Trust The Process

In August of 2000 I began a chaplain residence at Luther Hospital in Eau Claire Wisconsin. It was part CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) and part active hospital chaplaincy. It was intense, especially coming shortly after my wife’s death. Our CPE supervisor was P. Michael Carlson, who had many years of experience supervising CPE students. This was a new adventure for the hospital and it was a great learning adventure for the 6 of us.

One of the many bits of wisdom that our CPE supervisor told us was, “trust the process”. He reminded us of this whenever he thought we were getting impatient and in danger of taking matters into our own hands. To trust the process means that once something is in motion we should let it play out. There is a flow to healing (it may not be our definition of healing) and we should take care to not sabotage the process.

John Ortberg in his book, ‘If you want to walk on water you must first get out of the boat’ says that we must leave the security of the boat if we want to follow Jesus.

His title reminds me that walking on water is a process.

There are ‘steps’ in the process that follow one after another. Even walking on water is not as spontaneous and care-free as we would like to believe. Following Jesus onto the deep waters of life requires careful steps and a constant focus upon Jesus.

Distractions (those things that keep us from trusting and following the process) will sink us into the deep blue sea.

The process sometimes takes more time than we think it should. Trusting the process allows time and space for the Holy Spirit to work with us and send us important information or people who will help us get to a God-outcome. Trusting the process is not easy, and trusting in God isn’t easy either. May God continue to guide us through the work of the Holy Spirit as we process our way through this transition. Amen!