Destructive and defeating cycles are ugly.  They create wounds of hopelessness and eat away time, delaying beautiful progress and victory in Jesus.  The Holy Spirit has helped me both discover their miserable presence in my own life and have also seen others blinded to them in their lives.  Someone i was thinking of, as I began writing this, struggled for so long in his personal cycle, but recognized and chose the greatest way of escape from it… 

The man at the pool of Bethesda was always waiting for and trying to receive his healing by the same approach he had taken all his life.  He surely exhausted himself by doing the same thing over and over with no victory, in which persistence is a vital thing as a believer, but this was not in the name of and guidance of Jesus.  The man was trying to make a change in his own strength, reasoning and way.  

What a joyful and saving encounter was his, though, when my Jesus comes forth as the light in the man’s life and offers him a way to permanent freedom from this hinderance in his life!  The man believes Jesus and takes an exit path out of the dizzying circle of unchanged conditions!  In Jesus Name!  He hears the living Word of God (in the flesh!) believes it, and applies it to his life…

Jesus said to him, “Stand up! Pick up your sleeping mat and walk!” Immediately he stood up–he was healed! So he picked up his mat and walked! ~John 5:8-9

Jesus told the man that healing was his and that a new way, by the Lord’s guidance, was required for a forward-moving change.

Holy Spirit visually presents to me these escapes, from repetitive cycles, as like diverging paths, a trail branching off the walking path that gets a person lost, and like finding the exit out of a circling maze. It always requires inviting God into the areas of struggle, and choosing to trust Him and allowing Him guidance to show the way to the clearing.

One of several examples from my life, of God guiding me out of a cycle, involves overthrowing a lie and changing mindsets in relation to my interactions with God, having been shaped by past views and experiences.  For years I had been treating God like He wasn’t hearing or listening to me and I accused Him of it often.  This is quite a defeating lie for a believer and a workable place for the Satan to steal, kill, and destroy! 

Finally, I grew to a place where, one day I heard the Lord say, “Don’t you believe that I have heard you?”  He spoke it in such a gentle and effective way, despite how i had spoken to Him, which is His amazing nature.  I was presented with the truth that would set me free and lead me out of a defeating cycle, if I believed it.  He had heard me and His way out for me was to speak in faith and thankfulness, not in unbelief and accuation to be heard! My reassurance comes from Jesus’s personal communication with me and also from several different places in God’s Word…

You will answer me, God; I know You always will. Hear my words like you always do, as You listen to my every prayer ~Psalm 17:6 (Passion)

   I quickly changed my words and spoke in thankfulness that my God does hear me and thanked Him, in faith, for what He is doing in my life even before I’ve seen all of it manifest visibly.  And I have done so since and remain free to this day from the original lie and am experiencing victories of answered prayer and a more harmonious relationship with my God, in Jesus Name!

In this personal example of mine, escape and guidance took the form of believing God’s Word and revelations. It was so also for the the formally crippled man mentioned earlier. So a conclusion can definitely be made that one way out of old cycles is to believe God’s Word and personal revelations despite how things seem or feel. God’s solutions are specific to the need and are ALWAYS reliable! There is no circumstance or nothing that God doesn’t have a way of escape for! He always provides His loved ones (those who recieve and believe in Him) ways of escape to further freedom in Him, especially when we choose to let God guide us to the clearing of our situations and areas of our lives! Thank God!