Do you get caught in cycles? You end up back in the same situation, facing similar issues, feeling like you can’t get away from some things. You make all kinds of promises to yourself, but things out of your control keep popping up, or you can’t even control yourself.
The Bible reveals a number of cycles and shows us some steps to deal with them. It is wonderful when people and families are delivered from such things as the cycle of poverty or cycle of abuse. So let’s see what the Bible reveals about being stuck in a repeat of previous issues.
‘Going around the Mountain Again’ is an expression used to reflect what Israel went through in their wilderness wanderings. God led His people to the edge of the Promised Land but they wouldn’t go in. They were afraid of taking on the giants and fortified cities.
Their punishment was being sent back into the desert to wander around in circles for forty years until all the adults had died off. The next generation were then led to capture the Promised Land of Canaan.
At the end of forty years in the wilderness God spoke to the people and basically said, “You’ve been going around this mountain long enough”.
“You have circumnavigated this mountain long enough: turn to the north.” Deuteronomy 2:3
In Israel’s case the process of going over the same old ground over and over again was punishment and it had a purpose, to wear out and dispose of those who did not have faith. The repetitive process was a sign of the outworking of God’s curse.
Christians understand that when God places a challenge in front of them and they won’t rise in faith and take on that challenge, God may well send them off to go around in a big circle. They are eventually faced with the same challenge once more, this time in the hope they can rise in faith and deal with the issue with God’s help.
If they don’t respond in faith the second time they can end up ‘going around the mountain’ yet again.
There may be an issue God wants you to deal with, such as something you refuse to repent of or someone you refuse to forgive. God, in His love for you, wants you to come free from sin and un-forgiveness, so He gives you some time then presents you with the same challenge all over again.
If your heart is hard and unrepentant, and you refuse to face the truth about yourself, God will send you around the mountain once again (so to speak), then bring you back to face the issues again.
Sadly I know of too many cases where people have dug in their toes, accused others, remained hard-hearted and self-righteous and have never come out of their ‘wilderness’.
That links in my mind with God’s curse of vanity on people who demand their own way. When people persist in demanding from God things that God knows are not good for them God may well give them what they ask, but then send on their life a curse of futility, where everything they do amounts to nothing.
“God gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.” Psalm 106:15
“In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe. Therefore he consumed their days in vanity (futility), and their years in trouble.” Psalm 78:32,33
So if you are in a ‘Here We Go Again’ situation be quick to be humble before God and find out what He might be trying to get through to you. Otherwise your whole life could be eaten up with nothing to show for it.
Another cycle spoken of in the Bible is a fiery cycle ignited by words. Words are a big issue in spiritual things.
“The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.” James 3:6
Translators have explained the ‘course of nature’ as ‘the successions of generations, which roll on like wheels’ and ‘wheel of our nativity’. This seems to speak of issues that pass down the generations, based on words spoken over the family.
It may be that some cycles people and families face are due to forces working against the family, to bring defeat and destruction. This seems to be obvious where certain problems occur across the family and through the generations, such as the cycle of poverty, disease, misfortune, abuse, addiction, family break-up, and so on.
In those cases it can be powerful to bring the problem to God and ask God to break that cycle. Since James tells us that this sort of cycle is based on words, we can have great hope through God’s Word. God’s Word is higher than all other words. So when you find a promise and a blessing in God’s Word it can overpower any word of curse that may have been spoken over a family in past times.
So dig into God’s Word and find the many promises that speak to your situation, claiming God’s blessings, and casting the problem of your unhappy cycle onto God.
So, if you are facing a ‘Here We Go Again’ situation, be humble and allow God to show you anything you haven’t dealt with effectively. And if it seems to be a curse of some kind, get spiritual support to break the problem, but also look into God’s Word to find God’s promises that have greater force than any words that bring problems.
And may God set you free from those unwanted cycles the keep us from moving on in our walk with Him. May you become free from all things that make you think, Here We Go Again!
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