Trust the Process

This is the phrase the Holy Spirit has been repeatedly whispering to me since the 4th of July. You see, I had a little personal Independence Day. On that day, God gave me freedom from the opinions and perceptions of others. He gave me freedom from worry and doubt about not being able to figure out where He is leading me and how to make the results happen. I came to a crucial crossroads where I could no longer distance myself from Him and ignore His incessant calling. He had been asking me for months if I really meant it when I said I am All In?

And the peaceful, beautiful assurance that He has been laying down as the bedrock underneath all of these questions is the three words above. You see, I can trust the process of what He's doing in me, because I can trust the One doing the doing.

So I dove in.

As prompted by His Spirit, I sent a message to about 20 ladies that I know their walk and I trust their talk. What He wanted me to ask them was if they would join me at 7 a.m. each weekday for prayer. I was nervous to be "out there", committing myself to a radical change in my normal morning routine...but I have also become grievously aware of my pitiful prayer life. And as God keeps reminding me to be obedient in the small things and let Him take care of the big things, I just tried to remember to "trust the process" of what He's doing in me.

In the message, I stated twice to these ladies, 'I don't know what He's doing, but He's doing something.' And I don't want to miss it. I repeated this sentiment in my friend's kitchen as we discussed her upcoming chemo treatments and talked over plans of the small group we'll be joining together this fall. I sat weepy in the first of a four week sermon series that our church is doing discussing the Holy Spirit and how to be "Wide Awake" in Him. The worship leader and venue host (we have a video feed for the sermon) both echoed my heart's cry with words like '" don't know what He's doing," "You've been lighting little fires and we're ready for You to set us ablaze," and "I don't want to be on the sidelines".

Excitedly that evening, I shared all of this with Dale and ended with this apology: 'I don't ever want to embarrass you, but I'm ready to be a fool for Jesus.' When my husband solemnly looked at me and sincerely assured me that I would never embarrass him, that was the last green light I needed to "Go!"

Because of the freedom from perceptions of others that God has just given me, I intentionally did not check for any responses to my plea to pray with other believers until Sunday night. I honestly didn't know what to expect and in learning to "trust the process", could confidently leave the "results" up to the Spirit who simply asked me to obey His call to pray fervently and faithfully. 

But there's always a reason, isn't there?

So my beautiful friend Kari joined me yesterday and it was a big step for us both. I am thankful for a God who puts just the right person, at just the right time in our lives. If you don't already know this...you were made for community and relationship with other believers. If you don't have this...ask God's Spirit to lead you to it.

Kari and I had some time to chat after our Bible study that immediately followed this time of prayer, and I shared with her all of the above and again this refrain that I am convinced He is singing over my heart: Trust the process.

Just in case I wasn't "getting" it though, I read this today in my Draw the Circle prayer challenge by Mark Batterson:

"We tend to view the goal as the goal, but in God's economy, the process is the goal. It's not about what we're doing at all; it's about who we're becoming in the process." [Yes, I underlined the word process, just in case you missed it.]

Do you hear Him? Do you know Him? Do you long to become the person you were created by Him to be, with the ability to dump all of the cultural context, background baggage and frustrating flailing at trying to figure it all out?

Then trust the process and step by step the bondage, the pain, the self-derision for imperfection and the burden for results will fall away like the flaky skin of a bad sunburn.

There's brand new baby skin under there...all pink and shiny and perfect, glowing and bright and ready to protect you from the environmental forces that are attacking you daily trying to pollute you and keep you from the full life you were intended to live...no, purposed to live.

Trust the process. It may be inconvenient, sometimes unsightly and maybe even a little irritatingly itchy. He never promised that putting on your new skin would be easy...He just promised that the final result would be perfect!