The God of Unchartered Territories

This post is based on the movie Breakthrough.

The movie is about a young boy who fell through the ice of a frozen lake whilst playing tag with friends. It’s about a journey of believing God for a breakthrough, in the midst of pain and unbearable situations. Situations which seem impossible, unchartered territories.

It made me think about my life and the situations that I have gone through.

There are some seasons which knock the faith out of you. For me, it was my battle with mental health. For most of my life, I was a relatively happy child, but in 2015, I started having elongated periods of despair. I didn’t understand what was going on with me or why, but I assumed it was just a seasonal thing until it became worse. I struggled to get out of bed, I struggled to think clearly, to go to school and I struggled to live. That’s when I started going to therapy. I then diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder and the war with myself began.

The fight for my mental health was a slippery slope and as time went by I got worse and worse. I was throat deep in depression. I was in chronic pain and I didn’t know how to explain it. It got so bad that I used to send out emails to pastors from churches all over the world for help. I used to fast and pray and beg for God to remove the depression from me so that I could serve him.

It was like I was living in a dark cloud and I couldn’t see past the grey. There were so many points where I was ready to give up on myself. I would pray for God to release my life because I was unable to fight for myself. By March 2016 I reached a dangerous level of unbelief. I was infuriated by God for not saving me when I needed saving the most. I stopped praying, going to church, trusting and believing.

I had no faith, no joy, no hope and I became numb. I was dead inside. I began to ruin my own life by making decisions that would provide me with temporary satisfaction because I felt completely alone. I felt like I could not trust God with my life anymore. I desperately needed to touch the hem of Jesus’s garment. I had no faith, only questions. It is the faith of the people around me that kept me floating and by Gods grace that I’m still here.

The point I’m trying to get to is that, sometimes we don't understand our situations but our responsibility is to trust and surrender ourselves to God. When we are broken and desperate, we start to see who God really is and why we need him so much. We surrender. That’s what happened to me. I reached the point of surrender is hard.

A lot of us travel on capped faith, as we jump from best to worst-case scenarios. We look at facts and feelings and limit God by this. Sometimes we forget that Jesus performed incredible miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit. We sometimes believe that just because it’s not Jesus himself that is here on earth doing the healing, it is not possible.

Speaking life into dead situations instead of mourning them prematurely is difficult. We need to know that there are some outcomes we can’t control and the only choice we have is to surrender and let God handle it, what can we lose?

This is not another “just have faith post”, it is a reminder that the impossible can happen here on earth, even when everyone around you doesn’t believe it, even when you can’t feel it or see it, even when darkness surrounds you.

You have a purpose, and you are loved.

“Yesterday is not ours to recover but tomorrow is ours to win or lose” - Breakthrough

#ByGraceThroughFaith