BREAKING CYCLES

Some years ago, the Lord showed me a vision… I was walking down a path and passed a tree stump. I had a vague feeling that I had been there before, but I couldn’t remember it, so I shrugged my shoulders and continued on down the path. As I passed others on the same path, I recognized their faces as we were all traveling the same journey. I came to the tree stump again and stared at it… trying to remember where I had seen it before. I still couldn’t remember so I shrugged my shoulders and continued back down the path once again. A third time, I came back to the tree stump and said, “Now I know I’ve been here before.” At that precise moment I looked up to see the other people that had been on the path with me, going on up to higher ground. I shrugged my shoulders and continued back down the path once again.

The reason the Lord sent me that vision is because I was not learning the lessons He was trying to teach me. The tree stump represents the end of a trial, that I kept coming to and not getting the understanding that the trial should’ve taught me. So as others leveled up through that same trial, I would go back through it again, and again.

A cycle is a series of "events" or actions that repeat themselves again and again in the same manner. When we come up against these "events" the enemy knows that we will react a certain way because that's how we always respond, but that may not be God’s best way of handling it. The enemy can keep us cycling through the same defeating events, if we're not careful. As I kept repeating trials, God was trying to get me to see it His way, but I was left back over and over, while others were passing the test and graduating.

The Lord said to me, "I am the great artist of your soul. You are My workmanship. As the clay is in a potter’s hand, so are you in My hands. Please let Me form your vessel." I was just focused on getting to the end of the trial, I did not see that God was changing me in it.

Psalm 25:4 (NKJV) Show me Your ways, O LORD; teach me Your paths.

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, that whoever drinks of His life giving water would never thirst again, and it will be within them as a fountain springing up into everlasting life. Breaking cycles takes hard work, but it can be life changing and life giving for the individual who conquers it.

Revelation 3:21 (NKJV) To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.

Listen to this song called Cycles by Jonathan McReynolds.

To God be the glory.

Dee Richardson, Voice of the Dove