Sometimes You Need to Break Up So You Can Have Your Breakthrough

Hey, it’s Ronai!

I woke up the other morning with a sentence on my heart: “Sometimes you need to break up so you can have your breakthrough.”

I’ve been working through a study about breakthrough, so maybe that’s why those words were already stirring in me. But I couldn’t shake them. Break up to break through.

When we hear “break up,” we usually think about relationships. And sometimes that is exactly what needs to happen. There are relationships and friendships that aren’t healthy for us anymore. Sometimes we need boundaries. Sometimes we need to walk away.

But people aren’t the only things we need to break up with.

Sometimes we need to break up with an old habit, comparison, people pleasing, fear, perfectionism, or the need for approval. Sometimes we need to break up with an old version of ourselves.

Isaiah 43:18–19 says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” (NIV)

What if we are so busy holding onto the old thing that we don’t have our hands open for the new thing God wants to do?

Sometimes the version of ourselves we need to release isn’t necessarily bad. It just doesn’t belong in this season anymore. Maybe you’ve always been the one who says yes, keeps everyone happy, stays quiet, takes care of everyone else, or makes herself smaller. Maybe you’ve spent years being who you thought other people expected you to be.

And when you start changing, that can be uncomfortable, not only for you but for the people who have gotten used to the old version of you.

But familiar doesn’t necessarily mean faithful.

At some point, we have to ask: Am I becoming who God is calling me to be, or am I continuing to be who I think everyone else expects me to be?

This is one reason I love CliftonStrengths. It gives us language for the natural patterns in the way we think, feel, and behave. Instead of constantly asking, “What’s wrong with me?” we can begin asking, “God, how did You design me, and how can I use that design for Your purpose?”

That doesn’t mean everything we naturally do is healthy. I teach about the balcony and basement of our strengths. Our strengths can be used beautifully, but they can also develop unhealthy patterns. Maybe your Achiever has connected your worth to how much you accomplish. Maybe your Empathy has you carrying emotions God never asked you to carry. Maybe your Activator has become impatience.

The answer isn’t to break up with your strengths. Maybe you need to break up with the basement.

You don’t need to become somebody else. You may simply need to release the patterns that are keeping you from fully becoming who God created you to be.

And maybe that’s why I keep thinking about Lot’s wife.

In Genesis 19, God was leading Lot and his family out of Sodom. They were told to flee and not look back. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Scripture doesn’t tell us why she looked back. Was she grieving? Was she afraid? Was her heart still attached to what she was leaving? We don’t know.

But I understand the temptation to look back.

Leaving can be hard, even when leaving is right. We can grieve a relationship and still know it wasn’t healthy. We can miss an old season and still know we don’t belong there anymore. We can even miss the old version of ourselves because she was familiar.

Lot’s wife looked back, and she never made it to where her family was going. That makes me wonder: How often are we so focused on what we’re leaving that we miss what God is doing in front of us?

We know what we’re leaving. We don’t always know what’s ahead. That’s where trust comes in.

Ephesians 3:20 tells us that God is able to do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” What if we’re looking backward at something familiar while God is leading us toward something we can’t even imagine yet?

You can grieve what you’re leaving without going back to it. You can appreciate who you used to be without believing you still have to be her. You can miss what was familiar and still trust God with what comes next.

So how do we keep moving forward?

We return to the Source.

Maybe breakthrough isn’t one giant moment. Maybe it’s a series of small choices stacked together. Spend time with God. Open His Word. Listen. Recognize an old pattern. Ask a better question. Choose a different response. Surrender. Then do it again tomorrow.

Ask, “God, what am I having trouble releasing?” “Where am I trying to prove myself instead of trusting Christ in me?” “What is true about who You created me to be?” “What would this strength look like surrendered to You?” And maybe most importantly, “God, what are You asking me to rise into?”

Sometimes you need to break up so you can have your breakthrough.

Break up with the lie. Break up with the old pattern. Break up with who everyone else expects you to be. Break up with the basement. Stop looking backward at something God is asking you to release.

Then return to the Source.

Because we don’t rise by becoming somebody else. We rise by becoming more fully who God created us to be, surrendered to Him.

Break up. Break through. Rise up.

Ready for Your Next Step?

Sometimes breakthrough begins when we finally understand what God is asking us to release and how He uniquely created us to move forward. If you’re ready to better understand your God-given strengths, break out of old patterns, and walk more confidently in your purpose, I’d love to work with you through individual coaching.

And if this message would encourage your church, women’s ministry, leadership team, retreat, or organization, I’d love to bring it to your group. I speak and lead interactive workshops that help people understand their unique design, embrace their strengths, and put them into action.

Ready to take the next step? Visit ronaibrumett.com to learn more about coaching or inviting me to speak.