One of the stories I really love following is the story of Joseph the dreamer. He was sold into slavery, wrongly accused of a crime he did not commit and forgotten by a cupbearer whom he helped—to say that Joseph's life was filled with ups and downs would be an oversimplification.

We all like hearing stories like Joseph's, where God puts a person into extreme testing only to come through powerfully at the end. But think about this: If you were to be put in the same situation as Joseph—through all the trials and challenges he had to face—would you be as excited?

It's funny how we love to see God bring breakthrough but often scorn the thought of the process we are brought into before God breaks through. We like financial breakthrough but try to skip stewardship, generosity and hard work. We like church revival but try to skip evangelism, fervent intercession and discipleship.

Romans 5:3–4 tells us, "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (ESV).

Not only is suffering a painful and challenging process a part of our breakthrough, it is a vital one. There can be no breakthrough without anything to break through. While God is loving, gracious, generous and merciful, He doesn't in any way desire for us to become spoiled and irresponsible. While He wants us dependent on Him, He doesn't want us dependent on blessings to the point that we forget Him. Often times, it seems to us that the only way to remember God is if we are brought into an unforgettable process of shaking and pruning.

The word breakthrough became popular because of a man named Chuck Yeager—the first man to break through the sound barrier. On Chuck's successful attempt at flying at the speed of sound, there was an intense amount of shaking reported just minutes before he hit his mark. The shaking was violent and scary to say the least, but Chuck stuck through it. Just when it felt like the shaking would never end, Chuck's plane cracked with a huge sonic book and he started flying at the speed of sound.

It's no different for you today. If you want breakthrough, get ready for God to set you into a process of intense, violent and scary shaking first. But just when the shaking might never end, a great explosive event happens and you start living out a breakthrough through God's grace. Times may get rough, but as we continue to hold on to the promises and claim them through Jesus Christ, your breakthrough will come, but never without a series of shaking processes that God will let you conquer first.