Everything in life is a process, a work in progress. Much as we would like instant – instant food, instant microwave popcorn, instant feedback etc. God does not work with instant. God works with process. He works in steps and processes towards a promise, a transformation process, a journey to a destination. Scripture tells us that the steps of a man are ordered by the Lord (Psalm 37:23) which means that God works in us step by step and not instant as we would like.
What process is God working in You?
Even Jesus went through a process before His ministry on earth started. In Luke 4:1-14, Jesus has just been baptised by John the Baptist, He is full of the Holy Spirit and God has just declared Him, His son. Now that same Spirit that blessed Him, leads Him into the wilderness to be tested. The testing process is not negative for Jesus, it is a process that needs to be completed in order to prepare Jesus to fulfil His earthly mission and complete promises that God has made to mankind. Jesus goes into the wilderness under the leadership of the Spirit, and comes out of the wilderness in the power of the Spirit.
God’s process comes before the fulfilment of a promise that God has prepared and the process will inevitably involve a wilderness of sorts.
Therefore, when we find ourselves undergoing a process under God’s hand, it is always a positive process because it has the fulfilment of a promise in mind. Ever felt that God has made you a promise and then “all hell breaks loose.”
This is your process in your wilderness.
God’s process is a time of:
- Testing – like the testing of your faith, or your obedience etc.
- Breaking – not the breaking of us, but the breaking of things in us. Like a prideful spirit, or a stubborn mindset.
- Shaping – a molding of our new person, a new creation in Christ. This could be the developing of a new mindset, a shaping of our relationships etc.
- Gratitude – in times when we are not in the wilderness we forget how blessed we actually are. Sometimes we need to go through a process of remembering and developing gratitude in our hearts.
Very often we want to escape God’s process, to get to the end of our wilderness experience.
We wish it away as we say “God I don’t want…” or “God do something…” or “When God will this end?” Process can be long and hard and often the wait for-the-process-to-end seems unbearable.
Process always has a promise in mind:- a seed for a future realisation of a promise. Nurture the seed, because the promise is in the seed (a small beginning).
You are the seed and in You is the potential that God is bringing forth in the process. God specializes in small beginnings (Zech 4:10) which lead to great harvests. You don’t know the future YOU, but He does. God works with what the world thinks is very little, or worth little, but in a seed, is the harvest of the future.
See yourself in seed form and do not consider the “You in process” to have no value in God’s eyes.
When we are in God’s process, it is easy to look to people for promotion, but God will provide the opportunity when the process is complete, not when we look for it. Look at David in 1 Sam 17:17-19, there he was doing what his earthly father wanted him to do, following instructions. This was his process. Not glamourous, but right where he was supposed to be. Part of his process was killing a lion and a bear, (1 Sam 17:34-36) all in preparation for his future promise – the fulfilment of his purpose. While out doing his day to day activity, God provides an opportunity to kill Goliath. He has been prepared in process for this opportunity.
Saul tries to give David his armor (1 Sam 17:38-40), but David chooses not to take the armor and identity of another person, but chooses to trust God’s process in him. We need to stick to God’s process in our lives, not try and embrace another person’s, to bring about the promises that God has for us.
But even in David’s life we seem him go through a process to come to a promise, to go through another process (being hunted by Saul) to become King (a promise) to go through another process of testing, to be able to finance God’s future temple that Solomon would build, to have his heart refined even further (process) to receive the promise of a Savior from His own line.
We are always going through a process on the way to a promise.
We are never finished, have never arrived, we are never perfect, we are continually being transformed into His image. Even when we opt out of a process, God puts us in a process of transformation. I have had to learn to accept God’s process in my life by focusing on the promises God has given me, which in valuing the seed in me has helped me to work with the process instead of against it.
“Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” (Romans 8:26-28 MSG)
Notice we are in a “pregnant condition” about to give birth to “something good” that God has processed in our lives to the smallest detail.
Learn to love your process.
What process are you in? It may help to consider the last few months of your life and reflect on what God has worked into your heart and mind from scripture. What changes have you made to your thinking and action?
What promises are you holding onto? If God always has a promise in mind at the end of a process, what promise have you entrusted to the Lord?
Thank God right now for the work He is doing in your life and His tender mercy as He works out your transformation into His image. Surrender yourself anew to the process of transformation in your life.
Father, thank you that Your word tells me that You yourself, who started the good work in me, will carry it through to completion in Christ Jesus. Thank you that You are not finished with me yet and that You never abandon the work in me. I know Lord, that my heart can be stubborn, my will unbendable and my mind corrupted, please forgive me. But like David I ask Lord that You examine me and see if there is anything in me that needs to be changed, renewed or transformed. I submit my life to You and the process that I am going through, trusting Your heart and character to bring out good in me.
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