Once you’ve received a revelation or a word from God, and believe your vision indeed lines up with God’s word for you, you have to be ready for an attack by the enemy. Whenever you get ready to act on what God has put in you, the enemy will always bring distractions.

Mark 4:14 says that immediately after the Word of God is sown, Satan comes. In other words, the moment you become pregnant with your vision or promise (you can see it, your perception has changed, and you have revelation), the enemy can’t wait to bring in a distraction. What kind of distraction? Any kind! Challenges at home, in the office, in your finances or personal life…anything that might divert your focus.

Distraction is meant to break your focus -- because people with a broken focus have a very difficult time succeeding in life, and succumb to failure more often. It isn’t mentioned in Matthew, but I would bet it was the enemy that distracted Peter from focusing on Jesus and his promise when he failed to walk to Jesus on the water. The devil probably shouted into his thoughts something like, “Are you crazy? What are you thinking? You’re not the Messiah, do you want to drown? Look at those waves!”

I would also bet you hear things like that whenever you try to move forward from difficult circumstances in your life. That’s because the devil wants nothing more than to keep you off-track, off-course, caught up in drama, in a prison of tangled life-matters.

Whatever your distraction is will be your “storm.” But it is important for you to know that there is a reason for your storm. Your storm is going to mature you, stretch you, and strengthen you…and if you ground yourself in God’s promise, your storm will eventually pass.

In Hebrews 6:12, we are told that God’s promises are inherited through faith and patience. Now, if your faith is the problem, you only need to take time daily to fill yourself with God’s Word and ask the Holy Spirit to do a work in your heart, and your faith will bloom.

But maybe your faith isn’t the problem – you’re already strong in the knowledge that faith comes by the Word of God (Romans 10:17) and produces a vision. And you’re also strong in your belief that once God gives you a vision and deposits it in your spirit, you know God is faithful.

The fact is, often the challenge is not in the faith: the challenge is in the patience. But James 1:2-4 declares:

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

Hebrews 10:36 also tells us: "For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." Romans 5:3-4 further explains: “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.”

Romans 8:28 also tells us that what the enemy has meant for bad, God is turning around to use for good. The same storm the enemy sends to distract and destroy you is the storm God will use to develop patience in your life so you can inherit the promise!

“But Paula,” you might be saying, “How much is enough? How much ‘storm’ do I have to deal with? How can I get a handle on my vision when everything around me is in total chaos?”

The fact is, Jesus is our Healer…and wholeness in our life is one promise of our inheritance in Him. But sometimes God is doing another kind of work in your situation…because He wants to give you more than what might be considered “visible” wholeness in the “natural” – or, in your daily life circumstances – just so you can live more “comfortably.” Sometimes God wants to stretch you until you’ve developed such a spirit of trust in Him, that you’re even willing to look foolish while you shout your prayer, “Lord, glorify Yourself in this broken body…in my broken finances…in my broken marriage! Let the world worship You for Your power to heal and put to shame those who mock Your promises!” I believe God finds such self-abandoning faith and focus on Jesus irresistible.

Also, as Psalm 46:1 tells us: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” You will find the power of God in your time of trouble. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 we are told, “…for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” In your weakness, His strength is made perfect! And you’ll know you’ve acquired a true “spirit of patience” when the focus of your soul is transformed from self-preservation and personal peace to Christ glorification and kingdom peace.

There is a purpose for the storm in your life…trust God, and let Him use that storm to build your patience and endurance!