Breakdown to Breakthrough: Joseph’s Story

This is one of the best posts I’ve read in a long time–about biblical Joseph’s breakthrough in Egypt.  Very well-written, great insight!  Read read read!  :)

xoxox Summer

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Breakdown to Breakthrough to Breakout
Mary DeMuth

It’s an interesting pattern we find in Scripture. First folks break down, then God breaks through. This leads to breakout. Look at Joseph. His breakdown happened slowly (but painfully) over many years as he suffered rejection by his brothers, was sold into slavery, framed by Mrs. Potiphar, and landed in jail. His breakthrough came when he learned to be obedient to God when no one was watching, when he entrusted his reputation to God. Only then did Pharah nab him and begged for dream interpretation. The breakout happened when Pharaoh promoted him in an instant, and Joseph was able to save the very family that rejected him.

Breakdown.

Breakthrough.

Breakout.

I’m in the breakdown phase right now. How about you? I’m the fishermen on Galilee, trusting far too much in my empty, unsatisfying nets. Nothing seems to be working. I place my nets over the edge of my boat’s precipice, hoping, hoping, hoping.

But something my friend Mike said in a prayer group sticks to me now. He said, “The disciples followed Jesus at the pinnacle of their livelihood.”

The disciples did have breakdown, then breakthrough when Jesus filled their nets with the biggest catch of their ENTIRE LIVES. Then He asked them to follow Him. They could’ve stayed. But they didn’t. They followed Jesus. And then the breakout, in terms of the kingdom of God and changed lives, exploded.

I wonder what would happen if I found success in this writing gig if I’d be willing to drop it all and follow Jesus no matter what. I’d like to say that I would, but I’m not sure. I’ve been working so hard at this for so long. The sweet reward of success is intoxicating. I pray I’ll be able to leave it all, if He asks.

You may be wondering why I have this particular picture on my post. It’s the church I walked by every day bringing my kids to school in France. In that moment, as my career was in its infancy, God asked me to follow Him to France. And I did (oh by His strength). So, perhaps it’s in my DNA to drop my nets. I pray so.

I want to follow.

q4u:

What about you? Where are you? Breakdown? Breakthrough? Breakout? Share your story.

Jealous for Us

Putting God first (AKA firstfruits).  Remember when I wrote about that last month?  http://youaretheoneiwant.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/first-fruits/

He’s taught me a lot in 30 short days.  Today I opened His word to this passage (a book I’d never paid attention to!).  The passage is a little lengthy but the message, AWESOME.

“Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins?  This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you!  You have planted much but harvest little.  You eat but are not satisfied.  You drink but are still thirsty.  You put on clothes but cannot keep warm.  Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes!

This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you!  Now go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild my house.  Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord.  You hoped for rich harvests, but they were poor.  And when you brought your harvest home, I blew it away.  Why?  Because my house lies in ruins, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, while all of you are busy building your own fine houses.  It’s because of you that the heavens withhold the dew and the earth produces no crops.  I have called for a drought on your fields and hills—a drought to wither the grain and grapes and olive trees and all your other crops, a drought to starve you and your livestock and to ruin everything you have worked so hard to get.”

-Haggai 1

Um, whoa.  Harsh much?  Not so fast…

What is God saying here?  His message is: ”Get your priorities straight!  This is why your house is in ruins…. why you have addictions you can’t satisfy…. why you work so hard but it’s never enough!  You are giving what belongs to God – the firstfruits of your heart, your money, your devotion, your time – to another.”

Hasn’t God said He’s jealous for us (Exodus 20)?  He will not sit by while we worship something else, something false.  We are His children!  Like any good father, He shows us when we veer off course, when we chase things that destroy us.

What kind of wife/husband would you be to ignore your spouse dating someone else — or to let your kids wander down a bad path that will cause them pain or even death, without correcting them?  Would you be able to say you truly loved them?

So what did our loving God do to His people, who left His temple unbuilt and thus rendered them unable to worship Him?  He sent disaster upon what they were relying on.

Why - because He hated them? 

No, because He loved them intensely and wanted them to realize they were devoted to the wrong thing.  He wanted to turn their hearts back to Him.  He was crying out for them to love Him back, to return to Him, to rebuild His temple so they could worship Him once more.

THAT IS A PASSIONATE LOVE!

So the people of Judah responded: They started building God’s temple!  And what did God do?  Check out Haggai 2:

“Look at what was happening to you before you began to lay the foundation of the Lord’s Temple.  When you hoped for a twenty-bushel crop, you harvested only ten.  When you expected to draw fifty gallons from the winepress, you found only twenty.  I sent blight and mildew and hail to destroy everything you worked so hard to produce. Even so, you refused to return to me, says the Lord.

Think about this eighteenth day of December, the day when the foundation of the Lord’s Temple was laid.  Think carefully.  I am giving you a promise now while the seed is still in the barn.  You have not yet harvested your grain, and your grapevines, fig trees, pomegranates, and olive trees have not yet produced their crops.  But from this day onward I will bless you.”

He blessed them!!!  For even beginning to walk in obedience, He spoke His blessing over their lives.

The coolest & most exciting part (to me)?  This morning God spoke the same message to my heart: From this day onward I will bless you.

Why?

I believe it’s because we’ve been giving Him our firstfruits, honoring Him with the first of our crops (which we actually have, from our new garden!), our time (our mornings and the beginning of each month), our wealth (the first of our paycheck).

Have we been perfect?  No, but we’ve started plodding the path of putting Him first.  Proverbs 9 says God blesses people who give Him their firstfruits.  We recognized this — that the firstfruits already belong to Him — so when we give Him what’s rightfully His, He blesses the rest.

And He wasn’t kidding: He’s blessing our faces off.  No, we don’t share this to toot our horns.  We share this to demonstrate that the Bible, when applied, changes our lives :)

May God give you grace to do the same!
xoxo Summer

The Blessed Life :)

I spoke to those in captivity of all the things the LORD had shown me.  -Ezekiel 11:25

Thursday God gave me this scripture.  Clear as a bell ringing in my heart, I felt Him impressing upon me to share what I’ve been learning in the fire, in my fear, in confusion, and in the newness I’ve experienced this year.  He is certainly doing “a new thing”!  

Today the Lord is speaking more than I can download here.  On a side note, I get reeaaally excited when He speaks.  QT is my love language after all!  I’m like a giddy schoolgirl when He talks to me – eager to share it with the world.  So here goes. 

Below I’ve written principles that invite God’s blessing into our lives and help us experience the blessed life!

First, from my (amazing!) hubby, awesome advice I need to apply to my own life.  I assure you, he lives these principles: 

“Build each other up!  Wake up each day focused on how you can ‘edify’ someone else.  Edify means to enlighten, inform, instruct, educate, improve, and teach.  When you are idle, you tend to focus inwardly, and usually negative…. But we are designed to be externally focused, and we are blessed by blessing others…  

“I want Summer to be proud of me and in every situation, even ones where she’s not in the room.  I want to Honor her with every conversation I have about her… [and] I expect her to do the same… not in return for how I act, but independently of how I act.  Because the moment we start saying well she didn’t compliment [me] enough here, so I’m not going to love on her here… then the relationship falls apart.  But if each of us (independently of each other’s actions) tries to love in the best way we know how (regardless of either of our failures) then we have real love.  We are externally focused, and usually enjoying the heck out of it.” 

Secondly, from one of my fave books The Blessed Life by Robert Morris: 

“Go the extra mile.  Romans 12 tells us, ‘If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men’ (v. 18).  Frankly, I would much rather be cheated by men and blessed by God than to insist on fairness from men but forfeit God’s blessing.  Every time I’ve done the right thing, God has always blessed me.”  Amen!

And lastly, we’re blessed by worshipping him.  Here’s a stunningly beautiful song by Watermark, one of my *Faves*  :)

Happy Tuesday,
Summer

First Fruits

My husband and I have been reminded numerous times this past month about the Firstfruits principle in Prov. 3:

Honor the LORD with your wealth,
with the firstfruits of all your crops;
then your barns will be filled to overflowing,
and your vats will brim over with new wine.

So this month we put this principle to the test… with great success!  If you want God’s blessing  in any area of your life, give your first and best to Him in that area.  The Bible makes it clear that God owns the firstfruits of what we own (in fact He owns it all!), so by giving Him our firstfruits we’re just returning what’s already His.  Things like:

Your mornings – the first part of your day.

The 1st of each month.

The first day of the week (Sunday) – Sabbath day!

The first portion of your paycheck.

Give God the firstfruits of your time, money, relationships, belongings, everything – and open the door in your life for Him to bless the rest!

We tried it with great results.  But we don’t want to give simply because God blesses those who obey Him and put Him first.  We do it because it’s what He desires, and we want to please Him with all that we are.

For more scriptures on firstfruits, check out http://familyofchrist.net/sermons/Sermons2007/discipleship_Aug2007/Tithing1-Tithing_as_First_Fruits.pdf