God Is More Concerned With the Process Than the Final Product

The wonder and excitement of seeing a caterpillar emerge as a moth or butterfly will never become old.

Last fall my youngest son brought a caterpillar inside on a stalk of dill, its host plant, and we watched it eat and grow at record speed.  Within a day we discovered a second caterpillar that must have hatched from the dill a day or so after we brought it into the house.

The first caterpillar disappeared from the dill and after doing a little research we found that this particular caterpillar travels away from the host plant to develop into a chrysalis.

The Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly does not have a definitive span of time that it takes to go through the metamorphosis process.   It could be two weeks or seven months.

We were left to wait and see what might happen but the second caterpillar had grown at a rapid rate feeding on the anise and dill that we would replenish every other day.

Before we knew it the second caterpillar had formed into a chrysalis on the host plant.  We just assumed that it would not emerge until the spring but after a couple of weeks had transpired, and as I was washing dishes one day, it emerged from the hidden container that we had placed it in.

What anticipation and excitement we had experienced throughout the entire process.
Not really!  We had forgotten all about the miraculous process of metamorphosis.

The uncertainty had, at the time, left us
feeling confused and concerned but when the first caterpillar emerged in the spring time as we were sitting having dinner we jumped up with a revived excitement!

The process of metamorphosis proves to be a mysterious and beautiful process just like the transformation of life that is born again.

So many times we are impatient with our own spiritual development all the while losing sight of the value and beauty of the uncertainty of the process.

We forget all together that we are in process most likely because we don't like the process.

Anyone who has accomplished a large arduous task, whether its a work of art, a degree, a book or even a pregnancy, remembers the difficulty of the process and the degree of difficulty they faced while doing what they were doing makes the end result all the more sweeter.

God is far more concerned with the process of our lives being transformed than He is with the final product because the final product is Christ!

"It is finished!"

For consider your calling, brothers:  not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;  God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;  God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.  And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." I Corinthians 1:26-31

Our sanctification is arduous and seemingly time consuming.  We are a time sensitive culture.  We want results yesterday.  This standard that the world sets on the final product disregards and loses sight of the delicately beautiful uncertain process that we go through as we are being transformed to resemble Jesus.

Like a developing butterfly tightly hidden in an ugly casing, we are housed in this flesh tent that continually shows that we are dependant on God doing the work in and through us.

The Lord delights in our process all along the way.  He is not disappointed or concerned when we are in the annuls of development but on the contrary He delights in our weak attempt to grow and change.

Even though we feel like we are taking one step forward and two steps backwards,  He is fully confident in His work in your life.  He is highly capable of making us a beautiful representation of Christ's love so that we can sour on the wind of His Spirit while everyone watches our glorious assent to heaven.

Let's not despise the process but let's ask the Lord to have His perfecting work done through our metamorphosis while we remain here on earth.

Father, help us not to feel anxious about the uncertainty of our sanctification but give us grace to rest in the coccoon of your hand knowing that You have every intention of completing the work that You started in us.  Help us to fix our eyes on Christ and His finished work!