Many years ago a highly respected minister in our Fellowship died. The funeral was in the church he pastored in Kokomo. Several pastors loaded into a van and drove there together. By the time we arrived, I was really sick. I attended the funeral service and could barely get back out to the van. I later discovered I was passing a kidney stone. I have had the same thing happen since then, but at the time I didn’t know what I was dealing with. Very excruciating.

We can sometimes feel the same kind of excruciating pain as the mountain in our lives begins to shift out of the way. Spiritual battles being won can be very painful. We can lose sleep while God is holding the lion’s mouths shut or shaking open our prison doors. It can be pretty intense while you’re waiting for Goliath to fall or the flood to subside. And it can be really stinky as you’re vomited out of the belly of the great fish. Deliverance takes a battle and battles can leave scars. But that’s the nature of spiritual victories.

And just as a mother suffers greatly until she delivers her child, so there can be great pain when we are delivered from strongholds. Christians who aren’t aware of the nature of breakthroughs often give up under the pressure. Put on the full armor and hang on. God is about to deliver you. Feel the burn.