Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. You’ve probably heard that before. But you may find yourself frustrated in knowing what to do differently. Perhaps you read your Bible (or struggle to “make” yourself do so), go to church, pray, but it doesn’t seem to be working. How can you find deep transformation and become different from the inside out?

If you’ve been reading these articles for a little while, you may have noticed important ideas including:

• Trying harder to change behaviors on the outside rarely leads to lasting change on the inside
• Stuffing more facts into your logical L brain doesn’t change the emotional beliefs and feelings in your R brain
• Changing a person from the inside out takes time, a lot of time
• Connecting with others and with God in an absolutely necessary part of lasting transformation

God can and sometimes does do something suddenly. Those can be wonderful moments! We honor them, celebrate them, and appropriately pray for them. But most of the time God works by taking us through a process.

Behaviors have consequences. But as important as behavior is, God is most concerned about who we are becoming. Fruit doesn’t grow on a tree in a day. A baby grows for nine months before it’s born, and then continues to grow for 18 years to become an adult. And as any parent knows, no one is “done” when they turn 18!

God knows the same thing. Becoming like Jesus is His goal for us (see Romans 8:29). So how do we find deep transformation and become like Jesus from the inside out?

Trust the Process

Humans don’t like feeling out of control. We’d love to be in charge of our own process of becoming. We’d love to know the 7 steps to being Fully Alive and whole, or each specific step on the path to sinless joyful living. If there’s a checklist, I can follow it; do these things and the outcome is guaranteed.

But God rarely works that way. He will never make Himself indispensable. If He gives us a checklist, at least some of us will follow it and then be upset when things still seem wonky. Some people have followed the Christian “rules” as if they were a checklist, and been deeply disillusioned when life, or their own heart, doesn’t end up the way they thought it would.

The only guaranteed process is to trust God with the process. Like an Olympic athlete who trusts their coach or a student who trusts their academic mentor, we too must learn to trust the only One who knows how to get us where we desire to go, and who wants that for us more than we want it for ourselves.

Hold the details of your desired outcome, the kind of transformation you long for, with open hands and lift it up to God. He’s the only One who knows every step of the way.

Keep Showing Up

Most of us would like a “zap” from here to there. We’d prefer the shortcut. But is there any shortcut to an apple tree producing an apple? Or for a child to grow to adulthood? We rarely get shortcuts in our process of transformation.

Just as much as we’d like to control the outcome, we’d also like the process to be fast. We’d like to know that this six-month Bible study or reading these 3 books will bring us to wholeness. But again, God rarely works that way.

Think of the disciples and Jesus. These were the men, motley bunch though they were, that Jesus was going to trust with the future of His kingdom on earth. He didn’t train them by giving them a detailed process of evangelism to implement; He invited them to keep showing up. As they were with Him they became different. The authorities “recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

The neural circuits in your brain take time to heal and new circuits form. You keep showing up by things such as:

• Continue to examine the deeper places in your heart, refusing to ignore your own stuff
• Continue to marinate in God’s Word, not primarily for information but for spiritual nourishment
• Continue to spend time with people who are also seeking to become like Jesus
• Continue to be with Jesus, letting Him transform your inner being with His presence

Keep Saying Yes

Regularly throughout your Christian experience the Holy Spirit will rummage around in your soul, pick something up, bring it into the light, and say, “This right here; this needs to change. Let Me deal with you here.”

And when He does that, say Yes.

You cannot control, shouldn’t try to control, the sequence of things God deals with in you. But what you must do if you want to become like Jesus is to keep saying Yes whenever He brings something up that needs to be dealt with.

And as far as saying Yes, pause right now and consider; what’s the last thing God brought up for you that He wants to address? Did you say Yes? Or did you resist, trying to argue with God, letting Him know how impossible that would be, trying to minimize how important that “little” problem is, and deciding you might know better than God what you should do.

The steps God puts in front of us sometimes seem small, but they’re important. Sometimes they seem big and beyond our ability to do. I’ve learned that if I am the one trying to orchestrate something in my own heart or life or ministry, it’s likely to only result in frustration. But if God is the One instigating this change or healing or direction, then He makes Himself responsible for the outcome. My job is to say Yes and just keep walking.

Trust God’s Process. Keep Showing Up. Keep Saying Yes.

That’s how you cooperate with God in the process of your deep transformation. And it’s a beautiful thing.

Your Turn: Have you been frustrated in finding lasting change? Which of these do you need to pay attention to next: trusting God’s process for you, keep showing up, or keep saying Yes. Leave a comment below.

Want more? This week on the podcast I talk with Ken Williams about the process he and others experienced in finding lasting wholeness from a life of sexual brokenness. Listen or watch.

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• We’d like to control our own process of transformation, and for it to be fast. But God rarely works that way. We must trust God’s process for us, keep showing up, and keep saying Yes when He wants to do something in us.  Tweet that.

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