“By my God I can leap over a wall.” 2 Samuel 22:30 NKJV
“There may well be times when you are your own most formidable obstacle.”
My thoughts and comments today are about “barriers to overcome.”
Progress can be difficult sometimes. Hard work is essential for success, but even hard work might not work if the obstacle in your path is obstinate. Life rarely offers a path free and clear of hurdles and hindrances. Barriers are a common experience for us all. A barrier can be physical, emotional, mental, relational, or spiritual. They come in all shapes, sizes, and origins; what you learn to do when facing those distinguishes between progress or being stuck where you are.
A barrier is defined as something that “obstructs or impedes.” That could be a person – sometimes yourself – as well as a circumstance, whatever stands between you and what you need to do, or where you need to go, or who you want to become. Is there anything standing in your way today? There may well be times when you are your own most formidable obstacle. Can you think of ways or times you “get in your own way?” Are there personality traits, temperament, or wrong habits that could limit your progress? Blaming others will not change that.
This list of things that hinder you from doing and being your best, though long, are far from exhaustive: unforgiveness, old wounds, recurring mistakes, grudges, wrong priorities, fear of failing, lack of focus, and disappointments. There will always come a time when you just have “to get over it” to move forward. When that time comes, no one can do that for you.
Joseph was hated by his brothers, betrayed and sold as a slave in Egypt, falsely accused by his master’s wife, wrongly imprisoned and there forgotten by a man he helped. Eventually, he was elevated to the right hand of Egypt’s mighty Pharaoh. Joseph had barriers to overcome. Listen to his own testimony. Read Genesis 41:50-52 NKJV. “To Joseph were born two sons . . Joseph named the first Manasseh, ‘For God has made me forget all my toil’ . . and the name of the second was, Ephraim, ‘For God caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.’” When Joseph got over his mistreatment and disappointments, he became fruitful. Do you call barriers problems or opportunities?
Here is the good news; in God, you have the power to overcome! See Romans 8:35-39 NIV. David was overlooked as unlikely by his father, Jesse; scolded for mischief by his brother, Eliab; disbelieved as incapable by his King, Saul; his youth and size ridiculed as insignificant by a raging warrior, Goliath; and later hunted by King Saul to be killed. David had barriers to overcome. Later, David wrote this Psalm as a song of God’s victory, “For by You, I can run against a troop; by my God, I can leap over a wall.” Psalm 18:29/2 Samuel 22:30 NKJV. God empowers you for what you could not do on your own!
You will have barriers to overcome. Sometimes you don’t know what you can do until you have to do it! And sometimes you won’t know what God can do until you can’t. “For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need.” Philippians 4:13 NLT. What are you struggling to forget and forgive? What seems a problem you never overcome? Those will remain a barrier to God’s blessings. See that wall in front of you? Remind yourself, “By my God, I can get over it!” And then, get over it!
My prayer for you today is: let nothing stand between you and God’s best for you.