Break Barriers to Succeed
So we are taught growing up in school that every barrier in life is meant to be broken.
- Be the best student you can be
- Never give up on your dreams
- Fight for what you want
- Quitters never win
And the list witty quotes and battle cries created to motivate us goes on and on. But what you were told is not 100% true. Have you every hit a brick wall over and over again and seem to never breakthrough? Then when you finally take a step back, and go at it another way or even in a new direction, immediately find success.
A Barrier Can Protect You
Every barrier is NOT meant to be broken. Sometimes God uses barriers to protect us. In Acts 16: 6-10, Paul and his peeps wanted to do some good in the world their way, but God let them know He had plans of His own. God stepped in and made it clear He had another path for them. Just as God protected Paul and his crew God wants to do the same for you and me through barriers He puts in our paths to:
- Get your attention. God can put a barrier in front of you to get your attention when you are lost and all over the place and He wants you to draw near to Him. Sometimes He wants to remind us to lean on Him instead of just doing things our way.
- Block the wrong path. God can put a barrier in front of you when He wants you to take a different direction.
- Teach us a lesson. We live in a society of instant gratification. Sometimes God wants to delay our rewards until we have taken the necessary journey to truly appreciate them.
- Block out the wrong people. We were born in this world to love, and for some, without divine intervention from God we will never stop loving. You all know someone that was head over heels in love with the wrong person, and no matter how hard you tried to show them, they couldn’t see past the illusion built up in their minds. Well God sees this and on occasion will step in and use the least likely tool to reveal the truths about the ones we love or even remove them out of our lives to protect us.
Evaluate Your Barriers
Now as we have just learned that sometimes barriers are NOT meant to be broken because God wanted to protect us, we must also remember in some cases, some barriers are indeed distractions brought on by the enemy to stop you from finishing the race.
Have you ever wanted to give up or take a short cut to see what’s at the other end of the rainbow? We all have had those feelings and some of us have even pressed fast forward hoping to find out the final end game, myself included. But these distractions can have sever repercussions if we give in to them and take the easy route or give up.
Who said life was meant to be easy to decipher. Sometimes it feels like all we do is search and search for ways to crack the code inside our heads to determine what the true meaning of life and happiness really are. But that’s life.
Now I can’t tell you how to figure which barriers to push through or which to avoid, but I can let you know that both scenarios exist.
My Barriers
Everyday I feel like I face obstacles on my path good and bad. Some you can clearly see are meant to test you and your patience and some barriers are meant to steer your path into a direction you would have never seen otherwise. I have questioned myself, God, my friends and family on many challenges I perceived as barriers.
- Why can’t I get along with everyone I meet?
- Why can’t I be successful in the eyes of society and even myself?
- Why can’t I make someone love me or see the good in me?
- Why is this current situation or feeling seem to hard to overcome?
I had to learn to read and gauge the daily barriers I faced in life. Don’t take them at face value or rush to tackle them head on. I had to start evaluating every obstacle, set-back, heartache, dream-deferred or challenge I faced one at at time. First determine the source of the problem, decide my plan of action and above all else, talk to God to ensure I’m not breaking through a barrier set to protect me versus giving up too soon because the enemy wanted to trick me.
You too have the power to win, but you must learn to pick and choose the battles you need to fight.
