The Sunday Mail
Apostle M Phiri
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, a French playwright and actor also known as Molière, once said: “The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it”
It was a greater obstacle, Goliath’s size and stature, which ushered David into a new dispensation of power and glory. A study of David’s life reveals how he continually moved from strength to strength, victory to victory, glory to glory, however, in between the mountaintops of victory were strips and hardships.
It is then no surprise that in Psalm 23: 4 he wrote, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” (King James Version)
In between the victories there are struggles and in between the breakthroughs there are battles to be won.
You are never closer to your glory than when you are facing a big obstacle that threatens to push you further away than ever before from God.
The reason why great challenges show up is because you are just about to grasp that which God really promised or predetermined for your life.
That is why before their final escape from hold of the Egyptians, the children of Israel encountered the Red Sea and just before their entry into the Promised Land the mighty River Jordan was there to welcome them.
Most of the time the devil knows how close we are to the border of a new land, way before we even realise it ourselves. This is where we need to realise that before every new breakthrough, there is a harder battle than needs to be fought and a new devil to be overcome.
Psalm 30:5 reads, “ . . . weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning”. (KJV)
It is the job of the enemy of our souls to get us to turn back when the struggle heats up. It is the mission of the enemy to cause us to give up during the “weeping of the night” so we’ll never experience the “joy of the morning”.
It is his desire to get us to surrender during the battle so that we’ll never experience the sweetness of breakthrough. Chuck Yeager was the first man to break the sound barrier in an aircraft, but before him planes like the British Meteor jets, which approached the speed of sound (760mph at sea level, 660mph at 40 000 feet), had encountered severe buffeting of the controls.
At that time, no one knew for sure whether an airplane could exceed Mach 1, the speed of sound, but some pilots and engineers dared to find out and most importantly never gave up.
Before them the Army had developed a small, bullet-shaped aircraft, the Bell X-1, to challenge the sound barrier.
A civilian pilot, Slick Goodlin, had taken the Bell X-1 to 0,7 Mach, when Yeager started to fly it. He pushed the small plane up to 0,8, 0,85, and then to 0,9 Mach, but backed off when the plane began to shake uncontrollably.
As he approached Mach 1, that plane began to shake and rattle and be buffeted from side to side, so much so that he was not sure that he would not explode in mid-air.
But on this day Chuck said, “I refuse to turn back now! If I die, I die trying but I am not going to back down! I’ve been close before, but no matter what happens today, I am going for it!”
In the account of this momentous event recorded in the book “The Right Stuff” the author records: “The X-1 went through ‘the sonic wall’ without so much as a bump. As the speed topped out at Mach 1,05, Yeager had the sensation of shooting straight through the top of the sky.
“The sky turned a deep purple and all at once the stars and the moon came out — the sun shone at the same time . . . He was simply looking out into space . . . He was master of the sky. His was a king.”
So remember, the Greater the Challenge, The More Glorious the Victory!
Even Jesus Christ didn’t shy away from the challenge of death; He conquered it on His way to permanent victory for the world over sin.
Apostle M Phiri is the founder of Rainbow Ministries, a Christ-centred spiritual movement whose primary focus is to fulfil the “Great Commission” of reaching out to the lost and the unchurched in nations.
The Lord has enabled the ministry over the past two and half years to establish 11 flourishing churches in Zimbabwe, 32 churches in Malawi and a growing ministry in Johannesburg South Africa.
More info: www.rainbowministriesglobal.org. Email: [email protected]
