Breakthrough

Hmmm...

I thought I knew what this word meant.  I mean...

I had a short reach on it in my mind...

but when I was trying to explain it to a friend today...

I knew there was more to be discovered.

Breakthrough.  We see it in the dawning light.  We see it when babies are born.  We see it when a seed sprouts up through the ground...and when the waves break on the shore.  We feel it when there is a change of heart.  We see it when that change of heart becomes a life turnaround.  We know it when something heavenly is revealed to our hearts and that truth becomes a part of us.  We see it in a miracle.  When brokenness is made whole...or when disease is reversed.  We see it in the Bible when God parted the waters and the people walked through on dry land.  And when lack was turned to abundance in Jesus rockin' display of his Father's Kingdom of Increase where he turned water to wine and a few loaves and fishes into a feast.  Breakthrough.

And then there are the examples that hit closer to home...like my brother returning from a 2 year unexplained estrangement and coming to the family Thanksgiving dinner...and the way we have been able to receive God's gifts to us this year like never before...and the way I am learning to actively love and honor my children with my time and attention and extend friendship to them.  And my "good days" mentality is dissolving into another language called grace.   And the extended moments in busy seasons where I have learned to linger, to really see people,  and to be present...those are multiplying with heaven-speed.   

The Hebrew rendering of "break" carries a liberating message...to break, to free, or to deliver.

And the word "through":  from end to end, or from side to side; from one surface or limit to the opposite; over the whole surface or extent; from beginning to end; to the end; to the ultimate purpose.  Seems that breakthrough is bigger than I imagined it to be by definition.  It's all-encompassing  freedom and deliverance.  Right now.  I guess my mindset has been an obstacle course of freedom sprints moving from one area of breakthrough to the next... and my focus has weighed more heavily on the desire for breakthrough and the incremental victories than on the fullness and enormity of salvation already IN CHRIST.  

He broke it all.  When he got up from being dead, Jesus did it.  Once for all.  Finito.  He became our Breakthrough.  He became our Salvation.  He became our Deliverance. 

 

So this morning I heard a recording of that old worship song...Holiness, holiness, is what I long for...Holiness is what I need.  And there's a verse in there somewhere  about ...brokenness, brokenness...is what I need.  Really?  Seems that without an understanding of who I AM, I am just a bag of brokenness, living from a completely fractured heart of hurt and angst.  Yes, I understand we must all come to a realization that we are THAT  broken (in need of regeneration) at one point in time.  And then... there's the turning and the returning to wholeness.  BUT...it's Christians that sing that song in worship.  That was me still singing songs like that even a couple of years ago completely believing that I needed to reach a more broken/contrite state to be accepted and loved.  Whoa.  When I started understanding that that wasn't an appropriate spirit stance anymore (now that God has declared me righteous in His Son), I ran the other direction.  It is not God-honoring for me to continue to declare something that is IN THE PAST.  I'd certainly rather live in the truth, declare the truth over my life, move in the power that comes when heaven and earth agree.  

Brokenness is not part of the vocabulary of heaven.  It's not even in the dictionary.  Breakthrough, on the other hand, is fully in there.  And you know what the definition is?  Simply...Christ.  It is His breakthrough in our place that allows us the freedom to live and move and breathe and dance and thrive and joy and love as He intended.  And I'm starting to think I've been missing out on the plunge into life by thinking that I have to "work through" so much "stuff" to get into the clearing.  Maybe it would just be easier to realize Breakthrough is NOW and just be okay with that and let go of the maze-crawling creep into freedom.  It is ALL-ENCOMPASSING, ALL FOR ME, ALL FOR NOW.  I'll take it.