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Chapter Three

Defining the Walls We Face

Whenever I share these concepts with a new group of people, I am always amazed how it seems so familiar to them. Their heads begin to nod, and their hearts resonate with the reality of unseen walls. Long before I give them any kind of definition, something deep within them already knows they are stuck. Still, it is important to clearly define the problem we are up against if we are ever to move beyond it to a life of Faith Breakthroughs. I define walls this way: a wall is an unhealthy mind-set that keeps you from living life as God intends.

Notice first what a wall is made of: it is composed of a mind-set—the frame of reference through which we process the world around us. Our belief systems literally “make up our minds” about what we see and experience. Notice also that a wall is not just any mind-set. It’s an unhealthy one. In contrast, a healthy mind-set is focused on a sound set of convictions rather than emotions—helping us make choices based on the truth of Scripture. We’ve all seen books that promise we can change our lives by changing our emotions, as if all we have to do is have a brighter outlook on life. On the contrary, I know a lot of happy people whose happiness is based on false pretenses, happiness that will last only as long as the circumstances of life go well for them. But the Bible talks a great deal about the renewing of our minds. There is no doubt that many of our life choices, situations, and outcomes will be determined by the mind-sets that we program ourselves to live by. Consider Paul’s words of wisdom in Romans 8:5-6:

Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.

When we fail to trust what God has promised us, the situations in which we live can seem overwhelming and hopeless. Such a mind-set can bring the most optimistic people in the world to an absolute standstill.

You have probably heard the term faith all your life, but there’s a good chance no one has really defined it for you. Faith is believing God will do what he said he will do, regardless of timing or circumstances. Why is that important to understand? Because the strength of your mind-set will be directly related to the strength of your faith. In other words, when you stop believing that God will come through, your mind-set automatically begins to erode, and you will start building walls. Imagine that every negative thought toward what you’re facing in life is a brick you are stacking, one on top of another, making your access to God’s best for your life seem farther and farther away.

Walls block us from living, giving, and experiencing God’s best in our lives. He intends far more for us than we will ever experience until we break through our walls. Additionally, because walls are built based on our attitudinal outlook, we may confuse what we are seeing with what is really the problem. That is why it’s also important to understand the most common areas of confusion regarding walls.

What Walls Are Not

In April 1986, Geraldo Rivera hosted a television special that had become one of the most anticipated events in media history. The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vault was the most-watched syndicated special to date, with more than 30 million viewers. As the title hinted, Rivera was to open a hidden safe that had been owned by Capone and that had remained closed since the 1930s. It was rumored to hold untold secret treasures—or even a dead body.

After all of the hype and expectation, however, the opening of the safe itself turned out to be a colossal letdown. The only things the vault held were several empty, dirty bottles and debris. For years afterward, “Al Capone’s Vault” was used to express the idea of a heavily anticipated event that failed to live up to its hype.

Unlike the efforts to penetrate that safe, we can be sure there is treasure on the other side of the wall; but far too often our efforts go to empty pursuits. With all that’s at stake as you begin the journey past your walls, it would be a shame to focus all your energy on something that wasn’t the problem in the first place.

The concept of walls may not be a new one, but there is often a misunderstanding of exactly which walls we are able to overcome and which walls we should care about overcoming in the first place.

There are three major misconceptions about walls that commonly throw people off the track of their breakthroughs. Recognizing these misconceptions up front can save us years of wasted energy:

Walls are not our circumstances.

I’ve reminded my congregation many times of this important fact. Each time I teach Faith Breakthroughs at a conference or seminar across the country, I try to make it very clear that the walls those in attendance are facing are not the problems themselves.

If our walls were our circumstances, then we could simply say, “That husband of mine is my wall!” or “My illness is my wall!” We could blame the board of directors that didn’t accept us or the prodigal child who hurt us or the political system that robbed us. But none of those situations is the substance of a spiritual wall.

From the very beginning of time, humankind has been looking for excuses in their circumstances rather than pointing to the real wall. When Adam blamed Eve, he said in essence, “Lord, it’s that woman you gave me! She gave me the fruit, and I ate it! And now all the good stuff is back behind a wall!” (Genesis 3:12, my paraphrase).

If circumstances can be walls, then the apostle Paul lists what could be considered a parade of walls in 2 Corinthians 11:24-28:

Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea. I have traveled on many long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not. I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm. Then, besides all this, I have the daily burden of my concern for all the churches. (Emphasis added)

If you’re counting, that’s the memory of more than twenty negative circumstances—any one of which would stand to hold Paul back from abundant living if walls were all about circumstances.

But listen to the apostle’s words: “I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News” (Philippians 1:12).

He was not looking at circumstances as walls. He was seeing circumstances—even negative ones—as doorways to move past walls. That’s a mind-set that happens only when we focus on the one who has power over any circumstances: God. Paul saw the challenges he faced as catalysts for good and gain, in his life and in the lives of others. In fact, he weighed in again on circumstances not being walls later on, saying:

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. (Philippians 4:11-12)

If you’re going through an especially difficult time in your life, it might sound offensive to say that your circumstances aren’t your problem. My point here is not to minimize the challenges you face in life, but it is intended to take your eyes off those events and place them on something you can really address. The problem with identifying your circumstances as your walls is that you often have no power to change them.

On the other hand, when we address the walls of unhealthy mind-sets in our lives, the circumstances—and how we view them—often improve as well over time.

In fact, we should never assume that God cannot or will not change our circumstances. As our walls come down because our faith has increased, we have every reason to anticipate that God will do things that only he can do in our midst! I firmly believe, and have personally witnessed, that God can work miracles in the midst of dire circumstances. The difference is that we cannot change them on our own.

That, then, is the first thing that walls are not. Walls are not our circumstances. We need not depend on the circumstances to change in order to experience a Faith Breakthrough.

Walls are not just bad feelings.

When you begin to break through the walls in your life, there’s a very strong chance that you are going to experience great joy and satisfaction. Likewise, some of the feelings you experience are a direct result of the walls you face. However, feelings are not the best barometers of breakthroughs.

Consider the letter to the Ephesians in Scripture, in which Paul challenges the people not to live according to their feelings:

with the Lord’s authority I say this: Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity. (Ephesians 4:17-19)

The people described in this passage fell into the trap of thinking their emotions should guide their every decision, but their emotions led them down a path that made them “hopelessly confused.”

Our mind-sets are not the same as our feelings. A mind-set is a way of seeing life based on a set of beliefs. Feelings are ways of reacting to our surroundings based on our emotions. We can have one feeling and choose an altogether different mind-set.

This becomes important in recognizing that not all negative feelings are unhealthy mind-sets that need to change. God gave us our emotions, but that doesn’t mean we should always follow them. I run into people all the time who need to make major changes in their lives but resist those changes because they involve too much discomfort. In fact, it’s common for such people to blame God for their unwillingness to move forward. They say things like, “I just don’t feel led to do anything about it right now,” or, “I have a real peace about what I’m already doing.” But feelings that are based on something contrary to God’s best for us are just cop-outs.

Walls are not protective boundaries.

This myth is often an offshoot of the “feelings” misconception described a moment ago. Since the beginning of time, people have avoided needed self-discipline or healthy habits in the name of discomfort. But boundaries are good for us, regardless of how they make us feel.

Several years ago an interesting study was conducted on the playground behavior of young schoolchildren, and the way they responded to various boundaries. The children came from several different schools, each one judged to have essentially the same-size play area. The students were from areas comparable in socioeconomic status, and the classes had roughly the same ratio of teachers to students. Yet there was one major difference between the two types of schools being studied: one group offered children a fenced playground; the other group had no fence around their playground.

When the study was over, the students with the clearly marked boundary showed the most cooperative play, had fewer playground fights, and exhibited lower levels of anxiety during recess.

When it comes to playground behavior, children playing inside a fence experienced an inner security that other children did not. The same applies to boundaries in our lives, and this security and self-discipline should not be confused with the detrimental walls that blockade us from good things.

Obviously, the top athletes in the world have made sacrifices to be at the top of their games. To be the best, they must have very clear boundaries related to diet, exercise, practice, and more. First Corinthians 9:25-27 compares the victorious life of a Christ-follower to these intentional boundaries:

All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.

While freedom-loving Americans may bristle at the idea that limits are good for us, it’s true. In fact, this incredible passage even supports a desire for withholding some pleasure in order to attain something later on. We have to stay inside the lines God has set if we want to get to our destination safely. To keep our mind-sets and actions inside the boundaries of God’s Word doesn’t limit us but frees us to experience life at its best.

That’s because boundaries are not our walls.

I love the game of basketball, and I have played thousands of games between high school, college, and pickup games at the park and in the driveway. But I cannot think of a single game I played in with no lines. The game of basketball takes place inside boundaries. And while that might seem restrictive, it actually spells freedom to a player, and it clearly spells out positive limits. I’ve been in many games where there was disagreement as to whether someone went out-of-bounds, but I’ve never seen anyone argue that the boundaries shouldn’t be there.

I have a friend who grew up with his mother in a single-parent home. When he was in junior high, his mother had to have major surgery, and his least favorite aunt came to live with them to help out.

She was his least favorite aunt because she brought with her a number of rules that seemed incredibly restrictive. Things like going to bed at a reasonable time of night, having to do homework before watching television, or eating dinner before dessert. These new boundaries seemed unreasonable, unnecessary, and unloving, at least in his eyes at the time.

Today, because she helped to instill structure and appropriate boundaries in his life, he refers to that same woman as his favorite aunt. Like a strict aunt who establishes rules that sometimes seem inconvenient, the boundaries in our lives can be our greatest allies in the quest for a Faith Breakthrough. Positive boundaries in life have nothing to do with the kind of walls that keep us from God’s best. In fact, a lack of boundaries can lead to many walls. Walls rob us of progress and cut us off from life. Legitimate boundaries bring clarity and structure to our lives. Boundaries add; walls take away. Boundaries ring true over time. Walls get worse each day. It is essential for us to know the difference.

Defining the Real Wall

The Gospel of Mark captures an incredible scene of breaking through walls and helps us better understand how walls are defined—and how they are often confused. If we could have been there, we’d have found Jesus teaching in a house that was completely packed with an attentive audience. People were wedged into every square inch of sitting or standing room inside, while a growing crowd spilled out the front door and onto the entryway and yard, each one trying to catch a glimpse of, and to hear a word from, Jesus.

Ken Gire describes the crowd as “a catch-all collection of seekers, spectators, and spies. Some came with a hopeful eye, to be healed. Others came with a curious eye, to be convinced. Still others came with a jaundiced eye. To find out who was rocking the religious boat and to stop him from making any more waves.” 2

It was the people who were late to the party whom the apostle Mark most clearly described: four men and a paralytic. Just hearing the word paralytic conjures up images of incredible challenges for the one who has to carry that label in our day. In Jesus’ day, it meant facing tremendous challenges just to survive.

This man’s entire life had been pressed into the space of a three-foot-by-six-foot mat. Never being able to turn on his side, leave his home without help, or perhaps even reach out for another’s hand. This paralytic lived in Capernaum, which meant that, from the house where Jesus sat, it would have been only a short walk to the beautiful Sea of Galilee—yet this man could never take the first step toward the thin, sandy beach on his own.

There were no steps. There was no privacy. He had to rely on others for everything.

He would have to be moved and turned often to try to keep the inevitable mat sores from becoming too inflamed or infected. And of course, he would have faced the humiliation of being cleaned and bathed after every bodily function.

Think about how challenging that would have been. Those physical circumstances, however, were not his walls. Remember that walls are not our circumstances—even circumstances as dire as this man’s. But we can certainly understand how such circumstances might lead him to a host of walls to overcome. His physical paralysis brought confinement. And because he was a person designed for movement, we can easily imagine the inevitable frustrations of having to wait for things around him to be moved, or someone to move something for him. And most likely there was loneliness. Boredom. Shame. Sorrow. Anger at God. Disappointment at opportunities lost. Now, those are mind-sets that can be built into walls.

But for all he had lost, there was something that added immensely to this man’s life. Friends. The four who were willing to carry him to Jesus. Perhaps they had been there when their friend’s body was broken by accident or injury. We’re not told that he’d been a paralytic all his life, as others in the Bible were described. Perhaps these same friends who were caring for his needs had been there when he’d lost use of his limbs. All we know for sure is that on this day, they were the ones carrying him to see Jesus. And they were also the ones who ran right into total disappointment when they saw the crowd spilling outside the house.

A desperate plan . . .

We’re also not told how these four initially handled the disappointment they must have felt. When their goal of getting their friend to Jesus was blocked, it had to be a letdown. Nor are we let in on the despair that the paralytic might have felt when he realized that his best chance for being healed wasn’t going to happen. There was simply no way any of them were going to get into that house with the press of bodies in front of them. And certainly no one was willing to give up his place inside.

We’re left to wonder which one of the paralytic’s friends first came up with the outside-the-box idea to use the outside staircase, but we can almost picture the look crossing all four sets of eyes when the suggestion was first made.

Perhaps after it was spoken there was an initial feeling of doubt, but as the thought sank in, it turned from No way! to Yes, that might work! However it happened, they had a new glimmer of hope for their friend.

perhaps they could get to Jesus after all!

All they needed to do was carry their friend up the outside stairs to the top of the roof. That wasn’t a problem. They had one friend for each mat corner. The problem was, as Jews, all their lives they had been taught not to interrupt a rabbi while he was teaching. And surely they would know that the people below them would soon be bellowing with shock and anger when the tiles and dust came pouring down into the room where Jesus sat.

But none of that mattered to these four friends.

They knew they had found a way to get their friend in front of the Healer. After all, this was the same person who had tossed a demon out of a man in another city. The same one who had healed a leper in another nearby town. Surely the terrible circumstances that their friend faced could be relieved if he could just come before Jesus.

It was their faces that Jesus would have seen first, peering down from above when the dust clouds cleared. Faces with faith written all over them. Jesus saw a faith that refused to surrender to the situation—a faith that moved aside a rooftop. He was touched with compassion for their friend.

Then something amazing happened.

Because Jesus is God, he looked at the circumstances. Here was this broken body before him, but Jesus was looking beyond what everyone else saw as the problem and saw an invisible wall that was far more essential to address. Jesus was able to look into this man’s soul and see an unseen wall raised up by sin and shame.

That’s when Jesus said to the man who was paralyzed, “My child, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5).

That man had been physically washed by others countless times, and always there was the need for another cleansing. But then Jesus’ words, “Your sins are forgiven,” washed over him and joined the tears washing down the sides of his face. At the very deepest level of his heart and soul (can you imagine!) his life right then was being washed clean of sin and shame by his Creator!

The freedom! No guilt! No shame!

He was becoming new from the inside out. This man’s faults had been no less real because his physical actions were limited to that three-foot-by-six-foot mat. This paralyzed man was likely just as happy to be free of sin as the most mobile of sinners was free to carouse about that ancient city.

Jesus’ words lifted off the crushing inner weight of a Wall of Doubt or Anger or Rebellion that no one else in the room could see: an unseen but very real wall that Jesus knew was really cutting him off from life and from his heavenly Father.

But there were those in the room who, when they heard Jesus’ words, were ready to curse his claim to tear down the unseen wall, though none inside dared to speak his sentiments out loud. The religious leaders all around Jesus were whispering to themselves, “This man has just claimed the power of God for himself! Only God can forgive sins! Only God himself can tear down that kind of wall!” (Mark 2:7, paraphrased).

And Jesus, sensing the hatred in their hearts, said to them, “Why do you question this in your hearts? Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk’?” (Mark 2:8-9).

The simple answer might be that both are impossible. That is, of course, unless you’re God. And to sweep out all the hateful feelings that had filled the room and replace them with joy and amazement, Jesus did something truly amazing: “[He said,] ‘So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.’ Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, ‘Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!’” (Mark 2:10-11).

And the man did. A man who had lived with the most terrible of physical barriers now stood up and walked away for all to see. Even more amazing, he was free of his spiritual and emotional walls as well.

It’s important to note that God changed the invisible walls before he addressed the physical circumstances. The physical circumstances don’t always change, but the spiritual walls can never withstand the power of God’s Word.

If we could have been there, I’m sure we would have seen five friends dancing and crying and praising God as they walked down to the beach, with the paralytic carrying his mat above his head. . . .

For walls seen and unseen had come down.

It works the same in your life and mine. We focus on what we can see, but the unseen walls are just as real as the physical barriers we face.

Walls separate. Walls isolate. Walls intimidate. But walls are no match for God.

That’s why it’s so important to understand that the invisible walls are there. They don’t have to dominate or define you any longer! Just like this paralyzed man, you have to get to the heart of the problem. The wall in your life may be something you have never really thought about before, but it is a reality you cannot afford to ignore. Beyond it lies what you’ve been waiting for.

By now you know what walls are and what they are not. You have a glimpse of what can be when the walls come down. But perhaps there is still the temptation to shrug off the significance of the walls in your life.

It’s time to expose the truth about the danger of walls.