The "Microwave" Society
The other day I told my god-sister that I was so tired of seeing the process, hearing the word process, and being in a process. If I heard the word again I was going to scream. I signed onto Pinterest and there it was, a meme that said “The process He is taking you through has a purpose. Trust God even when it doesn’t make sense.” Ugh, not only was the word process in there, but the word purpose too. Purpose is another word that I’m running from.
Just leave me alone already!
I decided to look up the word process, I really wanted to know and understand what it meant. What did I do that for? Process – a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end; a natural or involuntary series of change.
Wait, did that say involuntary?
Ha, that explains a lot, but I’m not even going to touch on that. I mean I get the fact that I have to take action and that I have to take steps, but shouldn’t these be actions that I choose to take?
Steps that I believe will help me get to where I’m trying to go? I actually asked God that, even though I wasn’t quite ready for His response. “Yes, you can definitely choose those actions and steps, but only if YOU know the particular end.”
Errrr. He goes on to say “see you only know the end you would like to see, but I know the actual end. The end that you were purposed for.”
I’m going to stop asking God questions (just kidding, but not really). I’m learning that everything in life has a process and there’s absolutely no way around it. We live in a society, that I call “someone else’s microwave society.” It used to be a “microwave society,” where we want things fast and in a hurry. We want to skip steps in the process so that we can get things now.
Nowadays, we want it even faster than that, we want “someone else” to do it. Programs like Instacart, Door Dash, HEB Delivery, etc. (which I am not against, because I use them) these all cut out the process of you doing the actions or steps and someone else does it for you. There are even courses that you can purchase for a million and two dollars where a guru or expert has done “all the work for you, all you have to do is follow these proven steps…” But proven for who? These steps (again, I’m not knocking, because some of them are helpful) cannot possibly be the process for everyone.
Reason being is everyone’s particular end is not the same and although the end may be similar the process that YOU have to go through is specific for YOU!
I’m having to come to a realization, that the purpose God has called me for has a specific set of actions and steps that are required in order to achieve. So many times I look at others who seem to have “arrived,” whatever that means, and wonder why I haven’t gotten there yet? Why does it seem to be taking me so long to get there? Problem number one, their “there” and my “there” are on two different ends of the spectrum. Sometimes it may look the same, some of the works appears to be the same, but our purposes are different. Number two, I don’t know what process they had to grow through to get there, nor do I know at what point in life they began their process. Frankly, some things that some people had to go through, I just don’t want to go through.
“I’ll take my own process for 100 please.”
We also have to understand that timing is everything, we can miss out on some extremely important lessons in a rush to get “there.”
I’ve even had moments where I’ve questioned if God even said to do something because there are parts in the process that don’t always result how I think they should. I mean if God said do X then the result of X should have been good right? Well, just because some things God tells you to do does not result in how you hoped, it doesn’t mean God didn’t tell you to do it. There are no meaningless steps in the process.
If anyone feels like I feel let me encourage you as I also encourage myself. God is faithful and He will do what He said He would do. You just make sure that keep moving forward and stand firm on the promise He gave you. Don’t look at your timing and circumstances as a sign that maybe God didn’t say this or maybe you heard wrong. I know sometimes it gets hard. We start off real strong knowing that God gave us a word, but then we look up days or even weeks later and nothing has happened, and we begin to wonder if what we heard was even God. The truth is God doesn’t reveal the process to us when He reveals the vision. He may show us the expected end, but He won’t show us how or when we will get there. He will give us step by step instructions. The key is to keep moving forward in obedience and keep your eyes on what God showed you. It’s also important during this process to keep a journal to record what God is saying and showing to you. So many times, I have wavered and tried to substitute things, but God has me to re-read what He said so that I can stay focused. The ability to go back to the recordings and say, no I’m not going to do that because that is not what God said has saved me some heartache. There have even been times when I have had to go back and redo some things because I didn’t do them like He said.
When we trust God to give us a vision, we have to trust Him through the process of the vision as well. He won’t give us something and then not equip us to do it. Even as I write this, I am standing on a vision that God has given me and I’m following the actions and steps of the process. It’s hard sometimes, and I haven’t made it yet, but I’m not giving up in the process. Keep pushing, keep pressing and keep praying.
