Trust the Process

Have you ever started a new routine or regiment? Whether it was a diet, exercise routine, or shift in your daily schedule. There’s a point about two weeks into it that you feel ready to give up. You’re not seeing the results you want. You’re tired and can’t keep up with the new pace of life. And then someone who’s been through it before comes to you and says “trust the process.” How many times have you heard that throughout your lifetime? Just trust the process of what you’re working towards. If you’re being honest with the person who said that to you, it makes you mad most of the time. You’re at a point when you want to give up. You gave it a shot and it’s not working out. Why should you keep going? Well, the quick answer that anyone who’s been through it before, is that there’s a greater reward on the other side. The process is the process for a reason. It takes time, endurance, and a certain amount of perseverance. The goal is there ahead of us, we just have to keep moving forward. The same is true for the Christian faith. 

As believers, we are in a constant process to become more like Jesus everyday. It’s a process called sanctification. Yet there are days that are hard. There are weeks we want to give up. I mean, will we ever reach that level of perfection? To answer that question, we need to look at those who have gone through this before us. The apostle Paul went through some extremely hard times as he navigated through the Christian life. Toward the end of his life, while he was in prison, he wrote I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us (Philippians 3:12-14 NLT).

Paul hadn’t reached the goal yet, but he kept going through the process. Even in prison, he saw the goal ahead. Through every hard day, he kept going through the process to reach the other side. And you can too. Because the truth we need to hear today is that on the other side of the process is a promise. Paul wrote earlier in that letter that of this I’m convinced: the one who began a good work in you will thoroughly complete it by the day of Messiah Jesus (Philippians 1:6 NTFE). The process that has begun in you will be completed. God will finish the good work he started in your life. Trust the process today!