Oftentimes God uses the ordinary activities of a day to drive home spiritual lessons to me and I just love that.  Isn’t that just like Him to use ordinary people and ordinary experiences to teach us about the extraordinary life He has planned for us?

Dr. Richard Blackaby says, “God sees your potential just as clearly as He sees where you are right now.” However, getting to our full potential is always a process and it is one where we must submit and surrender to how He wants to grow us.  This can happen in a variety of ways, and they are not always pleasant at the time.  We need to trust Him with the process.  

This morning our family made the trip to Windridge Farms in New Melle to pick blackberries.   Growing up in the south, blackberry cobbler was a dessert staple during blackberry season, and I love drawing on my southern roots and keeping that alive for my family.  The final product is scrumptious and mouth-watering delicious but there is a process and the process started way before we arrived at the farm to pick the blackberries.  A farmer had to first prepare the soil (paramount to any bumper crop), plant the seeds, and then tend to and nurture the plants as they grew all the while figuring out how to keep the pests and varmints away.  Finally, the berries ripened and were ready to be harvested.

We made it home with six cartons which had to be washed and drained.  There were several steps required to make the blackberry cobbler.  Here is the deal – you cannot skip steps in the process.  What if I had decided that I didn’t have time to add the baking powder to the flour mixture?  The flour would have remained flat, and I guarantee you that the final product would not have turned out as good.

The same is true in our lives.  We cannot skip steps in the process. Be patient in the process.  God sees the big picture and He sees an extraordinary life He has planned for you – more than you could have ever hoped for or imagined.