Have you reached a plateau?

Since I posted the piece on "Your Harbingers" earlier this month, I have been thinking about plateaus.  Not sure why but even one of my Twitter followers brought up the topic of plateaus.  At the same time, this Friday, July 20, we enter the Hebraic month of Av, a month with several thousand years of significance.  So what is all this about plateaus?

My best understanding perhaps of plateaus is in athletics and weight training.  You train for a period of time and see progress with ever increasing weights and then you hit a 'plateau'.  No matter what you do or how hard you train, the gains seem to all but stop.  Over the years, I concluded that when you break through those plateaus you learned to lift the weight in a slightly different way.  You may not know what is different but it is.  The way you squat a 315 lb weight is different than 450lbs and is still different than 520lbs.  Can I tell you exactly what is different?  No, but it is.  What I can say is that the weight is always the same, you have to change.

Where Moses stopped to look into Canaan more than 3000 years ago

Reflecting on the Hebraic month of Av coming, I recall the scripture in Genesis 13.  Israel had just come out of Egypt, had arrived at  Canaan (the first time), and men had been sent to scout out the land.  History/tradition indicates that when they returned in Genesis 13:25-26, it was the 9th of Av. So, what might this have to do with plateaus?

It would seem that the majority of the scouts had reached a plateau in their life expectations.  Even after obtaining freedom for the most powerful country in the world at that time, their response was, "We went to the land to which you sent us and, oh! It does flow with milk and honey! Just look at this fruit!  The only thing is that the people who live there are fierce, their cities are huge and well fortified. Worse yet, we saw descendants of the giant Anak." (Gen 13:27-28 The Message)  Seems that they max'ed out and had to learn a slightly different way to view obstacles.  It took another 40 years.  Do we want to wait that long?

Other than the lesson we might learn from the scouts, what about the rest of the people that allowed the scouts to influence their life direction.  The scouts' plateau limited everyone else as well, so it became everyones' plateau. Perhaps the month of Av comes to mind because as Chuck Pierce recently stated about Av, "the month ahead can be our “high point” or “low point” month, so we must remain vigilant in our choices."  Not only the choices we make ourselves, but the choices we allow others to make for us.

I believe one of the key choices we make or will need to make in the near future in our own life transition is whether we are going to operate from an abundance mentality or a poverty (lack) mentality.  A poverty mentality says - this is all I will ever be able to lift, this is all I will ever be able to earn, this is all the love I will ever receive - I reached a limit, the world has reached a limit.  There is no more.  Someone else must lose something for me to get anything.

An abundance mentality says, while I may have to learn to operate in a slightly  different way, I will lift more weight, I will earn more and experience increasing prosperity, my God has more love than I can contain, I will have a life without limits - there are no limits except those I place on myself or allow others to place on me.

Where are your plateaus and what do you need to do to get past them?  What are your choices?