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chapter_ten.docxChapter Ten
The Test: Where Breakthroughs Happen
We can talk endlessly about verses and mind-sets and examples and Faith Breakthroughs. But there will come that time—that test—when we’ll either use God’s promise to face up to our walls or retreat into defeat. For me that time came with a scream from the other side of our house. . . .
I mentioned in chapter 1 that our youngest daughter, Lily, was born with significant health challenges. She remained a guest at the hospital a bit longer than most newborns due to some breathing concerns, but when we brought her home for the first time, we felt confident that any dangers were behind us and expected to begin the regular routine of life with a baby. Five days later came the terrible night I still remember vividly.
I was in our bedroom when I heard my mother-in-law, Nita, scream my name from Lily’s room across the hall. I raced toward her cries. As I ran in, Nita was hovering over our daughter, who was already blue and looked lifeless. I began rescue breathing as Lana called 911. We prayed and cried and performed CPR and begged God to bring help soon and to save our little girl.
By the time EMS arrived, Lily was breathing again, but the evidence of all that was wrong inside her eart would render each day to follow very different from the ones before.
That was the first time we almost lost Lily, but not the last. And each time was like coming face-to-face with the walls that Lana and I were quietly building. All our worries and fears and anxieties and doubts were becoming walls, brick by brick, between us and the Lord, a God we had always known to be loving and kind, but whose strategy in these moments we could not comprehend.
I would be lying if I said that the testing we have faced through Lily’s life is now something we can rejoice over, but I can honestly say that amazing things have happened in the face of those tests. Lana and I have had to cling to God’s promises in ways we never knew before. Promises that he would “never leave [us] nor forsake [us]” (from Hebrews 13:5, NKJV) or our baby Lily. He has not left, even as we continue to face those tests that bring us right back to our walls—and right back to God’s promises that break them down again.
The truth of the matter may be something none of us wants to hear: no breakthrough is complete until the testing comes. In fact, this is where the three steps of discovering, choosing, and sharing God’s promises come together to form the weapon that finally overcomes the wall.
The testing is the proving ground of the breakthrough. It is the fire that forges the separate elements into the steel strong enough to break down walls.
Sometimes passages become so familiar that we forget their incredible power. For example, James 1:2-3 has been quoted time and again: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.”
We have learned over the years of Lily’s struggles how true this verse is when we trust. It is never easy, but it is always true.
Certainly Lana and I aren’t alone in facing a test that leads to a breakthrough. You’ve already read the stories of several wall breakers from our church who have faced the testing and broken through. And like them, there was a man in the Bible with a very unusual name who did the same thing.
An Amazing Picture of a Faith Breakthrough
Habakkuk lived in 620 BC, but his story sounds like it is right out of headline news. Habakkuk and the people he was leading were confused about the challenging times they were facing. In fact, at the beginning of his book, Habakkuk lists six things that he simply couldn’t figure out.
Sit in front of your television tonight, click over to a local or national news channel, and tell me if this doesn’t sound like what’s happening in the world. Wherever Habakkuk looked, he saw sin, wickedness, destruction, and violence. He saw no justice in the courts, and everywhere the wicked seemed like they outnumbered the righteous.
And there’s one more thing.
Habakkuk was facing a wall because of all he saw around him. In Habakkuk 1:2, he asks, “How long, O L ORD, must I call for help? But you do not listen!”
Just like we are all prone to do, when times get tough and God’s plan is out of sight, the prophet of God faced a moment of testing. Habakkuk was unable to hear God, to see God, or to understand. He joined his people in wondering why God was somehow “hidden” from what was going on. In our darkest moments, we wonder whether God is even paying attention.
In Habakkuk’s case, it got even worse. Habakkuk heard from God, but it was not what he wanted to hear: almighty God had just told him that things were going to get worse, not better. How’s that for the opposite of a health-and-wealth message!
It’s like praying that God will take away an illness a friend is facing, only to watch our friend get worse. It is in these moments when we pray and get the “wrong” answer that we face the biggest crisis in the midst of the breakthrough—and we have to choose between a breakthrough and a breakdown.
I can’t see the answer. Will I still trust?
I can’t understand the circumstances. Will I still believe?
I can’t imagine a positive outcome. Will I still press on?
Let me make this personal for a moment. While Lily’s health problems have kept us on the alert in recent years, our oldest daughter has dealt with a physical condition of her own. Ryley has struggled with type 1 diabetes since she was five years old. While this condition is not as daunting as Lily’s struggles, what Ryley has faced has been tremendously challenging for her and for us as well.
As a diabetic, Ryley’s life has never been free from shots and insulin pumps. We must also draw blood from our little girl multiple times every day. These “finger sticks” were especially trying when she was very young. It hurts to have blood taken, no matter how often it’s done. I can remember praying so hard for Ryley to be healed from this disease. But a yes answer to prayer has not yet come. In fact, while she has been a trouper over the years and almost never complains, I remember vividly one really tough night when she was about six years old.
It was time to take blood, again, and it had hurt her, again, and she was crying in my arms, again. And then Ryley looked up at me and asked in a sad, pleading voice, “Daddy, is there going to be diabetes in heaven?”
When it’s your child who’s hurting, when there’s no answer to your prayers that makes sense to you, when you’ve prayed so hard to relieve a loved one’s pain— and it gets worse? It’s easy to say at times like that, as Habakkuk did, “God, why don’t you hear? God, why can’t you see?” It’s easy at that point for a wall to go up or to get higher—a Wall of Doubt, or Anger, or Fear, or Uncertainty.
Of course, it’s easy for walls to go up in times of testing. But there’s an amazing truth about breakthroughs that involves the very same test: the tests that seem to be drawing you far from God are the very things God can use to bring down the walls in your life.
You don’t have to like the tests you go through, but you must see the opportunities that they bring. Tests offer a chance to prove God’s promises like nothing else on earth can do.
A Promise Tested; A Promise Confirmed
As I was writing this book, I almost changed this chapter’s title to a more positive one: “A Promise Confirmed.” After all, isn’t that what needs to happen in the midst of a trial? But that’s just the point: there is no confirmation without the testing; the two go hand in hand.
In science class, we used to have to test our hypotheses. It was only after the testing proved our theories to be true that we had confirmation. And the same is true in real life, as we see with Habakkuk. He made a clear decision in the midst of the test that absolutely transformed everything that took place from that point forward:
Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the L ORD! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! The Sovereign L ORD is my strength! He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights. (Habakkuk 3:17-19)
Incredible words. Put another way, Habakkuk was completely convinced that God would provide the strength he needed to blast through the walls in front of him, regardless of how circumstances worked out. And the same promises that carried him through the tests of his life can be the dawn of your own Faith Breakthrough. When put to the test, you discover that things don’t have to go as planned for God’s promises to be completely, unconditionally true and life-giving.
The Difference between Breakthroughs and Breakdowns
Several years ago, when we were first introducing the concept of Faith Breakthroughs to the leaders in our church, somebody said something about the process that has really resonated with me: “When you face life’s walls, you really only have two choices: have a break through or have a break down!”
Breakthroughs and breakdowns commonly have all of the same ingredients, but it is how we use those ingredients in the midst of the trial that will determine success or failure. When people break down on their way past the wall, it is never because a true promise of God failed; it is because the person in the trial failed to focus on the promise, becoming distracted by the circumstances that can be readily seen. On the other hand, like Habakkuk, a person breaks through when he fixes his eyes on the unseen promise regardless of the circumstances. In this case, the test becomes only the opportunity to prove that the promise is true!
We live in a world that is so confusing, so upsetting, so illogical, so evil, and so unfair that if we walk by sight we’re headed for a breakdown. But when we walk by faith—trusting God’s Word even in the midst of all we see around us—we take the first step toward a Faith Breakthrough.
The “test phase” of the breakthrough is probably not your favorite part of the book, but it may be the most critical. And the good news is this: whether or not you use your tests to experience a Faith Breakthrough, trials are going to come along anyway, so at least those tests now have a purpose.
I mentioned the testing that took place in science class, but obviously every teacher in school uses the same method. They teach the material, and then they use tests to be sure that their students have learned the subject that was taught. There’s really no other way to know for sure. I had a few teachers, though, who at least made tests a little bit easier. They would either tell us in advance exactly what would be asked on the test, or they would allow us to use our notes and texts during the test-taking process. The great news about real-life testing is that God has offered us both of those advantages.
The tests of life are all “open book”: we can go to the Bible and study God’s promises over and over again even as we’re in the midst of the test. And the tests of life are also pre-disclosed: we may not know the exact way the test will be given, but we can be assured that every test will contain the same three questions, which we will explore in the next chapter.
Discussion Questions
1. Looking back over your life, what would you say are the three most significant tests you’ve ever had to face?
2. Habakkuk’s understanding that things were getting worse actually helped him trust God more rather than less. What is the difference between being a pessimist—expecting bad things to happen in the future—and a realistic optimist—expecting that there will be trials, but that God will still be in control?
3. Many tests we face are unique to each person, but some are universal. What are some trials that almost everybody has to face? How does it help to know that they are coming?
4. When it comes to your own times of testing, which of the three “promise steps” (a promise discovered, promise chosen, or promise shared) is hardest to take?
David & Wendy
When Walls Become Breakthroughs
Most every girl dreams of her wedding day and carries in her heart the hope of “happily ever after.” Unfortunately, things don’t always go as planned.
When David and Wendy were married, everything looked great from the outside. But Wendy didn’t know that David was bringing baggage into their new home, and his secret life of pornography quietly eroded the foundation of their marriage. Even worse, this sin eventually led to more bad choices. And as is always the case, the truth eventually came to light, and Wendy’s dreams of a perfect family life were destroyed.
David recently reminded me of the depth to which he had fallen:
My “baggage” unfortunately was much wider than pornography, as you know. It included a sexual addiction that I was powerless to defeat without God. It also led to one of the greatest regrets of my life: adultery. I forfeited the ability and the privilege of telling my three girls later on in life that I had been faithful to their mother. As I grow older and farther away from those dark days, this is the fact that seems to remain and even grow larger in my mind.
David was humiliated and broken. Wendy felt angry and betrayed. Several friends reminded her that she had every right to pack up her daughters and walk away. After all, no one deserved the heartache she was going through.
But something else happened entirely.
David and Wendy walked through Christian counseling together, and David remained humble and repentant about all he had done. He discovered new promises from Scripture that could help him overcome the temptations that had buried him so deeply behind walls of lust and idolatry. Psalm 119:9-11 became real to him: “How can a young person stay pure? By obeying your word. I have tried hard to find you—don’t let me wander from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” As he let God’s promise transform his heart and mind, he grew determined to love Wendy in a new and deeper way and to prove to her he would be the kind of husband she had always hoped he would be.
In the meantime, Wendy began to discover a Wall of Bitterness all her own that she hadn’t previously recognized. This new understanding didn’t mean that David’s actions were her fault; it simply meant that she had her own places of unbelief that she was holding back from God. And until she dealt with them, she was convinced that she would never be able to allow her marriage to heal. She claimed the promise of Psalm 34:18, which states that “the L ORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” David put it this way:
For me to begin to move away from my sin, God had to completely break me down and thus build me back up. For Wendy to endure recovery and the overall rebirth of our marriage, she also had to allow God to break her down and thus build her back up. This process was extremely painful at the time. However, the blessings that we are experiencing today are from God! And a healthy marriage has overshadowed the pain a thousand times over.
The healing did not come instantly, but it came nonetheless. Today, David and Wendy remain happily married and deeply committed to their God and to one another. They also lead a growing ministry through our church that helps other couples experiencing the pain and heartache that pornography inevitably brings.
In David and Wendy’s story we can see so much of the breakthrough path we’ve been on—from needing and longing for real change, to hearing of the power of a promise, to discovering, choosing, and sharing that promise. David and Wendy have walked the path and continue today to head toward the kind of fulfilling life they never thought possible.
