You speak of a day of breakthrough, of obstacles giving way, and of open doors. Yet when God questioned Job, He asked, "Have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?" Job could give no answer, for no man can pry within those gates or command the path his own life will take. How much less can we dictate the hour when favor shall fall upon our outward estate? The power to save, to provide, and to ordain does not lie in the creature, it lies wholly in Jesus Himself.
This is the very point your soul must grasp: the miracle of divine provision is not determined by the strength of your plea but by the will of Him who works all things. When Christ wrought miracles on the Sabbath or opened the eyes of the man born blind, the blessing did not come because the sufferer had formulated a precise prayer, but because the Great Miracle Worker spoke the word. Are you so fixed upon the gift that you would miss the Giver? The truest breakthrough any child of Adam can know is not a key to some earthly door, but a broken heart abhorring itself and repenting in dust and ashes before the Lord.
Consider Job. In all his losses he sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. He did not pen an exact formula to summon prosperity; instead, when the Lord revealed but the skirts of His robe, Job cried out, “I abhor myself.” If the Lord withholds what you seek, will you still trust? Will you receive the stroke as readily as the blessing? Beware of speaking beyond your proper knowledge, demanding that the Almighty arrange His providence according to your calendar. The command is to open your hand wide to your needy brother; how much more shall your heavenly Father deal with you according to His generous nature? Yet His generosity often chooses the furnace to refine, and the empty purse to teach the fullness of Christ.
You ask for success and the work of your hands to be blessed, a right petition if it be submitted to the Divine will. But know this: the first work of God’s Spirit in you is to make you feel your unworthiness to be permitted to ask. Till Jesus sins, till He is powerless with God, till He ceases to be Divine, the soul that trusts Him is secure; but its security is in His person, not in the swiftness of temporal deliverance. Perhaps the gracious answer to this prayer will be so to fill your heart with perfect peace that you can say with Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Perhaps the open door He sets before you will be the one that leads you to lean more heavily upon the arm of the Beloved, and to find in the Savior such a sweet savor that all else becomes but dung and loss. The Divine command remains: destroy the sins, thrust out the enemies of unbelief and murmuring, and follow where His shield goes before.
Lay your need before the Lord, yes, but let your chief desire be for the Miracle Worker Himself. He can thrust out the enemy before you, and He can also grant you patience to wait at the doors of the shadow of death until His time has fully come. Go now, and let your faith rest not on a scheduled breakthrough, but on the certainty that He who did not spare His own Son will freely give you all that is necessary for life and godliness, in the exact measure and at the precise hour that shall most display His grace and secure your abiding joy in Him.
