Over It by Lolo Jones

Author:Lolo Jones [Jones, Lolo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2021-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

BREAKTHROUGH

I spent years in pursuit of a breakthrough. Yes, I was always pursuing my dream of the Olympics, but I was also breaking the cycle of poverty—both in my thinking and in my family line. The financial breakthrough was a huge deal for me. It was evidence of a truth I had been learning for years. It’s called “sowing and reaping.” God’s faithfulness is very much connected to my work ethic.

Or as Coach Shaver calls it, “[taking] ownership of what it is that you’re capable of doing.”

Or as I call it, “hard work.”

Breakthrough is a buzzword used to define a moment. But the word almost always represents and reveals a lifetime of intentional moments of hard work. There is no such thing as an instant breakthrough. It’s the culmination of sweating and scootering and Home Depot. A breakthrough is simply the evidence of hard work.

While my breakthrough was making the Olympics and breaking world records, I want to highlight the financial breakthrough too, because it was no small thing to me. The Olympics was a defining moment in my life, but my financial breakthrough was what changed my life.

Breakthrough is a word we all love, especially in Christian circles. And God is the one we look to for breakthroughs. I believe that to the core of my being. But a pastor friend once told me, “Most of what we need in life God will give us. Most of what we want we have to go get.”

God is my provider. He has proved it over the course of my life. Even when there wasn’t enough, somehow there was enough. But that breakthrough has to be paid for; it has to be stewarded. I believe this is biblical. God is looking for people who will steward well the capabilities He gives us.

Jesus taught this principle when He told a parable about a wealthy man with three servants (Matthew 25:14–30). Before the man left on a trip, he entrusted each servant with a portion of his wealth. The man gave five bags of gold to the first servant, two bags of gold to the second servant, and one bag of gold to the third servant. The first two servants invested their gold in some way and doubled what was given to them. We don’t know exactly what they did because Jesus didn’t say, but we do know what the third servant did: he buried his gold.

When the wealthy man returned from his trip and asked for an accounting, he was displeased that the third servant hadn’t used what he’d been given. What reason could the servant have had for not using what was entrusted to him?

“I was afraid,” he said, “and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you” (v. 25).

While God doesn’t entrust us all with bags of gold, he does entrust us with talents, gifts, and natural abilities. And fear can keep us from using what God has entrusted to us, just as it did the unfaithful servant.

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