Isaiah 55:8-9 KJV
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
[9] For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Brethren, it’s indeed so wonderful to dwell in the presence of the Lord, there’s no place we’ll rather be. Today, we looked at ‘the way of God’ and we know from the scriptures that the way of God is far from that of a natural man. It’s only natural that 2+2 should give you 4 and that’s the way that man reasons. We try to make things work by reasoning, using head knowledge and working with natural laws, but if we try to study how God works, we’ll see that indeed, the way of God is higher than the ways of man. Man can be carried away by the ‘moment’, but God looks beyond the ‘now’, into the future; he knows which way is best because he knows the end result of every step.
The Process Matters
Psalm 37:23-The steps of the righteous are ordered by God.
Proverbs 16:9 NIV
In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.
Steps connote process. God truly desires to give us an expected end, but God is not only interested in the end result, the process also matters. There is a way that God has predetermined for every man and you must go through that process in order to be tested and purified.
We see how God dealt with Abraham after all the promises he made to him; God told Abraham to count the stars (the number of the stars are the number of his children), yet God gave Isaac to Abraham in his old age, saying that his covenant was with Isaac. This same God told Abraham the future of his son, Isaac in the next 400 years that his children would sojourn in a strange land, see. God simply told Abraham that his children would sojourn in a strange land, he didn’t tell him every part of the process. God knew where he was taking his children, and that was to the promised land. But God had to take them through Egypt, a strange land, in order to train them, after which he would bring them out of that strange land to a promised land.
If you pay close attention, that Promised Land was a land that Abraham had been in; it was the land that God told Abraham to leave his father’s house for, a land supposedly flowing with milk and honey, a desert.
Every phase in your life as a child of God is a process. God is not moved by the moment, he looks beyond the peripheral because he sees the end of a thing from its very beginning. Do not think that because you know where God is taking you or because you know what he has for you, then you can get an immediate response from him. You cannot get the goal because you desire it; just because you see it, doesn’t mean it will happen ‘now’- it doesn’t change the process. God is not moved by your present situation.
That you know where you’re going doesn’t mean you will get there; if you breach the process, you cannot get the desired result. Many of us think that because you’re hungry ‘now’ means that God should provide ‘now’ but that’s just simply your calculation, that still doesn’t cancel the process of God.
There is blessedness in affliction brethren; all the while that the children of Israel were going through the process of God, they had their terrible times. Within the process of God, there are times that you will be squeezed. At some point, you might just want to give up on God; you think because you’ve been praying about a situation, there’s no need praying again. Truth is, God is not moved by your emotions, nor by your present situation. Therefore, do not make a permanent decision because of a temporary problem.
If you don’t understand the way of God, you cannot get anything from God.
Trust the Process
Cease to choose circumstances over the Word of God. If you make a permanent decision because of a temporary problem, you will not get to the goal; if a moment of agony makes you draw a conclusion on life, you cannot go far with God.
First, ask yourself “When you came to Christ, what was your motive?”
Learn to ask yourself questions. The quality of questions you ask yourself, the quality of challenge you throw to yourself, determines the quality of life you live.
God wasn’t taking the children of Israel through that process because they had sinned or because he wanted to punish them, but because they had to be tested and purified. God could choose to make us pass through the process of justification, sanctification and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit on the same day and then we’re raptured, but there is a process that God has designed that we must pass through to be purified and all he asks is that we trust the process. Most of the time, what God has promised you doesn’t even seem like it and that pushes you to believe circumstances over the Word of God, but it shouldn’t be.
Take a look at Peter. He had stayed all night trying to catch fishes, using the normal methods which are reasonable, scientifically tested and proven theories that should work, but it failed. Then Jesus came on the scene, one who supposedly had no knowledge on how to fish, and said, ‘cast your net on the right side’ (against the protocol for fishing) and Peter got the result. Peter said, ‘At thy Word’- not because I know it, but because you said it and I trust you. God simply wants us to exhibit faith even when it doesn’t appeal to reasoning.
Abraham chose to believe God over what his eyes could see. Abraham saw a desert but God saw a land flowing with milk and honey and Abraham chose that way- the way of God. The way of God is not the way you reason. Most of the time, the way of God is not exciting to the flesh- when your flesh is excited about a certain thing, you need to check it with a spiritual thermometer, it is not always God’s. God is not in a general opinion!
As Christians, we need to avert our attention from the world and stop letting people tell us the kind of life to live- how to dress, how to be relevant, what is trending, what we need to do to get a desired result, etc.
You are not of the world and the things that work for the people of the world cannot work for you because you are of a different frame. Many of us try to conform to the world for complex reasons but the sooner we realize that we are oddballs, the easier. We’re talking about what happens in the kingdom. You don’t begin to study how things work for the people of the world and use that as a standard for yourself; what they do to succeed, you will fail while doing. We do not operate on the same level as unbelievers.
When God called the children of Israel out of Egypt, he gave them law. Do you know that the children of Israel were not the only people living in the world at the time? But God gave them a law to guide them, because he was about to take them through a process. God told the children of Israel his mind, because he wanted a people for himself. The law which the children of Israel operated by, was different from that of other nations, different from what men had coined out, because they were a chosen nation.
God dealt with the children of Israel differently and right from the time of Moses, God ruled them through his prophets. But at some point, the children of Israel got tired and requested for a king like the other nations (1 Samuel 8:5) because they began to mix with the other nations and wanted to be like them. They had forgotten that they were a different people and so they rejected God. If you read further, in verses 10-18, God in his mercy, was still trying to show them the end result of their decision but because sin is a sugar-coated bitter kola and they were only moved by the glamour of that moment, they disobeyed God.
Brethren, let us not get to the point where we will get frustrated in the process God is taking us through, such that we will not get to the destination.
Don’t rush the process- Failing effectively
We’re quick to condemn the children of Israel when we hear the story of their ingratitude despite the countless miracles that they had witnessed, but the truth is we shouldn’t be quick to condemn them. When God sent Moses to the children of Israel, God didn’t deliver to them the process, Moses didn’t tell them that they were going to go that long, didn’t tell them they had to pass through the wilderness…all he told them was that they were going to a promised land. Eventually, they had to spend 40 years on a journey that could have simply taken about 30 days, all because God wanted a purified nation.
Within the process of God, there are certain things that we must go through and that is the reason why we need to learn how to fail effectively and what to do with failure.
If you think that all your life, it’s going to be a success all through, you’ve been deceived- you are sure to fall at some point. There is a purpose to why you were born, and every time you go on doing trial and errors to see which works, you keep wasting time.
Another question you’ll need to ask is “Why are you here on earth? What is your purpose?”
It is in that purpose that God will meet with you. You need to know that you cannot do everything; you cannot be everything.
You can delay your stay. When the children of Israel kept making mistakes through the process, they delayed their glory because in life’s process, if you skip any step, you will come back to it.
If you do not start now, you’re delaying the goal. It’s never too late to start; never too late to determine to serve God. Every time you make a decision, it’s not always a convenient time; oftentimes, the process God is taking you through doesn’t look like what he actually promised.
There’s every tendency that we fizzle out in the times of trials but if we have the mind of Christ, the Word of God will see you through. Humans are quick to forget and that was the problem of the children of Israel. Cultivate the habit of jotting down the goodness of God so that in the days of adversity, you can refer to them; if God had done this before, he can do it again.
You don’t need to rush the process, just trust the process. You need not try to help God fulfil his promises over you, the time is not in your capacity. Only begin to make decisions that will sustain you through the process.
Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Trust God! He promised you an expected end, a future and a hope, not a smooth process.
The ultimate goal of God is not to make you rich in this world but to harvest you, so whatever will take you from God’s radial, he will not give to you. The reason why all that God has apportioned to you cannot come to you, is because God cannot trust you. God will take you to any length if he can trust you. However, if you prosper in evil, then it is a sign that you are not a child of God.
While you’re going through the process in life, don’t allow anything to distract you. It’s not the time to start feeling among.
Part of the way to enjoy the process is to engage God. You should make sacrifices, wake up at night to pray, believe God, believe in your prayers, be persistent, stop reasoning, get rid of anxiety, tell yourself that you do not operate on the same level as unbelievers, take a stand, find peace through the trail, enjoy the process; where God is taking you to, begin to act as such. No matter how hungry a lion is, he will never eat dead meat; it is not pride but it’s the way it’s formed. So if you are a Christian, don’t begin to walk as though you’re not; don’t stoop so low to the order of the world.
Brethren, let us be certain of God and be certain of your purpose.
There’s a vacuum in every man that yearns for the extraordinary, it’s what pushes others to use drugs and some commit suicide. But when you find purpose, you find fulfillment; fulfillment is in the will of God. That is why you see a farmer, filled with joy because he has found purpose.
Begin to devise means that will sustain you through the process, know who you are, stand firm, stand on purpose, take charge of your life by the Word of God. You will surely fail, but make the best of your failures, learn from them.
Finally, don’t give up on God; trust him! Press on brethren, it won’t be very long. May the Lord help us!