The Break in The Breakthrough

What might happen if you surrender fully to the One who makes all things new?

At first, it feels like unraveling—the walls I built to protect myself start to crack, light slipping through the seams into places I don’t even know are dark. Lies that once shout with authority lose their grip as truth whispers louder. Fear, which used to weigh down my chest, begins to lift. Pride, once my armor, softens into humility. It feels as if He is turning over hard ground in my soul, preparing it for life to bloom again.

Sometimes the change comes suddenly, like chains falling to the floor. His presence sweeps in, and I know something shifts forever. Other times, it comes slowly, almost unnoticeable—like water wearing away stone. Day after day, I choose surrender again, until one day I look back and realize I am not the same. Both the sudden breakthrough and the gradual undoing are part of His promise: “And we all… are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The battlefield is always the mind. I know the heaviness of thoughts that come uninvited: you’re not enough, you’ll always be alone, you cannot change. They sound convincing because they echo in my own voice. But Scripture tells me, “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). I feel the shift when I do this. It’s like holding a lie up to the light and watching it dissolve. In its place comes truth, steady and unshakable: You are my workmanship (Ephesians 2:10). I will never leave you (Hebrews 13:5). I am making you new (Revelation 21:5).

Yielding to Him is not passive—it is a moment-by-moment choice to trust. It feels like loosening my grip on control, opening my clenched fists, and admitting I cannot heal myself. Paul says in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Renewal is not something I manufacture, it is what He does when I step aside. It often feels like pruning, like humbling, like being undone—but it always makes space for new life.

Yet before I ever yield, I am pierced. His Spirit draws near, and His Word cuts straight through me—alive and sharp, dividing bone from marrow, soul from spirit, exposing even the thoughts I try to bury (Hebrews 4:12). It stings, but it stings like a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting not to wound me but to heal me. To free me from what would destroy me.

And here is what still wrecks me: He never fails to come close. To draw near to the pain, to the mess, to the parts of me I think disqualify me. He doesn’t recoil. He leans in. His nearness brings light into the shadows, and the things I thought would repel Him are the very places He wants to restore.

For me, the deep work always begins in honesty. When I let the masks fall, when I stop rehearsing my lines, when I stop trying to appear fine. When I come bare, and real—that is the moment He meets me. That is the moment the Spirit begins His work. And He never gives up on me.

Jesus, here I am—open, honest, nothing hidden. You see the thoughts that swirl, the fears that linger, the lies that try to shape me.I surrender them to You. Come close, Holy Spirit, and do the work only You can do. Shine light where I’ve grown used to the dark. Cut away what keeps me bound. Plant something new where old roots once held me down. Renew my mind, steady my heart, reshape my life. Make me more like You.

Amen.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here.”—2 Corinthians 5:17

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