Fundraising update: Thank you to everyone who attended my happy hour fundraiser last night. I am now 60 percent funded!
A YouTube content creator I really like, Tyler Oakley, recently posted a video called No Glory in the Process. He was mostly rambling, but at some point he gets on a tangent about how the content you create means nothing until it is created. He said the glory is in the result and you should work hard to finish projects and not brag while you are working on them – there’s no glory in the process.
I understand what he was saying in regards to his work and art, but it got me thinking about the process in general and how the result is far from the point. When I look at my life and it’s recent history, the process God has gone through to refine and change me is covered in His glory.
My friend Joe said at our small group last night, that we can’t make the mistake of thinking God’s plan is about humanity, it’s so much bigger than that. God promises us eternal life in Heaven, so essentially, our time on earth is one long process intended to glorify Him. So when it comes to my life with Christ, I don’t want to be solely focused on earthly results or diminish the process it takes to get to a place of change.
I was baptized back in October and as I stood in the waist-high water with everyone in my church staring at me, they played a video (featured below) that recounted the journey I had gone through to get to that point. My baptism story is a story of process, and the joy I have to tell it glorifies God.
My very good friend and former roommate, Katie came that morning to celebrate with me and when I came back to my seat she hugged me with tears in her eyes. She told me she felt she had experienced all the events in my testimony alongside me, and she had. God was glorified through her tears because she had experienced first hand the process He took me through.
I recently started taking barre classes in Georgetown. This tough, full-body workout is a combination of ballet, pilates and yoga. The first time I went my legs visibly shook or convulsed rather. I was embarrassed by this and relieved when it stopped happening after a few classes. Later an instructor told us that we should go after the shakes because that happens when your muscles break down and have to rebuild themselves back stronger. She said, “Embrace the shakes, that’s where change happens.”
God’s Kingdom isn’t about us and if we fight the shakes and quakes that come with change, he isn’t glorified. When God invites us into relationship, He invites us into process.
My change and process is far from over, growth doesn’t end with baptism. It sure didn’t for the earliest Christian communities Paul wrote to. The majority of his letter to the Corinthians addresses the questions and struggles they had shared with him prior to his message. Their honesty and devotion to the process is now a part of the word of God – a tool for growth and access to God for Christians centuries later.
I am grateful for this blog and for the opportunity to take others along on a journey over this next year and a half. I want to share my fears, doubts, questions, growth and lessons hard and simple.
I never want to feel ashamed of growth, because it’s covered in holy fingerprints. God’s glory is in the process!
I’m still selling T-shirts. Want one? Get it here.
