I was totally shaken by that. I didn’t have anything to say. He didn’t tell me this in a nice, cozy living room with us sitting on comfortable chairs. There were no stars shining in the sky; it was a dark night. We just sat on a rock outside. He didn’t put his arm around my shoulders to comfort me. He simply said, “Your pride, your arrogance is the reason.” Then he got up and walked away.

I sat there for a long time. My whole world had collapsed.

The next few days I said to myself over and over again, “I will never preach again. I will never teach again. I don’t ever want to do ministry again. Nobody wants me. They don’t understand how much I have done for them. They don’t know how hard I have worked.” For days I was like this.

Then God, in His mercy and grace, came through and told me, “What he said is true. It is your pride, your stiff neck and your unwillingness to bend.”

By His grace, I had the courage to look back over the past months and years on the teams I had been a part of and realize how impossible to live with I had become—hard-hearted, argumentative and always thinking my way was best. No matter what the leaders suggested, I took a different approach. I had a different idea of how to do it. Regardless of what the argument was, I always sought to win. And most times, I got it my way.

That was the first time I can distinctly remember knowing the need to embrace the cross. I began to understand then that my worst enemy was my own stubborn, unbroken life.

Since then, many more times I have gone through similar experiences. That one time was not the end.

Wherever we are, wherever the Lord has placed us, we need to be sensitive to not resisting brokenness in our lives, ultimately delaying the good work He is trying to fulfill in us. The only person that can delay God’s promise in your life is you—by resisting His breaking.