Bill Johnson - How to Thrive As You Wait for Your Breakthrough
I love the fact that the Lord can speak any way He wants; obviously, He’s God. But He asked Zechariah, «What do you see?» He replied, «I see an almond branch.» Then God said, «I am watching over My word to perform it.» In the original language, the word for watching rhymes with almond branch, and Zechariah was supposed to grasp that it’s a riddle—a father, a son, a daughter on a journey to discover life that He is always discussing. What would happen if we actually heard what the Lord was saying?
Good morning, Bill! Good to see you. Glad you showed up. Me too. One day, a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So, they chose one scientist to tell Him they were done. The scientist approached God and said, «God, we’ve decided that we no longer need You. We’re at the point where we can clone people and perform many miraculous things, so why don’t You just go?» God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist finished speaking, God said, «Very well; how about this? Let’s have a man-making contest,» to which the scientist agreed. He said, «Okay, great.» But God added, «Now, we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.» The scientist responded, «Sure, no problem.» He bent down and grabbed a handful of dirt, and God said, «No, no, no! Go get your own dirt!»
A senior couple had finally learned how to send and receive text messages on their cell phones. The wife, being a romantic at heart, decided one day to send her husband a text while she was out of the house having coffee with a friend. She texted, «If you are sleeping, send me your dreams. If you are laughing, send me your smile. If you are eating, send me a bite. If you are drinking, send me a sip. If you’re crying, send me your tears. I love you.» The husband, being a no-nonsense sort of guy, texted back, «I’m on the toilet; please advise.» The message can only go up from there.
So, take your Bibles, please, and open to Jeremiah 29. This particular verse that we’re starting with, Jeremiah 29:11, is a pretty well-known verse: «For I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord.» It’s an incredible revelation of God’s heart towards His people. Many of us have memorized this verse; we quote it to one another and use it in various contexts and situations. What adds flavor or something interesting to this verse is the realization that this decree was given to Israel while they were in captivity and they weren’t getting out. So, the Lord is targeting something in their internal world instead of re-defining their external world.
It’s really easy to try to interpret how well we’re doing by our external circumstances instead of paying attention to what God is actually targeting. He’s actually focusing on how I handle life in my internal world—my self-talk, what I ponder, what I think on, my words, my heart’s motivations, and my clean conscience. All these kinds of things make up our well-being in an internal sense. It was always intended that we learn to live from the inside out. One of the most interesting examples of this is Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, where He is in a life-threatening storm. The disciples wake Him up and ask Him, «Don’t You care that we’re perishing?» which is an interesting question to ask the Savior of the world. He gets up, rebukes the wind and the waves, which indicates there’s a spiritual force behind it—not just the natural. He then declares peace, and the storm stops.
So, think through this with me: He’s sleeping in a storm, not because He’s exhausted but because the world He dwells in has no storms. He was able to release into the natural world what He was already experiencing on the inside. It was always intended that our personal victories in our walk with the Lord would help us reshape, redefine, and influence the nature of the world we live in. Personal victories and triumphs are supposed to be measured outwardly. Interestingly, we have this story of one of our favorite guys in the Bible: Abraham, the father of faith. I remember taking three years of my life just to read and reread Romans 4 daily because it highlights Abraham as the father of faith. Constantly exposing myself to his lifestyle revealed that he believed God in the most impossible situations, and God considered him righteous because of it.
Abraham is so-called the father of faith that the place in heaven where people went after they died before they could enter heaven, the place of peace and rest, was called, in Luke 16, Abraham’s bosom. He had a profound impact on all of history. He’s called righteous by the Lord, but what you may not have realized is that his nephew Lot was also called righteous. In 2 Peter, it states, «And righteous Lot was oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men.» What we see is a unique comparison between Abraham, who is righteous, and Lot, who is also righteous. One affects his surroundings; the other is affected by his surroundings. Lot is oppressed by the sensual conduct he observed and heard, which impacted his internal world.
God has designed us so that one reason Jesus revealed the Kingdom of God as within us is that the legal basis for all triumph and victory comes long before external enemies of disease and all the trouble. Before they are defeated, it’s an internal triumph that must occur before there’s an external triumph. So, Jesus stands on this boat and makes the decree of peace. The storm that was threatening their lives a moment ago calms because He first triumphed internally by sleeping in the life-threatening moment, then was positioned to defeat the storm.
All right, let’s look at Jeremiah 29. We’re starting with verse 4. I’ve already told you that verse 11 is a great verse of promise, but it’s in a context where Israel is not leaving their captivity, so keep that in mind. Verse 4: «Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands so that they may bear sons and daughters, that you may be increased there and not diminished.»
So, for a quick moment, what is the Lord looking for in a place of captivity? We’re not talking about, you know, in a New Testament context, demon possession; we’re not discussing that. We’re talking about less-than-ideal circumstances that we are forced to live in. It’s not what we’ve been promised; it’s not what we anticipated; it’s not what we’ve prayed for. It falls short of what we ache for, of what we hunger for, and yet it’s a God-ordained season for whatever reason. In that season, we have responsibility. Here, He says, «Build houses, plant vineyards, do what you’re supposed to do: have kids, marry them off, thrive as a family.» He’s telling them to look above and beyond their circumstances, which would normally cut their vision in half. Don’t allow it to cut your vision in half because what you’ve got going on inside you—living conscious of a Father who delights in you and has extraordinary plans for you—should enable you to redefine the nature of this captive season you’re in.
Verse 7: «Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive and pray to the Lord for it, for in its peace you will have peace.» I’ll never forget when the Lord opened that verse up to me in Waville many moons ago when we were in this city, and the Lord made it clear. By the way, this word «peace» is one of the most pregnant words in the Bible. It means health, soundness of mind, and prosperity. If you’ve ever prayed for anything, you can find it in that word somewhere. The definition of that word is so full and complete.
So, I’ll never forget when I first saw it and thought, «Let me replace it with a different word.» Let me use «prosperity» just for context: «Seek for the prosperity of the city you live in because in its prosperity is your prosperity.» Sometimes we have this idea that the Lord wants to bless the church and leave everyone else out, and we don’t consider ourselves always to be part of the city, but God is trying to deal with that mindset. He’s reminding us it’s His kindness that leads to repentance, it’s the goodness of the Lord. He’s charging us, and I remember praying for the businesses around us, praying for them to prosper, and I would go into a particular store, becoming friends with an owner who was not a believer. I created dialogue to see how they were doing so we would know specifically how to pray.
There comes a point where you adopt the city and take responsibility, believing that God wants the entire city to prosper. God is telling Israel to cause Babylon to prosper. They’re in Babylon, so let your prayers ignite the favor of God upon the city and culture. It’s an amazing charge. Verse 8: «For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed.»
The prophet is saying, «Listen, you are going to spend your lifetime where you are; adjust your mindset. Don’t listen to the prophets saying you’re leaving this land by Friday. Settle in and embrace the purpose of God to make heaven on earth within the Babylonian system.» Yield to the word of the Lord to such a degree. Then He warns them, stating, «Don’t buy into the dreams that you dream, which you cause to be dreamed.» What does that mean? We can have so much of an agenda in our hearts, failing to yield to the will and purpose of God, that we can cause ourselves to dream things that affirm our desires. We then quote those dreams as confirmation that God is leading us to do something that He’s not leading us to do. We can be the sponsors of dreams that affirm the wrong direction.
Verse 10 says, «Thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you and cause you to return.» Here’s the verse: «For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.» Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you.
Verse 11 again: «For I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord—plans of peace, plans of prosperity, and health, of sound mind— to give you a future and a hope.» Discovering God’s heart for us makes external problems okay. It doesn’t mean that that debt, that affliction, or that angry neighbor, or whatever the job is that’s not paying the bills, are God’s ultimate design. It just means that when you discover the heart of a perfect Father, who thinks about you continuously, it should shift your sense of purpose and destiny.
He has that much going on, thinking about us. My goodness, it should lift us out of those self-doubt moments! That’s amazing. Okay, now look at this: Acts chapter 14.
Listen to this: «It happened at Iconium that they went together to the synagogue of the Jews, and so spoke that a great multitude, both of Jews and Greeks, believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brethren.» So, the unbelievers stirred up other people and poisoned their thinking, infecting their thoughts towards what God was doing, poisoning their minds against the brethren.
Verse 3: «Therefore, they stayed a long time.» You may not have heard what I just read. They preached the gospel, a whole bunch of folks got saved, but those who didn’t believed poisoned the minds of the rest of the crowd, who were incensed against these people preaching the gospel. They faced tremendous opposition, and it says, «Therefore, they stayed a long time.»
In other words, they moved from Motel 6 to a condo; they decided they had to stay. Why? Because of opposition! It goes on to say that the multitude of the city was divided, part siding with the Jews and part with the apostles. Signs and wonders had been done by them. When a violent attempt was made, both by the Gentiles and Jews, to abuse and stone them, verse 6 states they became aware of it and fled.
You can’t discern what God wants you to do by your circumstances. One moment, there’s opposition; what does it mean to stay? The next moment, there’s opposition; what does it mean to go? You can’t reduce it to human reasoning that, «Well, my circumstances are inconvenient and very uncomfortable; I don’t feel good about this therefore I should leave.» No, no, that’s a wrong decision. You only know by your sensitivity to the Spirit of God who lives in you—what is He saying? What is He doing? That’s the only safeguard.
If we run everything by externals—even in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit—people have rejected what they don’t understand. I’ve seen people shake under the power of God, shake because they needed attention, and shake because they were demonized; it all looked the same. So, if you have a list that accepts shaking or rejects shaking, it doesn’t matter because you’re going to get it wrong sometimes. I’m just trying to use it as an example, but externals are not what help us discern. They are signs to encourage us to seek what God is actually saying and doing.
Amen. Everything boils down to this: in our internal world, what’s going on in here? The peace I live with, the fellowship with the Holy Spirit, my sensitivity to His conviction, my fight to maintain a clear conscience, and my willingness to engage with Scripture—where the sword of the Lord cuts deeply. That relationship with Him, that place of deep affection for Him—is the only way I’ll know whether I should flee when opposition comes or set down roots and decide this is where I’m spending my lifetime.
Last night, I dreamed half the night about you and talking to you today, telling you stories. I’m tired of dreaming about you; I want to sleep! And then you guys showed up in the middle of my night, and I’m trying to figure out what on Earth I’m supposed to share with you. Would you knock it off? No, I’m teasing—kind of.
It actually happens fairly often. Saturday nights, I’ll wrestle with dreams about what to share, and I wanted to tell you stories about hearing from God. I won’t do the whole session with that, obviously, because we’re halfway through, but I’ll take a couple stories and talk to you about hearing from the Lord. God still speaks. The Bible says we don’t live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
In other words, I live because He speaks. I am alive because His word has gone forth. I live literally because His voice has come forth. Perhaps you’ve said this as I have: I just don’t hear what the Lord is saying, but I sense His peace. That’s His word; that’s His voice. Yes, but I don’t understand what He’s saying. That’s right; that’s because He’s speaking to your spirit man, not your brain.
One of the names of Jesus is He is the Word of God, so when He is present, His voice is present. I may not be discerning what He’s saying, but there’s an impact of presence on my inner man. The more I learn to recognize and yield to that working of the Holy Spirit, the more I will have the information at my fingertips the moment I need it. I may not know what He’s saying today, but He’s working in me because He’s rewiring me, making me alert and aware of what He is saying, what He’s doing, and what’s on His heart.
Several years ago, right back there in the dining room, we had our pre-service prayer meeting on Sunday nights before we had this wing added. It was at 5:00, and I’d arrive a little early to pray. I arrived 15 minutes early, looked out the wall of windows, and saw a roadrunner with a big lizard in its mouth. It was jumping at the window, trying to get in. I thought, «This is too weird to not be prophetic.»
I’m a hunter; I’m outdoors a lot, and I had never seen a roadrunner here. Maybe you’ve seen a thousand, but I’ve only seen them in cartoons. Here is a roadrunner with a big lizard trying to get in, and I thought, «This is weird; I’ve got to call Bob Jones.» I figured the Lord was speaking to us. I’ve never seen a roadrunner before; the only roadrunner I know is the cartoon version. Eventually, the bird left, and I walked around the room praying.
Don came in from the Christian School and said, «Oh, it’s back!» I asked him what he meant, and he said the roadrunner was there last week. I was astonished! The roadrunner showed up again the next week and continued coming to our pre-service prayer meetings but never attended a service. I thought this was so strange.
One day, Banning, who led our youth ministry, shared that the roadrunner showed up for their prayer meeting. I found it amusing; this bird seemed to love our prayer meetings.
One Sunday morning, while teaching about signs and wonders, I mentioned our bizarre roadrunner situation, and right on cue, the roadrunner showed up at the window. He would always appear with something in his mouth—a lizard or a worm. It felt very prophetic, and we sought counsel on it while building the prayer house.
There’s a rock by the koi pond that looks like an eagle’s head. The roadrunner would often perch there as the prayer house was being built. We discovered that roadrunners are related to eagles, which was captivating. I learned that they eat rattlesnakes, and appreciated how bizarre yet profound the situation was. Usually, when God gives an unusual prophetic sign, we understand what He’s communicating within a week or so, but this mystery unfolded over six months with no clarity.
One day, a janitor came to me and said, «Bill, I killed the roadrunner.» I was shocked! He explained that the roadrunner somehow got inside and came into the room where he was cleaning. The janitor turned on worship music, and the roadrunner sat near him throughout that time! When our staff finally connected with that bird, it felt meaningful and significant.
Sadly, while the janitor was cleaning, the bird flew into a plate glass window and died. I was distraught; if there was ever a moment for resurrection, it was this.
I went back to my office, feeling defeated, asking God, «What is happening here?» In that moment, God spoke to my heart, issuing a powerful message: «What I’m bringing into the house must be released, or it will die in the house.» This revelation was profound. God was doing something in us, and it needed to be shared, or it would die.