Delayed Miracle? Here’s How to Unleash God’s Power

I will give him the key to the house of David—the highest position in the royal court. When he opens doors, no one will be able to close them; when he closes doors, no one will be able to open them (Isaiah 22:22 NLT)

When you are contending for your until moment, you will find yourself in some in-between moments.

Notice in this scripture in Isaiah there are two doors that God is talking about here—an open door and a closed door. Obviously, there is an in-between of the two. Each door represents a season of a person’s life. You have a current season and then you have a coming season. So you have present times and you have approaching times.

We all get tired in our current season. The current season is a time of the same ole, same ole! There is nothing new happening, not even on the horizon as far as you can see, so you feel stuck, nothing moving forward and nothing moving backward—you’re just stuck! This is the time when we need the grace of patience and endurance, which no one likes. You will be the most tempted to quit when you are the closest to your calling, to your open doors, and to answered prayer. But here’s the thing—quitting only leaves you with the memory of unrewarded labor. If I am going to have a memory, I want it to be rewarding, not unrewarded.

Always remember the instruction given to us in Habakkuk 2:2-3:

Then the Lord said to me, “Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others. The vision is for a future time. It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed” (NLT).

There are times when we want the old to pass away, and we want the new right now. We don’t want to wait for the next season. However, God doesn’t operate like that. There are lessons to be learned in the hallway of mundane and misery. Most of those times we feel rejection or we feel as if God is not hearing us. We wonder if He is ignoring us. Yet in spite of all this, we still hold on to hope and expect that it will change.

In those in-between moments, I wanted this pray until over, done, and through with yesterday, but God’s overall plan was to bring glory out of this situation with Kaylee so there was no “immediately.” God wasn’t interested in our feelings or even the awkwardness of our daughter’s dilemma. Kaylee had horrific separation anxiety even while I was ministering on stage. It was to the point of her being on stage with me and sitting with me until I went up to minister, even in a two-hour service. There were times when she would follow me around the altar service, holding on to my dress just to be close. I truly believe her spirit wanted to be as close to the anointing as she could get because she was comfortable there, satisfied there, and safe there. I wanted it over, but God said, “No! I’m going to use this to rub it in the devil’s face as to how far I brought her, and I just need you to trust Me with your until prayer.” Now, the other door that Isaiah was talking about is the open door. It is, in essence, the season we want to see happen, and very quickly. At one time it was the closed door, but now it is the door that we want opened. Once we walk through that door and that season ends, we get weary and desire a new door.

For example, you are aspiring to move from an apartment to a three-bedroom home, because you need more space. In the beginning you were eager to move out of your parents’ house and get your own place. You moved into a beautiful, cool apartment that you could only have imagined five years ago. But now it has been another five or six years and you are married with maybe two kids, and it has gotten a little crowded. So all you think about is, “If I could only find a house and get out of this small apartment and have room for my children to play, and have a nice area for a kitchen, and a bigger bathroom, or maybe even more than one bathroom.” You forget what that first open door was like because it has become old. You’ve outgrown it, and it doesn’t suffice anymore.

Another example is when you were young all you wanted to do was to get your driver’s license, which literally meant getting your independence, and ultimately get a car. That was the quest of my two girls. They would say, “If only I could just get my license, oh, I would be so happy.” We knew exactly what that meant—they wanted to be able to drive themselves around independently of me and their father.

There was a rule in our house that when you acquired your driver’s license, you had to drive the gold Ford Ranger pickup truck the first year. Although it looked pretty decent, it still had some dingers on it, but it had a great radio, a CD player, and great air conditioning. But the most important thing was, it was like a tank. If anyone hit that thing, nothing and nobody was going anywhere. So the girls were happy to drive that pickup truck and hone their driving skills. Just before the year was up, they started talking about a car because the truck was getting a little old to them. So when they finally got a car, they were glad to be able to walk through that open door of getting rid of the “oldie goldie.”

When I first got to college I just wanted to minister, because singleness was who I felt I was at the time. Then all of a sudden, the singleness began to sour. I found myself more and more longing for a companion and a family. For many of you reading this book, singleness has soured. There are also people who believe they are not supposed to be married to their mate anymore. The devil is a liar because God wants to restore your marriage fully! Some of you feel you are supposed to own you own business. You are tired of the waiting, and you feel you are ready to move on and get out of the in-between, beyond the tweaking, and especially beyond the pruning.

Here’s what I know from experience—you can be moving out of it but still be in it. God is closing the door behind you while you are in the in-between. What is actually happening is that you can be exiting the closing door that ultimately will never open again, and that door will be your last and also your past at the same time. You will be entering into the in-between season, and at that point you are in the in-between. I have found you can’t steal second base until you take your feet off of first base. You need to step out and find out, and that will always require you to get out of your comfort zone and believe God for the next.

The in-between is a place where every person who breathes and lives will experience. Many times in life, it is a place of frustration, yet on the other hand fruit is growing. Remember, patience is a fruit of the Spirit. Although it may be a small fruit or the fruit is not ripe yet, something significant is happening. “What is happening significantly?” you may ask. You are growing in the in-between and producing thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold of fruit. It is a place of development and discovery, but it feels disappointing because it’s not what you thought it would be. It’s true when they say it may be better on the other side of the fence, but there are still weeds on the other side of the fence that will need to be dealt with. We find ourselves looking beyond our circumstances to see what may be “over there.” But the truth is, God is working on our behalf when it seems like He is doing absolutely nothing. As I stated earlier, “All things work together for the good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

Here’s the good news—everybody’s in-between is different; no one has the same in-between. How soon doors begin to open is based entirely on readiness, maturity, and understanding.

Pray Until

Jamie and I have found in our in-between seasons that our obedience level becomes intense. We have learned to sow more seed, and not just financially. We sow in tears, in worship, in fasting, and we sow relationally in prayer. What does that mean? It means that there is simple agreement between two parties believing and calling forth those things which are not as though they are. This season is also a place where there are no angels, no singers, dancers, or B3 organs playing in the background. You don’t necessarily hear the wind blowing in the mulberry trees, and there are not many epiphany moments in the in-between season. It is a simple trust in God being God in your life and Him bringing you to a place of abandonment and even an uncomfortable trust. Isaiah 46:8-10 says this:

Remember this, and show yourselves men; recall to mind, O you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (NKJV).

In that scripture alone, God describes Himself as declaring your ending from your beginning. He is calling your ending from a place that already exists and bringing or delivering it to you where you exist now. Jesus prayed this by saying, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10 NKJV). He was calling forth things that were foreordained in the heavens to be actualized in the now in our human experience. Job said you will decree a thing and it will be established (see Job 22:28).

What you decree is not current. Actually, what you decree is something you see, and then through prayer and fasting God brings it to you in the supernatural. This is God’s promise to you between the closed door and the open door, which is the position of being in-between. It is not rejection, though the enemy would have us think that God has rejected us or He has refused our requests or destroyed our dream. Satan will tell you that God has taken your ability to anticipate in faith and denied you and said, “No, that is not My will for your life.” The truth of the matter is, it is the process of God that gets us to the promise, and too often we don’t want to go through the process.

My husband describes growing up and going on small business trips with his dad to tune pianos at people’s homes and churches and concert halls. Oftentimes, they would see trains in some of the small towns they would go through. He recalls how his dad would pull up to a train track while a passing train was going by, and to keep boredom at a minimum he would challenge him and his brothers to try and count the cars as the train was passing them. You can imagine the turning of the little heads as they were trying to count the moving cars of a train. It is literally impossible, but it sure made up for having to pacify little ones.

When a train is passing, it feels like nothing is going on; you’re just sitting there and something else is going by you so fast, like time—hours, days, and life itself. You feel as if things are going by so fast and everybody else is getting blessed; everybody else is increasing; everybody else is getting married, getting a job, and getting a house; and everybody else’s dreams are coming true, and yet you are sitting at the train track counting cars.

But that is the in-between. It’s still a part of the train; it’s not the engine; it’s not the caboose, but it is what ties the two ends together. Those cars are just as important as the engine and the caboose. Likewise, your in-between moment ties your last season with your coming season. Sometimes, the in-between is tough and challenging to your faith, but like Isaac we sow in seasons of drought and rain.

A perfect example of a season of challenge is when my husband had graduated from college and he got a job at a trucking company. He worked there for a while, but the job really wasn’t what he wanted to do, obviously, so he waited and prayed. One day he got a call that a door had opened for him to move to Cleveland, Tennessee and play music, which was his dream. He was so pumped at the possibility, so off to Cleveland he went. He got his last paycheck after he had already moved to Cleveland.

To his surprise, his former boss left a phone message accusing him of wasting the company’s time and falling asleep on the job. He was really upset and angry because Jamie had left his company to go and pursue his dream. The devil hates it when you get promoted. As I mentioned earlier, Isaac sowed in the land of famine, and in the same year he reaped a hundredfold. The Bible says that Isaac became so prosperous that his enemies hated him. Well, I guess this enemy was upset because Jamie had found favor.

So his last paycheck came through the mail straight to the apartment where he lived. Well, instead of taking the much-needed check and going to cash it, Jamie turned right around and sent it back with a “return to sender” on it. He told his former boss, “I regret the way you feel; however, everything you said about me is not true. I want you to know that I love where I am right now and I know this is where God would have me be. Since you accused me of doing wrong to your company, I am sowing this check back to you for you to put it back into your company.” He never heard back from this man or the company, but he had a resolve and a peace of mind that the enemy couldn’t take from him.

Sometimes you have to sow a seed into your season of adversity to announce to God and all of hell how thankful you are for the past season. The enemy thought he had him, but when Jamie sowed into his destiny and purpose it defeated the enemy’s lie. In that season he was able to purchase a car that he desperately needed. Sometimes you have to be so determined that hell will not get the last word about what God has promised to you. That check was $120 but he was determined to sow into his season of adversity.

Some of you need to heed this word and start to sow into your season of misery, adversity, and challenge and start enjoying the provision of the promise. Sometimes the key to an open door is sowing into the last season where you thought you were being rejected and defeated.

Here’s the reality of it. To sow into what you call misery or adversity is actually sowing into what God used to make a difference in your life. The last door was not necessarily the devil, but an opportunity to sow into your history. The last door is just as much God’s will as the door that’s about to open up to you. So when you honor God with what He did in the last season, it gives Him an opportunity to catapult you to your next.

When I first started itinerant ministry, I used to take the tithe of the honorarium that was given to me from any church—no matter what it was, large or small—and send it back to that church with a thank you to the pastor. I would take the opportunity to

say, “I want to thank you for allowing me to be in your church this weekend and minister to your congregation, and I want to tithe back into what you are doing in that city.” What I am living in right now is the result of the gifts and giving that we gave because we were believing for open doors. Our prayer was, “Lord, if You will just open doors for us, we will go wherever You take us. It doesn’t matter the size; I want to be used by You.”

So, the closing of a door or a season is not negative; it is the ending of one season and the beginning of a new one. If you honored God in your last season, He can trust you with the next. He didn’t forget our $20 off the $200 honorarium. Oh, I know it wasn’t much, but today we are living out the blessings of those seeds in more ways than one.