Recently I was feeling a bit depressed about some of my weaknesses. I was in a situation where I knew I had to confront someone, and I knew it was not going to be easy.  I don’t think I know any freaks of nature who are naturally good at confrontation, however in my case it happens to be the opposite of one my strengths.  “Harmony” according to the Strengths Finder assessment.   You may remember a post I wrote called “A simple hack for effectively stewarding prophetic words”.  It was about creating a declaration list that I call my Identity Declaration.  It was a real game-changer for me. This, much like the Identity Declaration list is something that was born out of a personal encounter, and I believe it will really help.  Especially if all you seem to see in front of you is the ugly head of your most regretted deficiency.

Make a “Breakthrough Declaration” list.  

1. Pick a few things you hate. To be nice and positive, let’s call them areas where you have room to grow. Or we can be blunt if you prefer so. Things you suck at. For me, one of them is confrontation and being able to be straight forward with people. I often find myself saying “yes”, only to later regret it, and realize I should have said no.  Take the “Harmony” strength, mix that in with being pastoral and having somewhat of a servant’s heart, then put a bunch of people around me who don’t have much respect for boundaries.  This concoction equals me overwhelmed and feeling a little like I’m being taken advantage of by others. O.k. enough about me.

You may be on the other end of the spectrum. Maybe you kind of enjoy speaking the truth, even when it causes discomfort and feels like a punch in the nose. It makes no difference.

After you’ve made a list of several areas you need to grow in, take the next step:

2. Flip them. And declare the superior truth.  To continue the trend of using me as the guinea pig, here’s the declaration I formulated for the first line of my “Breakthrough Declaration” list.
“I have everything I need, and am fully equipped to confront people in love and boldness.”
It sounded kind of untrue when I spun it around in my head. But let me tell you. When I spoke it out loud something happened in the spirit that pierced through time and eternity.
I didn’t have any way to verify whether that actually happened, but seriously. As I declared those words out loud, I knew that it was Holy Spirit inspired. It wasn’t just a great psychological idea that would hype me into being a better person.
Jesus and his disciples typically spoke TO things and commanded things to happen as opposed to praying for things to happen.
Jesus talked about speaking to a mountain to be moved. Peter commanded the paralyzed man to get up and walk. The angel called Gideon “brave” when Gideon didn’t feel like it was true at all.

“A lot of things we call our “personality” and our “gift mix” are just bad beliefs, based on believing past experiences instead of who God says we are.” – Steve and Wendy Backlund

This next part is a little different, but I put them in the same list.  It kind of goes hand in hand with confronting our weaknesses.  Yet another sneaky area where lies from the enemy can easily creep into our belief system and left unnoticed.

3. Declare your desired vision of the future as part of who you are. We’ll keep using me as the guinea pig, so I’ll use another example from my list.  At this point in my life, the vision God gave me for Ukraine is bigger than anything I could ever believe I could be qualified to lead.  The lie in this case would be that “I’m not qualified for this job.”  Or “who am I…?”.  I decided to stop those lies in their tracks by declaring these words.

“I am a catalyst of the great plans God has for Ukraine”

Here is the full list I created. It reflects some of the areas I want to see more consistent breakthrough in.
Feel free to take any parts you like, and own them. The goal is for you to create your own Breakthrough Declaration list you can recite every day, or every time you feel depressed about your weaknesses. And get unstuck.

• I have everything I need, and am fully equipped to confront people in love and boldness
• I am open and straight forward about what I think, and can express it with gentleness and love, but without compromise
• I wake up early every morning, eager to be in the secret place
• I am a catalyst of the great plans God has for Ukraine
• I trigger multiplication in churches and individuals

Last thought:

The natural truth about your weaknesses is true, but God’s truth is superior.  His truth trumps natural truth.

If you look at it realistically, it probably is hopeless.  But we’re not called to be realistic.  We’re called to be supernatural. – Wendy Backlund