Process

“Consider it all joy my brethren, when you encounter various trails,

knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”

James 1:2-3

*First of all I don’t expect this to make any sense to anyone who reads it and it’s really more for me.

Just thought I’d put this at the beginning as a little disclaimer.

It’s amazing and often times humbling to see God do what He does in my life. I look back over specific things and am just awestruck at how and why He did the things He has done in my life. Usually my relationship with God is going well and that has been especially true for the last couple of months. I honestly can say I’ve never sought the Lord more and walked closer to him than I have over this period of time. It’s been an incredible blessing to see Him answer prayer after prayer in ways I never thought He would. I think that’s why the last week has been one of the most strenuous and emotional draining one’s that I can remember. At first I was quite angry with God and I let Him know it. For me it wasn’t fair that I was having to do things this way at all and that it was completely His fault for allowing things to go this way. Looking back I see how ignorant and short sighted that was but it’s what I needed Him to know at that point. I wanted Him to hear “my piece” and I couldn’t help but feel like Job. Nothing in my circumstances even remotely resembled why Job was crying out to God but my heart cry felt just as justified in my own mind as Job’s did. I also fully understood that God could give me a verbal lashing as He did Job but I was ready for that and perhaps even wanted that just to know that He knew how much I was torn up on the inside over everything. I desired for Him to acknowledge the struggle I was going through and to comfort me even if it meant being beaten up by His word. While I was beaten up a little by His word throughout the past week and last couple of days I saw more of His comforter side through His word. I had already faced this scripture before but it was at a time where I was not currently going through a struggle in my life so it was all head knowledge that I so loathe. I now know what it is for this to hit my heart and to live it out which has been one of the many blessings He’s shown me through this particular trial. It’s actually hit me in the heart and now I can actually apply this scripture to my situation and look up to the Father and say “Ok God. I know you have me in this for a reason. I’m not asking you to get me out of it and I’m not even asking you to speed this up but rather what do you want me to get out of this?”. It took me a little bit to get to this point but I feel I’ve finally reached it and it feels amazingly joyful. I’m still not happy with it and I still don’t want to do it this way but I’ve found joy in it as James talks about in the verses above. Joy is not happiness in the Biblical sense but rather it’s that we as Christians know God has neither lost interest nor forgotten about the problem’s I’m going through even if I don’t necessarily feel happy. I know my God does care and that He is bringing me through this to teach me and show me things in my life which is bringing me closer to Him. It’s not something that happens overnight or quickly by any means but it’s a place we all have to reach during the period of time we face these obstacles.

This is a time that God has allowed to happen and my heart’s desire is to get out what He desires for me to get out of it. It’s not what I want to do nor the way I want to do it, but it’s something that God is using to bring me closer to Him. That’s the very definition of a blessing! It’s crazy how we as Christian’s and people in general are always looking forward to the next thing in life, whatever it may be, when the Lord is telling us to rather focus on what’s currently going on and use it to grow closer to Him. His desire for us is to be Holy and to not miss what He’s doing in the process! We are so used to asking the Lord, during these times, why I’m here and how the heck do I get out instead of focusing on what He wants us to get out of being in that spot to begin with! The process of the Lord leading us through things is so crucial to the entire story God is telling but most of the time we want to skip over that part so we can be comfortable. God never came to this world to make you comfortable or happy all the time. He came to build you into the person He desires you to be and these processes, as much as I can’t stand them and as much as the infuriate me, are exactly what we need to be used by Him. 

The Helper

“But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.”

John 16:7

Jesus’ words about the Holy Spirit here should excite us like no other scripture. Do you understand what Jesus is saying with these words? Jesus is telling his disciples “it’s better for you as disciples to have the Holy Spirit living inside of you than for Me to be walking through life by your side.” I think as Christians, at least for this Christian, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that He’s wrong in this statement. I mean if I had Jesus literally walking with me and encouraging me and teaching me then life would be so much easier right? Jesus says otherwise and I think we need to live as if that is in fact true in our lives! It is something however we all need to work on and is an emotional thing.

Jesus has always understood the emotional aspect of what the disciples were doing. When Jesus called to Peter and Andrew while they were fishing and said to them “Follow Me” He understood the emotional toll that put on them. He also understood they wouldn’t be able to get through this journey without having Himself set the example first. See Jesus was very clear when He said “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men” that they wouldn’t be able to be fishers of men without Him. He’s the reason they became fishers of men and He didn’t expect them to become that without help from Him. It wasn’t in what they could or couldn’t do but rather what Christ could do through them and their surrendered hearts.

 Flip ahead a little bit to when the disciples had just seen Jesus crucified. Through the crucifixion they got a pretty graphic picture of what preaching the words of Jesus can do to your life. They understood that the road was a scary one that perhaps would not end in a happy or pleasant way. For a short period of time they also got to see what this journey was like without Jesus walking by their side. I mean when Jesus is resurrected we see Peter go back to fishing because it’s what he knew. He was scared and went back to His life before Jesus.  I think Jesus understood these feelings better than anyone and I think the perfect picture of His understanding is in Acts right before He is leaving to go back to the Father.

“Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father has promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard from Me;”

Acts 1:4

Jesus was telling them “Listen I want you to completely change the world, and you guys are going to flip it upside down but I want you to see you can’t do that on your own and I don’t want you to do it alone.”

Is that how you view the Holy Spirit is?

So they stay where they are and are waiting for this amazing gift from God. They are waiting for something big and supernatural to happen to indicate that the Holy Spirit has arrived. God did not disappoint either. What’s described here is one of those OMG moments. Not just for the disciples but scripture says that even the people in the town heard the noise and realized they need to check out what was going on. A giant rushing wind sound fills the room appearing like tongues of fire to the disciples and it landed on each of them and then they started speaking other languages and could communicate with people they never could before. Something crazy just happened. Can you imagine trying to explain that to someone? It blows my mind when I think if I were one of the disciples standing in that room just waiting and waiting for the Holy Spirit and then chaos ensues. A sense of awe and amazement falls over them and that’s the idea that we should get when we think about the Holy Spirit that is inside of each one of us. Awe and amazement over how powerful Jesus says the Holy Spirit is. God wanted the disciples to know they had the Holy Spirit but not only that He wanted them to know it was a big deal. It not only was to the disciples though but it was also amazing and powerful to the people in verse 7 that came to see what was going on. The words like amazed and astonished are used for the spectators that are hearing these men talk in a language that they understood even though they never had spoken it before. I don’t know about you guys but I’ve tried to learn Spanish and I’ve found it pretty difficult in the 2 years I took in Highschool and remember barely anything from it. These men picked up entire languages in a mere second. This blows Rosetta Stone out of the water.

The Holy Spirit is something that sometimes I don’t think we even think about on a daily basis. People who received the Holy Spirit in that time understood the immense Power that came with the Holy Spirit and that same Holy Spirit lives inside each of us. Part of the problem with us as Christians when it relates to the Holy Spirit is we don’t understand just how powerful and amazing the Holy Spirit is. That needs to change we need to realize that relying on the Holy Spirit in our life is better than Jesus actually walking beside us in our daily life.

If we view it as something small and useless it will have no impact in our lives but if we view the Holy Spirit through the eyes of the Disciples and Jesus then we realize exactly what 1^st John 4:4 is saying. “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world”. When we put the Holy Spirit in the place that is deserves and attribute the power that He deserves than following Jesus will be easier. We should realize that God never expected His disciples to do this walk without Him and He doesn’t expect you or I to do it on our own. He’s given us the Holy Spirit to rely on during this walk with Him. The question is how big do you think the Holy Spirit is? Is He like the disciples say He is or is He what Jesus says He is? Are you ready to rely on the power that is in the Spirit in your life to overcome the problems and difficulties you face?