A word that came to me so strongly yesterday was Process. We all have to go through the processes of life but sometimes we get too impatient, tired, bored that we want to jump out and take some short-cuts. The world is full of these steps or processes from simple recipes to complicated software configuration of systems. Whichever the case, there are always steps one has to follow to get the finished perfect product. Ask anyone who has ever worked in a factory for making parts or putting together certain products, each ingredient or part has got to go through the full process in order to get a perfect product at the end. Perfectly completed products make it to the shop floor, perfectly completed products attract the full market value, perfectly completed products create a good reputation and value for the seller. It may take time and definitely requires a lot of patience to allow one to be walked through the various and often monotonous steps of the process but enduring the full process ensures that you get the desired required result.
Why am I going on about this? As a mortgage broker, I often come across individuals who will do just about anything hook or crook to attain the property they desire. There are certain rules and processes in place to protect every party involved and ensure the ability to maintain the payments and keep a home over a family’s head which is the intended intention. I’m sure medics struggle with patients like myself many a time who when given a course of antibiotics and are told to take it 3 times a day but they resist or do not do it, fail to recover properly or even cause issues long term that may not be seen instantly but that will show out in not so long a time. So often you come across people who decide to jump the process and may very well get to the next stage but I tell you the implications of jumping the process will still come often at a higher more painful level when you do not allow yourself to get processed accordingly at the right stage.
When gold or silver is purified it is smelted at very high temperatures, it takes time but after undergoing the full process it comes out perfect attracting the full market value. When a builder is building a house, there are steps and stages to ensure that a strong grounded beautiful house is erected and if short cuts are taken along the way, this shows in the quality of the work.
Our lives are a little bit like that where the various trials and tests we face are aimed at building our characters. Characters are one of the hardest things for us to allow to be refined, moulded until we are at that much better place where we can be used effectively in a place. It is always so painful and embarrassing when you see great leaders falling at a time and place where many people are looking to them and this causes such great disappointment and chaos below. When we jump out of the process before time we become that reject material that did not stand the test and this begins to show with time that we are not the real deal. The greatest armies follow a regimental process of training, discipline and methodologies so that they can operate with precision and excellence. When the moment of reckoning is faced during a war, those who were fully prepared and went through the whole training process will show.
So I want to encourage someone who is in the fire right now, someone whose very existence seems to be threatened by a tough manager, hardships in your ministry, demanding wife or husband, challenging children, that degree course that is getting too hard to endure the process. Expand your view and get the mentors you need to help you stay in that heat and learn the lessons you need to learn. You are not alone, God is with you. Do not be quick to jump out because it feels too tough. Ask Jesus who felt like quitting when he was faced with death on the cross but was wise enough to ask God and say, please take this cup of suffering from me but not my will but yours be done. Are you brave enough to say the same prayer? Jesus came out from the tomb with the full Glory, Victorious with the name above all name. If it is Gods will for you to be in the process you are undergoing, you are going through the pruning stage that will enable you to bear more fruit..stay till the end of the processing line and you will come out as pure as gold able to endure anything and obtain the full market value for your finished product.
Do not skip the processing!