The One Hidden Test You Must Pass Before Your Breakthrough

Summary

---

The Lance Wallnau Show

Episode: "The One Hidden Test You Must Pass Before Your Breakthrough"

Host: Dr. Lance Wallnau
Date: March 29, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this impactful episode of The Lance Wallnau Show, Lance explores a critical but seldom-discussed principle behind spiritual and personal breakthrough: the hidden test of enduring contradiction and faithfully serving in seasons and assignments that may not align with your passion or immediate desire. Drawing upon biblical examples (David, Joseph, Paul), real-world testimonies, and his own journey, Lance highlights how the process of serving in unexpected places and “jobs you don’t want” may actually be the doorway to possessing your true calling and favor from God. This episode is a must-listen for anyone grappling with discouragement, confusion about their calling, or the tension between passion and obedience.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Divine Appointments in the “Mundane” (00:00 - 02:30)

• Lance sets the stage, emphasizing that the Christian life is meant to be supernaturally empowered. Everyday life can be infused with God's activity and divine opportunities.
• “No Christian life should be short of God's supernatural touch. We should believe that all of life can be infused with divine appointments and the activity of God.” (A, 00:27)

2. The Prophetic Journey is Not Linear (02:30 - 04:15)

• Using the story of David, Lance explains that God rarely transitions us directly into our ultimate calling.
• Each phase (David as harpist, commander, fugitive, then king) equipped David with new skills and experiences.
• Key insight: Initial assignments may seem irrelevant, but they're preparation for future impact.

3. The “Unloved Assignments” Are Often Crucial (04:15 - 07:25)

• Lance shares a personal story about being disinvited from a governor's installation due to his controversial status, only to be invited years later after handling the offense graciously.
• “Had you been offended, had you spoken negatively, had you made a big stink over this, there would have been that problem with you coming back in. But because you handled it with grace, it's forgotten.” (A, 05:51)
• Lesson: Serving faithfully even when unappreciated or rejected is often a hidden test.

4. The Myth of “Follow Your Passion”—A Necessary Correction (07:25 - 07:59)

• Lance and his team challenge the modern maxim to always “follow your passion.”
• While passion is important, many parts of your journey will require doing things outside of your passion for higher preparation.
• “There's gonna be a lot of things you're gonna do that don't flip your switch and make you happy. There's a lot of things relative to your passion that you must do in order to do your passion absolutely well.” (A, 07:18)

5. Practicing Behind the Scenes: Real Life Application (07:27 - 07:59)

• Carl (C) shares as a musician: The discipline and practice he doesn't enjoy are essential to his passion for performing.
• “Even though my passion is the performing, I still have to be in the gym, so to say, learning my lines... There's a lot of effort that goes in, in the back that people don't see that ends up benefiting the performance.” (C, 07:33)

6. Enduring the Contradiction: The Hidden Test (08:01 - 09:27)

• B expands on the biblical theme of “enduring the contradiction,” referencing Peter, Joseph, and David enduring hardship or in-between assignments with obedience.
• “Sometimes when your life is no longer your own, you know, you were bought at a price. There are real seasons of obedience that we go through.” (B, 09:12)
• Serving in uncomfortable or seemingly irrelevant places molds character and cultivates true spiritual authority.

7. Obedience Over Comfort — Learning From Biblical and Historical Examples (09:27 - 11:22)

• Lance underscores obedience, even under difficult leadership or in roles unconnected to your long-term passion.
• Example: Wilberforce laid down his ambition to be Prime Minister to fight slavery, ultimately fulfilling his higher call.
• “He could have had his job. But Wilberforce got saved. And when he saw slavery, he said, you know what? I'm going to have to put aside my ambition to be the prime minister. I've got to eradicate this.” (A, 10:39)

8. Obedience Becomes Passion (11:23 - 11:41)

• Over time, purpose and obedience often mature into passion.
• “As you get older in the Lord, your purpose becomes your passion. Like fulfilling the God given role and assignment on my life is my passion. And sometimes those are things that I don't enjoy doing.” (B, 11:24)

9. The Secret of Divine Favor and Breakthrough (11:41 - 13:45)

• Lance describes experiencing the presence of God most tangibly while serving in places he hadn’t chosen, highlighting the joy found in obedience.
• Quote: “If any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am, there my servant will be also. Doesn't mean you're going to like it. It's where he wants you to go. And if you're obeying him, you'll go where he wants you to go, even if you don't like it. But then he said this. And if any man does serve me, him, my Father will honor—that word, honor, is the ultimate power of favor.” (A, 12:22)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Divine Preparation:
  “Your skills and abilities that ultimately go into what God called you to do, you don't have them fully developed when you…start the prophetic journey. But…wherever God puts you, you start to acquire certain skills.” (A, 01:32)

• On Handling Disappointment:
  “Because you handled [the rejection] with grace, it's forgotten. And I've reset the appointment, and now you're walking in the place that you need to be in.” (A, 05:52)

• On Serving Through Contradiction:
  “It's important that you endure contradictions in job, in work, in relationships. I mean, consider the boss that David had to work for…crazy Saul.” (A, 09:31)

• On Growing Passion Through Obedience:
  “Your purpose becomes your passion. Like fulfilling the God given role and assignment on my life is my passion.” (B, 11:23)

• On the Power of Divine Honor:
  “If you'll go where Jesus wants you to go, to do what Jesus wants you to do…my Father will honor—that word, honor, is the ultimate power of favor. The magnetic force of the universe will give you everything you need.” (A, 12:30)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 - Introduction to the theme: supernatural life and the challenge of occupying your calling
• 02:30 - David’s process: harpist, captain, fugitive, king
• 04:15 - Personal testimony: handling offense and delayed breakthrough
• 07:27 - Musician’s perspective on discipline vs. passion
• 08:01 - Enduring contradiction: biblical references and obedience
• 09:27 - Navigating difficult seasons, Wilberforce example
• 11:23 - Living purpose as passion
• 12:22 - Teaching on honor and divine favor
• 13:45 - Episode wrap-up and final call to “occupy” your calling

---

Conclusion

Dr. Lance Wallnau powerfully reframes the “hidden test” before spiritual breakthrough—not just persevering in your calling, but embracing assignments, seasons, and contradictions where you may not see the immediate relevance to your passion. Instead, these tests cultivate skills, humility, obedience, and position you for divine favor and lasting impact. The episode is a compelling call to serve with faithfulness, trust the process, and let your passion be reformed by higher purpose.

---

For more resources and notes on this teaching series, visit lancewallnau.com/occupy.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, welcome to the second episode on this series, which is kind of a powerful download I got at a Marketplace event. 90% of the folks that I know have to make a living unpacking the Bible and the supernatural into the mundane real world that they're in. And I'm telling you, no Christian life should be short of God's supernatural touch. We should believe that all of life can be infused with divine appointments and the activity of God. And one of the principles I want to talk about now in this series on occupying the gates, which is. Lancewallnut.com occupies where you get my notes and you can get this teaching is that you. Too often we focus on our passion. The last episode I was talking about how prophetically God will show you the future and you ought to be able to write out who you really are, even if other people laugh at it for you. You need to write it out. And. And I showed that little clip from Jim Carrey saying how even him, you know, as an unbeliever, sat on the hills of Mulholland Drive overlooking Hollywood and saying and confessing that he was a highly sought after entertainer and directors wanted to work with him in Hollywood. And he would have a million dollar check, and he wrote down a million, $10 million check and put it in his pocket till the day came when he actually got that $10 million check. And here's my point. Those principles work. What's sad is if they work for someone who doesn't know the Lord, how much more can we activate them if we know the Lord? But here's the other part I want to cover. You don't go directly into what you want to do. This is the mystery, the call of God. For David, for instance, would be that he would be king. But he's going to be first a harpist, a musical therapist for this for Saul. Then he's going to be a captain with a group of people in the army. Then he's going to become a fugitive, right, running from the king. And then eventually he becomes the king. The reason I say that is because. And you guys can chime in. If you think of an example of this is that your skills and abilities that ultimately go into what God called you to do, you don't have them fully developed when you get. When you start the prophetic journey. But what you do is you go into a process where wherever God puts you, you start to acquire certain skills. So my point that I made in the teaching is, in my case, you might say, like, for instance, I was in ministry, I Left business to go into ministry. And then I started getting involved with electoral politics and with media. And I didn't like it. I felt I had to do it because it was a prophetic statement about what God, I felt was doing in America. But I began to realize something. The fact that you don't like something doesn't mean God isn't calling you to do it. In fact, I think I'm beginning to remember a lot of testimonies of people who discovered the grace and gift of God in the very thing that they didn't wanna do. So the Bible examples of that which are prolific is Joseph is going to rule. He's going to be ruling in Egypt, but he didn't know Egyptian culture, Egyptian language. He had no knowledge of their mercantile system, of their government apparatus, of their economy, of their farming system. He was abducted and taken into a foreign place where he didn't know what in the world was going on. He was the ultimate victim. But somehow he kept himself in such a place with God that even in the presence of temptation, he resisted it because he had a sense of God. And God worked with him because the Bible says, and God was with Jesus. Joseph, what I'm saying is there are certain jobs you take, certain assignments you take, and your tendency will be to quit. Your tendency will be to walk out. I don't like this. This isn't for me. This is what I'm meant to do. And you might be messing up on the very acquisition of character, perseverance or skill or knowledge that eventually is going to be used in a different way to accomplish the greater things. Does that make sense?

[B]

Yeah. It makes me think too of Paul and Silas when they wanted to go to Asia to minister, but then the Holy Spirit prevented them and then they sent them to Macedonia. So I was thinking that's another pretty good reference there, just within the Bible. But how many times in our life, you know, I mean, even the writing, even writing your book, you know, it's like you're provoked for one reason to write something and then it turns out a totally different way. But how many times in life does that happen to you?

[A]

Listen, I told the story the other day. I don't think it's going to be too public now, but I got invited to go meet with a governor. And the funny thing is I heard this guy was a Christian when he went into office. And so I was really excited about it about eight years ago, seven years ago, and I went to his installation as governor. There was a service done at a church and Then he had the official, you know, moment of installation, right? And I was taken off the list of people invited to the event because I was. The question mark was, he sounds a bit like a controversial Trump Christian nationalist. And I remember how, Lance, you're off the list. You're not invited. I go, I'm not invited. I drove all the way out to the state. I went and celebrated this church service, and fortunately, I had to speak at a gig in that city. So I went and spoke, but I thought, they're having lunch right now with the governor. And I was disinvited. And it was like, it's a contradiction. But the reason I'm telling this story is because recently I was invited to lunch where that governor was, and the guy that took me off the list forgot who I was. I was on a questionable list years ago, and he came up to me to give me his business cards, his chief of staff, and said, I'd like to talk to you some more. I really was interested in the things you had to say. And the Lord took me back like a flash and said, had you been offended, had you spoken negatively, had you made a big stink over this, there would have been that problem with you coming back in. But because you handled it with grace, it's forgotten. And I've reset the appointment, and now you're walking in the place that you need to be in. So what I'm saying to you is, serve. When in doubt, serve. And that's what Joseph did. Wherever he got plot, plopped down, he just served. And he acquired the skills, the knowledge abilities, and he moved on to the next phase of his preparation. David played the harp, slay the giant, serve the king, run from the king, dodge the javelins, you know, and it was all part of the preparation process. And so at every phase, don't quit, and don't assume that what you're doing isn't relevant to your calling, because that's assuming that your path is what I'm afraid we might have taught years ago, which is follow your passion. Well, it's good advice. It's good advice, but there's gonna be a lot of things you're gonna do that don't flip your switch and make you happy. There's a lot of things relative to your passion that you must do in order to do your passion absolutely well. And I.

[B]

Would you want to say something, Carl?

[C]

I was just going to say, as a musician, like, I love performing, I love writing music. I love performing music with my bandmates, but if I don't do the due diligence of the practice, then my performance suffers. I don't like doing the practice part of it, but it's part of the performance element. So even though my passion is the performing, I still have to be in the gym, so to say, learning my lines. I have to remember what the different keys are that I'm playing in and know how to play those through. You know, like, there's a lot of effort that goes in, in the back that people don't see that ends up benefiting the performance. On the front end.

[B]

I was gonna. Can I chime in too?

[A]

Yeah, please.

[B]

Okay. But I was thinking kind of a little bit along the lines of what you were just sharing there, Lance, too, is this idea of enduring the contradiction, that sometimes, you know, when Jesus is reinstating Peter, you know, he says to him, you know, you know, do you love me? Yes, I love you, Lord. Of course you know, I love you. And then he says, okay, well, as a. When you were a child, you thought as a child, you act as a child, but when you become a man, you're gonna be led places you do not wanna go, that there are elements. And Lance, I know you could probably speak to this also. I mean, at times there are whole years that I have served the Lord in a place out of obedience to him because he said, no, don't go. It's not time to go yet. And I serve out of obedience to him until I have that release. I mean, I think about Joseph in the prison cell. It's like enduring that contradiction and saying, okay, I'm being obedient to the voice of the. I don't even really know why I'm here. And here I am interpreting dreams. Don't forget about me. They forget about em, you know, until later on, you know, years later. And so it's like this false accusation and like how you serve. And even David, the life of David, I mean, how many times did he try to serve Paul or Saul and do the right thing? And, you know, he was the victim of false accusation. So it's just. I just end up thinking like that is such a part of the Christian journey. And yes to what you're saying, yes to passion and yes to God puts those desires in your heart. But sometimes when your life is no longer your own, you know, you were bought at a price. There are real seasons of obedience that we go through.

[A]

And I just wanna stress the fact that for many of you that are on the path of occupying. This is lancewellett.com occupy we're talking about the occupation that God has for you in the future. We're talking about the space you're called to take. And the thing that I wanna underscore, cause I've been studying this for like 40 years, is that it's important that you endure contradictions in job, in work, in relationships. I mean, consider the boss that David had to work for. It's called Saul. I mean, crazy Saul. And it's like, well, why God did that? Well, Saul drove him out, but David didn't leave because he didn't like the boss. You really need to be led by the Lord in terms of what you say no to. The other thing I want to say is there are many assignments that come because the need is important. And so when you're serving to meet the need, God uses that beautiful motivation of meeting the need to direct your path. I think there are. There are stories that I've heard in my life. I'm trying to think of an illustration right now where people were doing what they really didn't really like doing. There are some people that actually started businesses who wanted to do ministry. And the business ended up prospering and flourishing. And they fund ministries and they have a bigger ministry because they didn't do the thing. Wilberforce is a historic example. He wanted to be prime minister since the day he was born. Him and William Pitt were best friends. Pitt went on to be prime minister. Pitt knew that Wilberforce was the more articulate, charismatic and witty one of the two of them. He could have had his job. But Wilberforce got saved. And when he saw slavery, he said, you know what? I'm going to have to put aside my ambition to be the prime minister. I've got to eradicate this. I'll do it as a member of Parliament and I'll give 50 years to this if I have to. But Wilberforce is remembered for eradicating slavery. William Pitt is remembered as a prime minister.

[C]

Pittsburgh. Yeah, go ahead.

[B]

I was going to say, it's almost like, I think as you get older in the Lord, your purpose becomes your passion. You know, like. Like fulfilling the God given role and assignment on my life is my passion. And sometimes those are things that I don't enjoy doing. And, and living in obedience to that is the great joy of my life ultimately.

[A]

And I'll tell you something, God, when you're doing the thing, like, I had to do this inner city teaching. I had to schedule it on a Saturday. There's only like 10 people in my class. It was really a challenge. But as I was teaching, I felt the presence of Jesus so much. It was an unusual moment. And I realized that as I do what he called me to do, even in a place that I didn't think he would show up, he showed up. And so Jesus is a great principle in being led. And here's where we're going to lay on the plane right here. If any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am, there my servant will be also. Doesn't mean you're going to like it. It's where he wants you to go. And if you're obeying him, you'll go where he wants you to go, even if you don't like it. But then he said this. And if any man does serve me, him, my Father will honor that word. Honor is the ultimate power of favor. The magnetic force of the universe will give you everything you need if you'll go where Jesus wants you to go, to do what Jesus wants you to do. Lancewallnow.com occupy and that's gonna be our new series on Occupy the Gates. I think it's probably one of the most powerful series I've ever done, taken live at a marketplace training that I was doing out in San Diego and we just captured it and I said, you know, there was something on that. I need to come back and share that with the people. And now we're making it available to you. We'll be back again with our next download when we come to the next episode. You're called to be someone who is the head and not the tail, above and not beneath whatever sphere of life you're in. You're called to be in that garden as the dominating spiritual force force in that realm. It all comes down to learning how to occupy the call of God in your life, how to make sense of where you are right now and what God's calling you to do within the sphere of your influence. Go to lancewellnow.com forward/occupy. The word of God will direct you step by step in occupying the inheritance he has for you.

[D]

Lancewellnow.com forward/occupose visit lancewallnow.com to access this powerful new resource. Step into your assignment, activate your influence and take ground where it matters most. The gates are open. Are you ready to occupy? Lancewallnow.com occupy did you enjoy this latest episode?

[A]

Please remember to share it with your friends because the more knowledge you have, the better equipped you are to navigate the world.