A Wrestle for Breakthrough

“Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’” - Genesis 32:26 NLT

When God allows a crisis in your life, He doesn’t solve it immediately. Look at the life of Jacob. When he and God had their wrestling match in Genesis 32, God could have overpowered Jacob and ended things instantly…but instead, they wrestled until dawn. Why did God let the struggle continue?

You might be asking God the same question about your life. God lets your struggle continue because He wants to see how serious you are about seeking Him. If God answered every prayer immediately, you’d begin to think He was a vending machine: Put in a prayer and pull out whatever you need.

For example, if God instantly bailed you out of a financial crisis caused by your own poor choices, then tomorrow you might overspend again. You wouldn’t learn discipline or how to manage your money. God will help you get out of debt, but He wants to build your character in the process.

If you’re in a crisis right now, don’t give up! Don’t run from it. Your problems didn’t show up overnight. You may have some ingrained patterns, poor responses, and unhealthy habits that have built up over the years. God won’t remove them all at once. But there is hope: God is with you and He is for you. When you ask God for help and trust Him to provide, you will experience the Peace of His Wisdom and blessing.

Prayer Starts with Listening

“During Darius’ first year as king, I, Daniel, was reading the Scriptures. I saw that the LORD told Jeremiah that Jerusalem would be empty ruins for seventy years." - Daniel 9:2 NCV

Prayer doesn’t start with talking. It starts with listening.

For your prayers to be effective, first listen to God by reading His Word, the Bible. You need to let God talk to you so you know how to pray, what to pray, where to pray, and when to pray.

Daniel prayed effectively because he knew God’s Word. He had survived three different administrations in captivity and even got promoted within them. He was 85 years old and knew God had promised to bring the Israelites home after 70 years in Babylon. But he also knew that the Israelites had not turned back to God. Seventy years later, they were still as messed up as they ever were.

“During Darius’ first year as king, I, Daniel, was reading the Scriptures. I saw that the LORD told Jeremiah that Jerusalem would be empty ruins for seventy years” (Daniel 9:2 NCV).

Because he studied Scripture, Daniel knew what God had promised and what was required of Israel. Because of that, he could make wise decisions.

You will never pray effectively until, like Daniel, you study the Scriptures and learn from God’s Word…every single day. The more you know the Bible, the more prayers you’re going to have answered. You’ve got to read from God’s Word every single day so you can learn and remember the promises that God has made to you.

Don’t go to bed without spending some time, however long it is, listening to God by reading the Bible and then talking to Him. Daniel did this three times a day for more than 70 years! It was a daily habit for him.

Do you think your life would be any different if you had a conversation with God three times a day for your whole life? It’s no wonder Daniel avoided problems, became wise, and kept getting promoted.

Developing a habit of daily Bible study and prayer will revolutionize your life. It will make you mentally, emotionally, and spiritually stronger. You will be more confident, less fearful, and less stressed. It will improve every single area of your life.

Make it a point today to start a healthy discipline of Bible study and prayer so that you can listen to God and talk to Him.

Plan Carefully, Not In Haste

“Plan carefully and you will have plenty; if you act too quickly, you will never have enough.” - Proverbs 21:5 (GNT)

Most everyone wants to be financially responsible. And if you’re a follower of Yeshua, you want to experience God’s blessing in your finances. One step in reaching those goals is to plan your spending…to develop the spiritual habit of budgeting.

A budget is simply planned spending. It’s telling your money where you want it to go rather than wondering where it went. The only way to meet your financial goals is, first, to determine how you want to use your money and then, to make a plan for it to happen that way.

Financial freedom does not come from making more money. It comes from spending less money. Financial freedom is not based on how much you make; it’s based on how you spend what you make. You can be financially free at almost any level of income.

If you don’t know how to manage money at your current level, you aren’t going to know how to manage more. No matter how much or how little income you have, you need to learn how to plan your spending.

Proverbs 21:5 says, “Plan carefully and you will have plenty; if you act too quickly, you will never have enough” (GNT). In many cultures today, “acting too quickly” equates to impulse buying… spontaneous, unplanned spending. Impulse buying has this attitude: You see it and you want it, so you get it.

How do you break the habit of impulse buying? You nip it in the budget! You set up a plan and tell your money where you want it to go. Then you simply shop less.

Study after study has shown that if you shop less, you spend less. If you’re in debt, for example, the last place you need to go to relax is the mall. If you don’t want to get stung, stay away from the bees!

These are not new, deep insights. But they are certainly hard to follow. It takes real discipline to change your spending habits and hard work to write out a budget and stick to it.

But on the days when it’s most difficult, remember that God is with you and He wants what is best for you. He wants to see your faithfulness in money management. And He will help you to take all the necessary steps to become a responsible steward of what He’s given you.