Break Free预览

When I was a small boy in Ukraine, my family had a cow, pigs, chickens, and a little garden where we grew most of our food. I grew up knowing how to milk a cow, work in the fields, and take care of our animals. 

I was very observant as a young boy to how nature and the animal kingdom works. I especially paid close attention to the hatching of chicks. The mother hen would produce eggs and place them in a safe, comfortable environment. She would sit on those eggs for some time. Later, I learned it was around 21 days. As she would sit and incubate those eggs, on the inside of each egg little chickens were being developed. 

Right before the chicks would come out, I could already see darker parts on the shell, indicating something was about to hatch out from the shell. I was surprised to see that the mother hen would not break the shell for her chicks to come out into the new world. She just kept incubating them, keeping them warm. As they kept growing inside, they would outgrow the shell and hatch out of it. 

Jesus referred to Himself as a mother hen when talking to Jerusalem. “How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37). Sometimes, Jesus brings about freedom and change in our lives by the process of our growth in Him. He wants to incubate us, surrounding us with His love, so we can hatch. Not all freedom comes by one prayer, some comes by growing in God. I like to tell our church all the time – some people get delivered at the prayer line, and many will get freed in their prayer life. There are things that only come by growth. 

At times we want God to break the shell of our limitations, but despite the afflictions, He desires that we continue to mature in Him. As we grow, our chains begin to break. We outgrow them. So many people give up too soon. They come to the prayer line or counseling for deliverance, nothing happens and they give up on God. Be like the little chicken – stay under the warmth of the hen, do not roll out of the nest, you will see how that which holds you today, shortly will crack and break.