When we trust God’s process in suffering, the beautiful result is being made fit for the Kingdom of God where we will spend eternity with Jesus.
How many of you have read the Old Testament account of the Israelites and their time in the desert and wondered, “What’s their problem? Can’t they see that God has rescued them from slavery under Pharaoh through Moses? Why do they keep complaining and want to go back to being slaves?” I certainly have… In fairness to the Israelites, though, I’m sure their vision of the promised land did not involve wandering in the desert for 40 years or only eating manna. I imagine they were expecting to be ushered into the promised land quickly and not experience more hardship in the desert for 40 years! However, the fact remains that God did rescue the Israelites from terrible oppression under Pharoah. He also raised Moses up to bring them to the promised land, but because they did not obey God’s laws, the Lord made them wander in the desert for 40 years until that unfaithful generation died.
If we are being honest with ourselves, can we really sit in judgment of the Israelites' response in the desert when we may actually be doing the same thing? How often do we complain to God when life doesn’t go the way we want it to? How many of us ignore God’s promises and instead believe our circumstances have the final say in the matter?
Last week, through His Word, the Lord convicted me of the importance of trusting His process and how I have failed to do so in the past. Well, I was tested just this weekend...
On Saturday, our church had its Fall Women’s Potluck Event. The women of the church asked me to speak at the event. For those of you in ministry, you know that we can face trials when serving in ministry. Satan loves to throw roadblocks up in an attempt to derail our service, but we persevere. I remember thinking, "Gee, nothing has come up to dissuade me from serving at the women’s event." (I could tell you stories of things that have come up where it was only through God’s strength that I was able to carry on in the ministry task at hand.) I also don’t want to be misunderstood that I am looking for the “devil behind every bush,” it was more an observation I made, not a fatalistic approach to ministry. The women and I had a wonderful evening of fellowship. I praised God for a blessed evening, giving Him all the glory.
The next day, I planned a special birthday celebration for my grandson doing all his favorite things, one of which was going miniature golfing. Although it was a little like “herding cats” with a 9-year-old and then my 6-year-old grandson hitting grand slams where the ball went flying rather than gently putting towards the hole, fun was had by all. My “test” came when we only had two more holes to go… As I was walking, the sun was in my eyes and I didn’t see the step. The next thing I knew, my ankle and foot were twisting and I was trying very hard not to fall forward and instead landed on my tailbone. As I began to walk again, it became apparent that my ankle and foot were very unhappy. In all my 60-some-odd years, I have never twisted my ankle.
It’s definitely swollen and actually throbbing as I sit here typing, but I am ashamed to say that the first thoughts that came to me were, “Apparently I didn’t go without being tested for the ministry event, it happened the next day!” Even just saying that out loud I see how ridiculous my statement was. I did find myself thinking, “Why God? You know I finally came out of a season of one ministry event after the other. I was finally going to get a little respite and enjoy this beautiful “Indian summer” we are having in New England, and now I can’t because it’s hard to walk.”
Do you see anything familiar in my statements? Why, I could’ve joined right in with the Israelites and their complaining!
“But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?” Romans 9:20a
God’s Sovereign will is His process. Although I don’t know the duration of my injury, I know that God has a plan and a purpose for it. If you have been in a season of waiting, God has a plan and a purpose for that. If you are in a time of trials and tribulations, God has a plan and a purpose for them.
I’m sure you’ve heard someone say, “You’ve got to trust the process” when you are endeavoring on a project that might look messy or chaotic in the beginning, but in the end, it comes out beautiful.
Let's look at how we can trust God’s process to produce something beautiful even though everything seems messy:
The Father’s Love
Something I think we can lose sight of too easily is that God is our Father. I don’t know if it’s because some might have had difficult relationships with their fathers here on earth or didn’t have a father at all or had an abusive father, but in talking to women over the years, it seems that this can be the hardest way to relate to God. Yet, I’m sure whether it is through our own dad's love or having someone who is a loving father figure in our life, we know that we can trust them and that they will protect us at all costs. How much more can we trust our Heavenly Father and know that He will be our refuge and strength? He has promised us these things.
"See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are." 1 John 3:1
Even when we are in a season of discipline, it actually shows us how much our Heavenly Father loves us. Those trials that may be a result of the consequences of sin are God’s loving hand guiding us back to Him. Proverbs 3:11-12 says, "My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in."
Years ago, I remember reading an analogy that went something like this: “A little girl was a passenger on a plane. They were hitting quite a bit of turbulence and it seemed that the plane might crash. Another passenger said to the little girl, 'Why don’t you seem afraid?' The little girl responded, 'I don’t need to be afraid, my dad is the pilot.'”
No matter what you are going through, no matter how messy the situation, you can have that same childlike innocent faith in knowing that you don’t need to be anxious or frustrated or complain about your circumstances because you know that you are God’s precious child. He is sitting on the throne and in control of all things. Nothing that touches you has not first gone through His Sovereign hand. You can trust God’s process and ride it out.
"Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10
Don’t Look Back
Too often we can be like the Israelites and look back at where we came from even if it was not a good situation. In doing so, it creates discontent like it did for the Israelites. Worse yet, like them, we might try to take things into our own hands, altering God’s process to make it our own process. This was the mistake the Israelites made and why that generation didn’t see the promised land.
The story of Lot’s wife testifies to the problem of looking back at what was and not trusting God’s process:
“With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, 'Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.' When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, 'Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!' ... By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt." Genesis 19:16-17; 24-26
The way to trust God’s process when life gets messy is to “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:18-19).
It’s All About Perspective
When life gets messy and hard, we really do need to put our eternal specs on. We need to step out of our discomfort, anxiety, frustration, and complaints and look at the eternal picture.
The first place we need to go is prayer, asking God to open our eyes to His process regarding our situation. Second, we need to go to God’s Word and recall God’s faithfulness and His promises. Third, we must believe for ourselves what we are seeking and what we are reading.
Once we are viewing our situation with an eternal perspective, all the areas of sin we were participating in earlier, such as complaining about our situation, will be put back in their proper place.
Hebrews 5:8 says, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” God’s process required suffering even for the Son of God, and not only that, He learned obedience through that suffering. If the Son of Man who was perfect was called to suffer to learn obedience, how much more will we learn obedience through suffering? This is what it means to be sanctified.
When we trust God’s process in suffering, the beautiful result is being made fit for the Kingdom of God where we will spend eternity with Jesus.
We can trust God’s process when we remember the Father’s love, never look back, and have an eternal perspective.
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