Recently, I have been thinking about days of adversity. While thinking on this subject, God reminded me of a word I once read by Johnny Enlow that I feel is relevant today. As I read it, my spirit leapt, and I knew it was what God was speaking.
“We are in a huge, huge breakthrough season. Great Promised Land is available. Breakthrough does not mean challenges disappear and that there is no more opposition. Forget Breakthrough (as) meaning things are unopposed.
Rather it is the realization that the enemy/opposition has been softened and is in a very beatable posture if you will rise up in faith, vision and courage- like 85-year-old Caleb did in Joshua 14:12, when he demanded he be given the land of the sons of Anak (giants). His breakthrough consisted not in avoiding a conflict, but in volunteering for a ground-taking battle- that he then easily won.
Breakthrough is the name of your courage.”
After praying into this, the Lord brought a scripture to mind. It is found in Proverbs 24:10 which says, If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.
He then reminded me of something Kelita had said to me this week. Each time a challenge would come for either of us, her response to me was…keep moving, just keep moving forward.
All night long those words from Kelita, the prophetic word from Johnny Enlow and the scripture rolled over and over in my mind and in my spirit. I knew they were connected. Therefore, I read and re-read and meditated on each of them.
The following days I began to study the words in the scripture, one at a time. Let me share with you what I found.
If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.
Faint means to let drop, slack off, abandon, let up or be quiet.
Day means temporary and hot.
Adversity means a narrow, tight place, a place of darkness or a place of being harassed.
Strength means human strength and the power of God within you.
I sat at my desk, pondering each of these words, not fully understanding. I knew God was asking me, “Do you know what this scripture means?” And I thought I did. I thought it meant, if you give up when things get hard, it is because you have no strength.
The word strength just didn’t feel right, and I knew I had to dig deeper to find my answer. Therefore, I called a minister friend who digs in the Word of God more than anyone else I know. I shared my thoughts with him and asked, “Do you have any more Insights into this scripture?”
He was kind enough to stop what he was doing and conducted a word search utilizing research software which was far beyond what I had access to. He began to share with me all that he had found. Suddenly, the dots connected for me, and I knew what God was saying! It was about the word strength.
You see, as we dug a little deeper, I found the word strength means to be distressed, tied up, bound up, with no freedom or liberty.
Now, let’s put those definitions together so we can look at what God is saying.
“If we back off, stop moving forward, stop speaking the Word, or let up, in the day of adversity, the day of a narrow, tight place, a dark place, when the enemy comes in to harass and discourage us, then the enemy has a right to come in and bind us up. If we let up, he will come in and we will be bound up, not only in our physical strength, but also the strength of God that is at work in us.”
Should that happen, we will miss our breakthrough as we will be unable to move forward!
In the day of adversity, in the temporary, narrow place, where we are being harassed by the enemy …WE CANNOT STOP…WE CANNOT LET UP…WE CANNOT STOP DECLARING THE WORD, WE CANNOT STOP
WORSHIPPING GOD. For it is in that place, that the enemy is watching and waiting for an opening to allow him to come in and stop our breakthrough.
The Bible says in Ephesians 4; Give no place to the devil.
It is in this narrow place that it is more important than ever to refuse to give place to the enemy.
It is imperative that we do not stop! If we will continue moving forward in the strength of the Lord, God has promised that we will have our breakthrough.
The key is that we DO NOT stop.
My friend, today, if you find yourself in a day of adversity, keep moving. Don’t allow anything to stop you from pressing in and moving forward. Determine in your heart to be like Caleb and recognize that while you may be in a battle, God has empowered you to move through it and past it for it is actually a time of weakened resistance from the enemy. If you will move ahead during the adversity, you CAN and WILL take the land.
Remember, the day of adversity is a temporary place. You can walk right through it and see your breakthrough if you refuse to quit in the middle.
Let me encourage you today, this is not the time to quit or even slack off. It is the time to press in further and with more determination than ever and take your ground. God’s strength is in you and nothing, NOTHING can stand against that.
There is only one way you can lose and that is if you quit.
Declare with me today:
In the day of adversity, my strength is in You, God.
In the day of adversity, I will remember that this too shall pass.
I will stand firm and declare my heart remains steadfast.
In the day of adversity, I will remain immovable.
I will continue to declare God’s Word regardless of what I see, hear, or feel.
I will move forward based on the Word of God alone.
In the day of adversity, WE SHALL SEE VICTORY!
