The Lid is Off!

By Steve Backlund

Some of you have heard of an experiment where they put fleas in a glass container without a lid on and the fleas just jumped out. Then they put the fleas back in the container and closed it with a lid. As before, the fleas tried to jump out but couldn’t. Instead, they kept hitting their heads against the lid which probably hurt. After attempting to jump out several times, the fleas learned to jump just barely below the lid because that's what they concluded was their potential. They probably thought that would be the best way to live - without pain. After a while, those conducting the experiment took the lid off the container and they observed that the fleas would only jump to the level they’d trained themselves to avoid pain, so they stayed in the container even though they could jump out.

This is similar to the story of a baby elephant that had one of its legs tied to a rope connected to a stake in the ground. When the baby elephant tried to get free, it couldn’t. It tried several times until it quit trying. As the elephant grew older and got bigger, it still believed it could not get free so it stayed in the same place, but it had become powerful and all it had to do was just lift its leg and walk away. The problem with the elephant was not in the circumstance, but in what it believed. The issue was not the seeming restriction, it was that the elephant believed it was restricted just like the fleas that could have easily jumped out of the container. They didn’t because they believed they couldn’t. 

I share a lot about the renewing of the mind. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”.  I have realized that most of us renew our minds with our feelings and past experiences rather than what God says about who we are, what we can do, and what He says we have. So if something is hard, we have a tendency to come into agreement (renew our minds) that it is hard for us. As we continue to do this, we create a stronghold that limits us just like the elephant and the fleas had strongholds that they couldn’t get free from their confinements. Strongholds of limitation are created by continually coming into agreement with our experience and feelings. 

2 Corinthians 10:4 and 5 says, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”. 

This most quoted spiritual warfare passage in the Bible is not talking about regional demonic principalities (and please understand that I am not saying there's never a time to deal directly with the demonic), but this passage is talking about strongholds in our own thinking. The only command given here is to take thoughts captive. The highest level of spiritual warfare is to think higher than what we are feeling and experiencing. We have a plaque in our house that says don't believe everything you think. Recognize that those who just passively come into agreement with feelings and past experience are going to create self-limiting beliefs like the fleas and the elephant that I spoke about in the beginning. 

2 Corinthians 10:5 says, “We demolish arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive…” We are to demolish arguments. The greatest argument that has to be demolished is getting our beliefs from our past. We don't deny the past, we just don't get our beliefs from it. We don't deny it's been hard, we just don't call it hard. We don't deny that we had difficulty doing math, we just don't create an identity out of the difficulty and say we are not good at math because the moment we start doing that, then that's the moment we start putting a lid on our potential. 

Imagine the fleas jumping up and hitting the lid. I’m sure it was painful. They might have thought, “I don't like failure. I don't like pain.” They allowed their experience to create a belief system that put a unnecessary lid on their potential. 

Think about a toddler learning to walk. If the toddler determined its future from its past, it would never walk. If the toddler determined its future by the struggle it has when it starts trying to walk, it would conclude it’s definitely not a walker. It would say, “I’m not a walker. If I was a walker, it wouldn't be so difficult. I wouldn't be struggling so badly. It wouldn't be so hard. I wouldn't be falling down.” 

Just as we do with a toddler learning to walk, we celebrate the progress we're making. We celebrate our growth. Though we celebrate, we need to know that it's nothing compared to what it could be. Some of you right now are in a season of breaking barriers. Think about the  4-minute mile. They said it was impossible. They said nobody could run a mile in less than 4 minutes, and all the experts gave reasons to prove why it was physically impossible and then Roger Bannister did it in May 1954. Then within three years, 16 more people did it, and as of April 2021, 1663 athletes have broken the 4 minute mile barrier. Roger Bannister was a barrier- breaker. You’re a barrier-breaker. He did it. You're going to do it! 

I am fascinated by Highway 44, a road that runs between Redding, California, where I live, and Reno, Nevada which is east of Redding. There are fences along this road because it’s an open range for cattle (or cows) and these fences are there to try to keep the cattle in one area.  Previously they created cattle grids near the road so that the cows wouldn’t just walk onto the road and then go to the other side of the fence. These cattle grids had steel coming across gaps in between and if the cattle tried to get through they got stuck or hurt. Now, here’s what’s interesting on this road between Redding and Reno, there is a fence but instead of the actual steel grids on the road, there are just painted lines because they realized that there's such a stronghold (I’ll use that language) in the minds of the cows and bulls that they don't even need the real thing anymore. When the cows come up to that line, they see it and think “We can't go any further, that's the limitation. We're stuck here.” 

Well, you know what I'm believing? I'm believing one day there’s going to be one cow that’s going to say, “Hey! That's not real! That limitation, that limit of how far we can go, that thing is not real. Let's go for it!”  By the way, there are church leaders who are reading this right now, your church is that “cow”! Maybe you’re not a church leader but you’re reading this and getting fired up.There are no limits! Let’s go for it! 

Today, the Lord is blasting away any form of restriction we’ve been living under. If God wanted us to think small and to think with limitations He did a bad job in telling us so. Say with me, “I am a barrier breaker.” Now, say it again, “I am a barrier breaker.” Paul said in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things…” I can be whatever is needed. I can do it all. I will thrive no matter what happens. I am a barrier breaker. 

The man in Mark 9 comes to Jesus looking for help for his son who’s been throwing himself into the fire and into the water. He says to Jesus, “if you can do something…If you can, have mercy on us and help us” (Mark 9:22) and Jesus says “If I can do something. All things are possible to him who believes.” All things are possible. All things. And the man says, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.” What he was saying was, “I get it, but help me on this belief journey. Help me to not get my beliefs from the past. Help me to be a barrier breaker. Help me to believe at a high level.” 

We've got situations in our lives that may be challenging, and that may be draining at times. Maybe we're facing the same thing over and over again. Yes, we have to deal with those things, we have to ask the Lord, “What do you want me to do about this in this season?” But we also make sure we're focusing on our beliefs and that's what we do here at Igniting Hope Ministries. We are belief specialists. All of our resources ultimately focus on overcoming believing lies and on believing truth because it's the lies that restrict us. 

Jesus said in John 8:32, “The truth will make you free.” Truth makes us free first in our emotions: we get hope, we get all joy, and peace, and then we get free in our circumstances. We become a Roger Bannister and we begin to do what we never thought we could do. Lies restrict us. They restrict us in our emotions and then restrict us in our experience. We unwittingly do not experience what we could have experienced or what we could be experiencing. So we're here to help you. We're here to give you practical insight into the renewing of the mind. Romans 12:2 - “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” The renewing of the mind is not by osmosis, it's intentional. We don't just renew our minds by reading the Bible or going to church which is so helpful, but we renew our minds by saying, “I'm not believing this anymore, I'm believing this and I’m going to speak it out of my mouth.” 

Jesus took the lid off. Look at Romans 12:2 and be transformed by the renewal of your mind. There’s no limit to how much we can renew our minds so there’s no limit to how much we can be transformed.