A Lifestyle Decision

Don’t let the process of transformation and breakthrough discourage you. We often become impatient for change. When I was engaged to my wife, people would tell me, “Oh, Matt, after you get married, you’re going to gain ten pounds right away.” I would respond, “No, I rebuke that in Jesus’s name. I will not gain ten pounds.” But somehow, even before the honeymoon was over, I had gained ten pounds! I don’t know how it happened, but I became determined to lose that weight. I decided, “I’m basically going to eat lettuce for two weeks.” And I did. I sacrificed. I deprived myself of tastier (and much more caloric) food. After two weeks, I jumped on the scale expecting the ten pounds to be gone. But, guess what? I weighed exactly the same!

I was so discouraged and mad that I immediately got in my car, drove to the grocery store, and bought two huge tubs of ice cream. My thinking was, “Eating lettuce is not making me lose weight, so I’m going to go have myself an ice cream party!” And I had ice cream every single day for the next week. When I weighed myself on the scale again, I had gained two pounds. So I prayed, “God, there’s just something unfair about this.”

I had become discouraged because I didn’t see the change occur as fast as I wanted it to. But what I’ve learned in both physical and spiritual matters is that just because you do something right for one day or even two weeks, it doesn’t automatically undo all the other days previous to that when you were losing ground by false mindsets or poor habits. So, suppose one day we decide, “Okay, today, I’m going to pray and seek God,” and we spend half an hour seeking Him. We think that surely everything will be fixed after this half hour of prayer. But then we find we’re still dealing with various issues in our lives.

Again, the process of growing over our wall is not just a one-day decision. It’s a lifestyle decision. There will be areas of your life that will change step-by-step until God ushers you into the place He’s designed for you to be. When you consistently make the right choices and engage in good practices, you sow seeds that will produce a new harvest in your life.

As you continue to grow in this process, the wall you face won’t look as high. In fact, the prophetic picture of Joseph leads to the idea that his branches keep growing and growing and growing over the wall until, one day, he stops and turns around and says, “Oh, yeah, I forgot the walls were back there because now I’m over here!”

You will find yourself in the same situation. That wall didn’t change, that person didn’t change, that spiritual warfare didn’t change, but now you’re over here, living in freedom. You have grown over the wall that once surrounded your life. You’ve grown over the things you had thought were so powerfully hindering you. You are an abundantly fruitful tree!