How to Praise Before Our Breakthrough The Refined Collective Podcast

Is your dream too big for you?
It better be, because that will force you to pray circles around it.  If you keep circling it in prayer, God will get bigger and bigger until you see your impossible prayer for what is really is: an easy answer for an almighty God.
-Mark Batterson
Last week in worship, I just sat down and started thanking God like I had never done so before for all the impossible things in my life. I praised Him like the breakthroughs had already come. I thanked God for my husband, our Godly marriage, my financial breakthrough, and restoration in my family.
If there was any person that needed a miracle; it was this woman…
Hannah in Samuel 1 was a woman who married to a man named Elkanah. At this time, a woman’s purpose was marriage and motherhood, particularly motherhood to boys. She felt such shame for not being successful in having kids. She was so depressed she would not eat. Elkanah was determined to fix her and reminded her that his love can be enough.
When Hannah went to the temple for the annual sacrifice, she was distressed and wept with her face on the floor. She was crying out for her breakthrough. The priest, Eli, comes to her and says she is crazy and drunk. She stands up for herself, stands up for her faith, and stands up for her breakthrough.
God softens Eli’s heart and he blesses peace over her. Her prayer isn’t answered, but her depression lifts in these moments. God answered her prayer, but it didn’t happen overnight. It came in due time. She had a son and named him Samuel. The biggest miracle was one child—Hannah ended her life with six.
Because God is ABLE
Daniel 3:17-18—If this be so our God whom we serve is Abel to deliver us from the burning fiery furance, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.  But if not, be it known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship that golden image that you have set up It reorients my affections on who God is
Isaiah 43:19—I make streams in the desert. When there is no way, God makes a way. God is bigger than my circumstances—statistics are nothing for Him. Nothing is impossible to Him. It keeps me dependent on him
We live in a culture that says I am the captain of my own ship.  And yes, I believe we have way more power and authority that so many people of faith think they have access to.  But I also believe that I need someone bigger than me, to come into my life and circumstances to restore. It allows me to stay connected to hope + gratitude
Romans 5:5 says hope does not put us to shame. What if we hoped and prayed and believed for miracles, breakthroughs, and the impossible like we had NO SHAME!? Trusting that even if/when God doesn’t answer our prayer how we want him to—that He works all things together for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28) and that even what the enemy meant for evil, God is going to use for good (Genesis 50:20). God gets the credit + glory 
My biggest dreams are small to God—He breathed life into creation. Ephesians 3:20 says now to Him who is able to do abundantly more than we could ask or imagine, according to his power at work within us, to him be the glory. What is that thing that feels too risky to hope for because you’ve been disappointed in the past? Do you have the audacity to praise before the breakthrough?
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