it builds momentum toward the victory, even in the early stages of the process.

Choosing to share early in the process is important for another reason: there will be a day when the challenges grow harder, and you’re going to need the conviction that there is no turning back. Indeed, the times of testing will be just the thing to solidify your breakthrough.

Discussion Questions

1. Describe a time when you witnessed something so special taking place that the people around you felt compelled to celebrate it—perhaps even spontaneously. What made it so important to come together and share that victory?

2. Some of our greatest opportunities to share with others come out of our most difficult experiences. Why is it, then, that we are often so tempted to keep those stories to ourselves—even when God has given us victory over them?

3. Brainstorm some ways that people who have experienced breakthroughs could share those victories with others. How might you use one of those ways to let others know about a breakthrough in your own life?

Duke & Angie

When Walls Become Breakthroughs

Duke and Angie were raising a wonderful family and cruising through life. Their faith in God was a steady, if not convenient, one. Unlike others in this book, they enjoyed much of what we would normally hope for in the context of the American dream and even matched the description of ideal church members. But in the midst of what was seen, there were invisible walls.

Duke recently shared with me that he had fallen into a trap with which most of us are familiar: the constant quest for success, for the next big thing, and for the “stuff” that came with it. This empty journey had completely turned his priorities upside down, and he was working diligently to obtain things with no lasting substance—even while he was unknowingly building barriers that were robbing him of all that really mattered in his life.

In one terrible evening, he almost lost all that mattered in just one phone call. It was the kind of call we all dread receiving: Angie and the two children had traveled to Lubbock, Texas, to visit her parents. Angie, the kids, and her parents were in their Suburban when they were hit head-on by an oncoming car. A few seconds of exploding sheet metal and flying glass had demanded the ultimate price for some in the vehicle. When Duke received the phone call that evening, the hospital representative could tell him only that his family had been involved in an accident with fatalities, and that there were two in the Suburban who had not survived. All the rest were being rushed to the hospital, and the caller didn’t know which passengers were still alive.

When Duke hung up the phone, he fell to his knees and cried out to God: Lord, please spare my family! Please save my family! Some time later he learned the two children had arrived at the hospital and were going to make it. Now he had the somber anticipation of which of the remaining three had survived.

Moments seemed like hours.

And finally the call came. Angie was alive, but both of her parents had died in the accident. If it’s possible to feel relief with the news that loved ones have passed away, this was the case. In the midst of his grief for the loss of his in-laws, Duke was fully aware that God had given him a brand-new opportunity to reorder his life.

With his entire family in the hospital several hours’ drive from home, he arranged for a pilot to fly his private plane to Lubbock. He still remembers frantically packing for a hospital stay of who-knew-how-long and the lonely drive to the airport. The arrival at the airport brought more bad news. Severe thunderstorms shook the sky almost the entire way to Lubbock. The plane was large enough to be radar equipped, but that didn’t guarantee they could make it all the way to their destination without having to divert the flight, and that hardly seemed like a viable option given his desperation to be with the ones he loved most. Duke prayed some more in the plane, and prayers were lifted all over the state as word spread about the horrible accident. Duke recalls how strongly he could sense those prayers and the presence and power of God with them.

The approach to Lubbock became more and more unlikely as the night wore on. Radar showed the most dangerous storms imaginable all around them. Duke and his pilot witnessed lightning flashing on both sides of the plane like great walls of angry, explosive clouds. Yet somehow, remarkably, a narrow path of clear skies remained in front of the plane. Duke recalled his pilot saying numerous times, “Hang on, in another thirty miles things are going to get rough!” But they would fly another thirty miles, and the skies would continue to open. All the way to Lubbock, with storms raging around them, there was not so much as a bump in their flight. Sixty seconds after they landed cleanly in Lubbock and got into their car, the sky began to pour sheets of rain.

In those moments, Duke felt the strong sense that God’s hand had not left him or his family and that his Savior would never leave him. That assurance carried the family through the challenging days of recovery, through the difficult memorial services, and into the first few days when all was supposed to be back to normal.

But as the days went by, it became apparent that “normal” would never be the same. Duke and Angie no longer wanted to experience life as usual. God’s promises had broken down their Wall of Misplaced Priorities. They felt strongly that the Lord had given them another chance to rewrite their legacy, and they were not about to let it pass by.

Duke’s business as a custom home builder remains as strong as ever, but it is no longer what all else revolves around. He lives by God’s promise in Matthew 6:33, which instructs us to “seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” His passion for his Lord not only grows stronger every day, but it overflows into the lives of his wife and children. Angie serves on our prayer team at church, with a new understanding of prayer’s power. Not only has Duke caught the vision for what it means to claim God’s promises regarding passing a legacy to his children, he now teaches a class to other dads in the church who are taking the same strong challenge. Every day has become a gift, a gift custom-designed for a life of Faith Breakthroughs.

Duke and Angie know what it means to overcome walls through the power of the Faith Breakthrough. What’s more, they have experienced the significance of a promise shared—and how it can change not only our lives, but others’ lives as well.