Wax on, Wax off!

An In-Between Season! If you’ve ever been in an in-between season, you know how challenging this can be. It seems I’ve been in an in-between season for the past several months and it’s been a season of growth, pruning and refining and waiting. There may not be growth going on that’s visible to the eye, but underneath, there is growth and things are changing.

This season of in-between, of change, and even training so to speak reminded me of the old movie, the Karate Kid. You know, the old one with Ralph Macchio? Without giving away too much of the story line, Daniel, a high school kid moves to a new town and is bullied at his new school. He wants to learn karate as a means to protect himself. His path crosses with Mr. Miyagi and he asks him to teach him Karate. Mr. Miyagi agrees to teach him but instead has him doing chores like painting his fence, waxing his cars, sanding his decks and all kinds of things that didn’t make sense to Daniel. Finally, Daniel gets upset and tells Miyagi he has had enough and was quitting. Miyagi has him show him the motions from the chores he was doing and the moves were in fact Karate fundamentals. He was learning what he needed and desired all along unbeknownst to him.

I heard a sermon the other day when the pastor said, “You know that God is training you when you feel it’s not going fast enough.” There is a purpose for this season and it’s not meant to be rushed through. I’ve not been understanding a lot of this waiting season. As I follow God, I don’t need to understand everything, nor do I have to have Him on my timeline. It’s the other way around. I walk forward, or wait, trusting Him, yielding to His guidance and instruction. There’s something that God is trying to lay the foundation for, equip, strengthen, establish in my waiting season. He sees further down the road than I can and I can trust Him and His timing and His process.

I read Chip Gaines, Joanna Gaine’s husband, talking about how he had a goal and dream of renovating a castle in Waco, TX for over twenty years. Twenty years! He would put in offer after offer on the castle, each time his offer was turned down over the course of two decades. During this time, he and his wife were growing in their knowledge , wisdom, experience, and ability of renovating homes, etc. He went onto share, had they got the castle when he first started putting bids in that they were not yet ready for a project of that size. Fast forward to the current day, they recently purchased the castle and fully restored and renovated it. Sometimes in the waiting season, it’s not a “no” but a “wait”. It’s growing in instruction, knowledge and training.

Now all discipline (C) seems to be painful at the time, yet later it will produce a transformation of character, bringing a harvest of righteousness and peace (D) to those who yield to it. (E)
C-correction, instruction, training
D-James 3:18
E-or those who have endured it’s training

Hebrews 12:11 TPT

God’s work and power in us and love for us is transformative! We are always being refined. A yielded heart to Him brings change. God doesn’t wave His magic wand over us and poof, we are perfect. I know I am still very much human and I still struggle and fail. Old habits, ways of thinking and speaking are brought to the surface. Through the Holy Spirit’s conviction, being in the Word, being in church and allowing mature believers to speak into your life, it brings the change God desires. Having a yielded and submitted heart brings change. God doesn’t come at you with condemnation but with conviction. There truly is a difference between the two.

When I was getting ready to move, I was packing and the Maverick City song “Refiner” was playing. As I was packing and cleaning, I began to sing along and the words “I want to be tried by fire, purified. You take whatever You desire. Lord, here’s my life.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I stood up and thought to myself, “Ooops” because when God purifies and refines, there’s moments and/or seasons that the dross in our lives comes to the surface and God wants to remove it. Dross is the worthless garbage that is removed from metal when it’s being purified and God is always in the process of refining us.

The “Ooops” mentality I had boiled down to this- “I don’t need to be refined or purified”. “I am fine just the way I am”. The refining and purifying gives us the opportunity to lay down the thing I would normally have said and chose instead to let God direct what to say, to not react with anger but instead choose peace, to forgive rather than to hold a grudge, to choose discipline rather than indulgence, to wait for God’s perfect timing rather than try and make it happen in my time, and countless other ways.

Fast forward to the current day of my life. This season is where God continues to refine and purify me. Have I failed along the way? Of course! Have I been frustrated with the waiting, with the “Wax-on, wax-off” monotony of it all? “Yes”. But God knows what He is doing. He is building and establishing things in my life I’ve yet to see. He knows where He is taking me and what I will need to have in my life when I get there.

So in this season of waiting, training, being refined-don’t rush through it. Do the hard work. Let God refine you. Be patient. Walk forward only when He says to walk forward. Let go of the “dross” in your life, whatever God shows you that it is in your life and let Him grow whatever He is trying to grow in your life. Give Him room to establish His ways and plans in your life. It will produce a HARVEST of great things that He sees and intends.