Break Out!: 5 Keys to Go Beyond Your Barriers and Live an Extraordinary Life (6 page)

Our friends Jerry and Jana Lackey attended Lakewood for many years and then they moved to Botswana, Africa, to do mission work. They live far out in a rural area where antelope and other wild creatures still roam. There they take care of the orphans, feed the poor, teach people, and do amazing work.

God’s favor has been on their lives, but their big dream was to build a major youth center. Seventy percent of the population in Botswana is under the age of twenty-five. This youth center would be a place where the young people could come and grow and learn and make friends. But it was estimated to cost $5 million. That’s a lot even here, but over there where the annual income is less than $1,000, that was unheard of. Jerry and Jana
have raised substantial funds over the years, but nothing even close to this magnitude.

Then one day a German businessman was visiting Botswana with his wife, and they fell in love with the country. They decided they wanted to do something to help. They Googled the phrase “Botswana orphanages,” and the Lackey’s organization came up. It’s called Love Botswana Outreach. The German businessman sent them a donation for $20,000. He said, “I want to do more.” A few weeks went by. He sent them a $300,000 donation!

The Lackeys were so thrilled. Then their benefactor said, “I want to come see you.”

That man and his wife came to Botswana, and they stayed at an exclusive safari resort about fifteen miles from the Lackey’s mission complex. Jerry drove to pick him up one morning. The man who owned the resort said to Jerry, “Hey, the resort is for sale. Would you like to buy it?”

He thought Jerry was a wealthy businessman. Jerry kind of laughed and said, “I’m a missionary living down the road. I don’t have that kind of money, but thank you.”

The German businessman overheard the conversation. He asked Jerry to find out more about it. Jerry thought he wanted to buy it for himself, but that German man bought this big, exclusive, beautiful resort and gave it to Jerry and Jana for their outreaches. They were overwhelmed, and rightfully so!

The German man came to see their mission complex, and he noticed the plans they had drawn for a big youth center. This was the greatest thing that Jana and Jerry had ever dreamed to do, something that they prayed and believed that somehow they could accomplish in their lifetimes. The German asked them how much the youth center would cost.

“Five million dollars,” they said.

“I’ll write you a check,” he replied.

On April 4, 2013, our friends dedicated that brand new youth center, totally paid for by their German benefactor.

What was that? God taking them further faster. They’re young people in their forties. Before their German friend came around, Jerry and Jana thought they would be praying, believing, raising funds their entire lives,
but they came into this shift. God brought one man across their paths, a divine connection.

You don’t need everyone to help you. You just need one person God ordained, and you will accomplish in a split second what could have taken you your whole lifetime. You may say: “Well, Joel. I don’t know if this will happen for me. I never get any good breaks.”

It will not happen with that attitude. You cannot harbor thoughts of defeat and lack all day and expect to have abundance. You can’t talk mediocrity and expect to have victory. You are prophesying your future. If you want to see this shift occur in your own life you’ve must get in agreement and say, “Yes, God. This is for me. I believe You have lined up the right people. I know they’re already in my future. I want to thank You that I will accomplish my dreams sooner than I think.”

In the natural it may not look like it, but remember, we serve a supernatural God. He is about to release floods of His favor, floods of healing, floods of good breaks. Take the limits off God. Don’t think of all the reasons your plans will not work. God wouldn’t have given you the dream unless He already had a way to bring it to pass.

If you will stay in faith, like the Lackeys, it will not only happen sooner than you think, it will be bigger than you imagine. That’s the way our God is. He likes to do exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond.

I read that the Chinese bamboo plant barely grows aboveground for its first four years. You hardly see anything happening. Even though you water it, fertilize it, make sure it’s getting sunlight; it looks like you’re wasting your time. But what you can’t see is that under the ground it’s developing a massive root system. The roots are spreading out in every possible direction. In the fifth year, once the roots are properly established, the plant will take off and shoot up to as high as eighty feet in the air—from zero to eighty feet, all in one year.

Many of you, like Jerry and Jana, have been faithful. You’ve given. You’ve served. You’ve helped others. You’ve sown a lot of seeds but you haven’t seen a lot of progress. Yes, God has been good to you. You’re grateful, but nothing really out of the ordinary has occurred. So far, you’ve lived the equivalent of your four years of developing roots. You were proving to God that you would be faithful. You were proving you would do
the right thing when it was hard. Now you need to prepare. God is saying, “You’re coming into your fifth year. You will see explosive growth that will take you to levels beyond your income, beyond your training, beyond your experience.”

In this fifth year, good breaks will find you. The right people will search you out. Opportunity will come knocking on your door. The fifth year is harvest time. It’s favor time. You will reap from all the seeds you’ve sown down through the years. Nothing you’ve ever given has gone unnoticed. Every sacrifice you’ve made, every time you stopped to help someone, God sees that.

The Scripture talks about how God will reward us in this life, not just in the Sweet By and By. Because you’ve been faithful, there is a harvest stored up. As with the Lackeys, God is about to release everything that belongs to you. It will happen sooner than you think. It will be bigger than you imagined. God will bring out gifts and talents you didn’t even know you had. He will open up new doors of opportunity. This fifth year is when God will shoot you up higher than you ever even dreamed.

I have a good friend who had been caught in a difficult legal situation for at least a year. It had been very heavy on her heart. She was told that it could take ten years to resolve. Her opponents could drag it out just to make her life miserable. At one time she was a very upbeat, fun person to be around, but after months and months of waiting and setbacks and pressure, it was like she was a different person: no joy, no peace, no victory, very solemn, very serious. It looked like there could be years and years of this stress and frustration. But a week ago as I write this, she received the good news that the case was totally resolved in her favor. Everything was cleared up.

She said, “Joel, I can’t even tell you what a load is being lifted off of me.”

What happened? She came into her fifth year. What could have taken ten years, even twenty years, God did in less than a year. Just like with her, because you’ve been faithful, problems you’ve struggled with for years will suddenly resolve. God will cause things to fall into place. The right people will show up.

You will soon see acceleration. Let me declare it. It will not take a lifetime to accomplish your dreams. It will happen in a fraction of the time.
Get up every day and say “Father, thank You for taking me further faster. Thank You for turning my water into wine.” If you do that, I believe and declare just like Jerry and Jana, divine connections are coming your way. Like us, with the Lakewood Church building, what should have taken you sixty years will be accelerated to a few years. Because you honor God, He will take you further faster.

I
was driving through the mountains not long ago, and on one side there was a huge wall of rock where the road had been cut into the mountainside. The builders had used dynamite to blast away the rock; otherwise, the stone would have been there probably forever.

We all have things in our lives that seem permanent. Maybe it looks like you will never get out of debt, or like you will stay at the same earning level the rest of your life. But just as the builders used dynamite to blast away the rock so they could create that mountain road, God has explosive blessings that will remove obstacles, which may look permanent now.

One touch of God’s favor can blast you out of debt. One good break can blast you to a new level. God has a way of removing what looks permanent by showing us an explosion of His goodness. A friend of mine wanted to go to a certain college but he needed a scholarship. He had applied months before, and although his grades were good enough, the college informed him there were no more scholarships available. He couldn’t afford a major college, so he enrolled in a junior college.

At that point, it looked like his dream of going to his favorite college was over. It looked permanent. He was told there were no available scholarships at the school he really wanted to attend. He didn’t have the funds.

All the facts said it was not going to happen for him. But four weeks before school was to start, his favorite college called back and said a scholarship had opened up. Instead of offering him the two-year partial scholarship
he had applied for earlier, they offered him a four-year full ride. Now when he gets out of school, instead of graduating and owing thousands of dollars, he’ll be totally debt free. That is an explosive blessing.

You may think your current situation is permanent. You’ve been there a long time, and you can’t see how you could ever move up. All the facts are telling you it’s impossible that things will improve, but God has ways to increase you that you’ve never dreamed of. He’s saying today: “You need to get ready. I have explosive blessings coming your way. Where you are is not permanent. I will take you higher. I will increase you beyond your normal income. I will bless you beyond your salary. I will suddenly change things for the better in your life.”

One definition of the word
explosion
is “a sudden, widespread increase.” That’s what God will do for you. Suddenly, you’re not expecting anything. It’s out of the ordinary. It’s not small. It’s not mediocre. It’s a widespread increase. It’s so amazing you’ll know it’s the hand of God.

A gentleman stopped by Lakewood Church recently and brought a very large donation to the ministry. It was his tithe. He said he’d received an inheritance from a relative he’d never met. He didn’t even know they were related, but this man left him a gift that thrust his family to a whole new level financially. He not only paid off his own home loan but also paid off the mortgages held by some other people.

You may feel that in the natural you could never accomplish your dreams. You don’t have the connections, the resources, or the education, but God is saying: “You have not seen My explosive blessings. You haven’t seen the surpassing greatness of My favor. I have blessings that will catapult you years ahead. I have increase beyond your calculations.”

I’ve learned God doesn’t always take us ahead in normal increments. There are times where God takes us little by little. We have to be faithful day in and day out, but when you hit an explosive blessing instead of moving up from seven to eight to nine you’ll go from seven to eight to thirty-three, to thirty-four. That’s widespread increase.

You may say, “Joel, if the economy was better, I might believe this. If business wasn’t so slow I might get my hopes up, but this is not the time to talk about increase. This is not the time to talk about paying things off. I’m just hoping to survive. I’m just hoping to not go under.”

The Scripture says God will make rivers in the desert. He’ll make streams in the barren places. It may be dry and barren. The economy may be down. Business may be slow. The good news is the economy is not our source. God is our source. And God is not having a down year.

The economy in Heaven is doing just fine. As long as we stay connected to the vine, putting our trust in Him, then you and I are connected to a supply line that will never run dry. Our attitude should be: “God, I may not see how it could happen, but I know you have explosive blessings coming my way. I’m expecting a sudden, widespread increase. I’m expecting to rise to a new level. I’m expecting to pay off my house. I’m expecting to be a bigger blessing to others. I’m expecting to set a new standard for my family.”

Release your faith for explosive blessings. Blessings beyond your normal income. Blessings beyond your salary.

I heard about a married couple who were buying a home in another state and were looking at this very prestigious neighborhood. They found a house they really liked. But every time they tried to move forward, they just didn’t feel good about it. After several months, they found a larger piece of property right on the outskirts of that subdivision.

In the natural, being in the neighborhood would have been a better investment. The property values were higher. Even though they could have afforded the lot in the prestigious neighborhood, they didn’t feel at peace with doing that. Instead, they purchased the other property outside the neighborhood.

About six months after the couple moved in, two men showed up at their door. They were geologists working for an oil company.

“We’ve been studying this area for several years, and we’ve discovered there is a massive amount of oil under this whole subdivision,” the geologists said. “But the property over there is too densely populated. There’s nowhere we can drill. If you’ll let us lease part of your property we will not only give you the commission from your property, but also we will give you a portion of the commissions from all the homes in the subdivision next door.”

There were 1,200 homes in that neighborhood. So instead of getting a commission for one home if they would have bought in the subdivision, they were getting a commission off 1,200 homes.

God knows where the good deals are!

In the Scripture, God says, “I will give you hidden riches found in secret places.” That property just outside the subdivision was a hidden treasure. God knows where all the oil, the minerals, the gold, and the silver are buried. He put them there. When Jesus needed money to pay His taxes, He sent Peter to the lake, and the first fish Peter caught had enough money in its mouth for both Jesus’ and Peter’s taxes.