Pray Until Breakthrough: Stand Firm When the Enemy Strikes Hard!

A perfect example of a season of challenge is when my husband had graduated from college and he got a job at a trucking company.

He worked there for a while, but the job really wasn’t what he wanted to do, obviously, so he waited and prayed. One day he got a call that a door had opened for him to move to Cleveland, Tennessee, and play music, which was his dream. He was so pumped at the possibility, so off to Cleveland he went. He got his last paycheck after he had already moved to Cleveland.

To his surprise, his former boss left a phone message accusing him of wasting the company’s time and falling asleep on the job. He was really upset and angry because Jamie had left his company to go and pursue his dream. The devil hates it when you get promoted. Isaac sowed in the land of famine, and in the same year he reaped a hundredfold. The Bible says that Isaac became so prosperous that his enemies hated him. Well, I guess this enemy was upset because Jamie had found favor.

So his last paycheck came through the mail straight to the apartment where he lived. Well, instead of taking the much-needed check and going to cash it, Jamie turned right around and sent it back with a “return to sender” on it. He told his former boss, “I regret the way you feel; however, everything you said about me is not true. I want you to know that I love where I am right now, and I know this is where God wants me to be. Since you accused me of doing wrong to your company, I am sowing this check back to you for you to put it back into your company.” He never heard back from this man or the company, but he had a resolve and a peace of mind that the enemy couldn’t take from him.

Sometimes you have to sow a seed into your season of adversity to announce to God and all of hell how thankful you are for the past season. The enemy thought he had him, but when Jamie sowed into his destiny and purpose, it defeated the enemy’s lie. In that season he was able to purchase a car that he desperately needed. Sometimes you have to be determined that hell will not get the last word about what God has promised to you. That check was $120 but he was determined to sow into his season of adversity.

You may need to heed this word and start to sow into your season of misery, adversity, and challenge and start enjoying the provision of the promise. Sometimes the key to an open door is sowing into the last season where you thought you were being rejected and defeated.

Here’s the reality of it. To sow into what you call misery or adversity is actually sowing into what God used to make a difference in your life. The last door was not necessarily the devil, but an opportunity to sow into your history. The last door is just as much God’s will as the door that’s about to open up to you. So when you honor God with what He did in the last season, it gives Him an opportunity to catapult you to your next.

When I first started itinerant ministry, I used to take the tithe of the honorarium that was given to me from any church—no matter what it was, large or small—and send it back to that church with a thank you to the pastor. I would take the opportunity to say, “I want to thank you for allowing me to be in your church this weekend and minister to your congregation, and I want to tithe back into what you are doing in that city.” What I am living in right now is the result of the gifts and giving that we gave because we were believing for open doors. Our prayer was, “Lord, if You will just open doors for us, we will go wherever You take us. It doesn’t matter the size; I want to be used by You.”

So, the closing of a door or a season is not negative; it is the ending of one season and the beginning of a new one. If you honored God in your last season, He can trust you with the next. He didn’t forget our $20 off the $200 honorarium. Oh, I know it wasn’t much, but today we are living out the blessings of those seeds in more ways than one.

I remember there were times when pastors would call my husband and say, “Hey listen, Brother Tuttle, I just got a check today from you and your wife, can you tell me what this is for?”

Jamie would then explain, “Well sir, we just typically give a tithe back into the church and the pastors who blessed us. I hope you will receive it as a seed to bless your church back.” God doesn’t miss things like that; He notices those small things. Jesus took notice of the widow woman, even though what she gave was less than a penny. He explained to His disciples, “this poor widow hath cast in more than they all” (Luke 21:3).

I remember traveling with the recruitment group from the university where I met my husband. As soon as we got back into town, the students scurried off to class, but because I had already graduated, I would stay behind to get the bus cleaned and ready for the next trip. I would scrub the toilet, vacuum the floors, and take all the sheets off the bunks and take them to my house and get them laundered and then put back in place. Little did I know that because I was faithful over someone else’s bus, to keep it clean and nice, sometime later God gave us our own bus.

Sometimes the in-between will come up on you and be disguised and you never know what God has planned, but He is checking your integrity meter to see if you will be faithful over the little so that He can bless you with the big. In the season of pray until, you must respect the in-between. You must respect the now season, because it is all a part of the formula of the Kingdom of God, and it will catapult you to the next.

What’s the formula? Seeking. Praying. Believing. Dedication. Time. Faithfulness. Godly character. Godly integrity. You will come to know that God is the God who changes the times and seasons to fulfill His promise. He made the sun stand still; He parted the Red Sea; He turned the water into wine; He raised Lazarus, and much more, so He will surely come to your aid and rescue.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, seasons of adversity are inevitable in this life. Knowing that You are in control of these adversities brings great comfort to my heart. I believe I am walking into new seasons of open doors, and I ask that You give me the strength and the stamina to continually seek Your face and know that You are good! Amen.

Decree

I decree that my mind is set and made up, and I will not be moved when adversity hits me hard. My help is from the Lord, and I will commit to trust in Him all the days of my life!