Trusting God’s Plans & Processes

My family will celebrate my son’s eighteenth birthday this weekend.

Here he is, from this sweet little face…

…to this far too grown-up one.

When he was a little guy, I made him many themed birthday cakes, like this Star Wars Millennium Falcon cake.

But this year, he asked for something simple – a layer cake with a buttercream frosting. I was certainly up for something straightforward and relatively quick. I pulled out my family’s favorite vanilla pound cake recipe and Googled a recipe for chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream frosting.

I’ve made that pound cake dozens of times, and it’s pretty much fail-proof at this point. I mixed the batter quickly, and soon two layers of sugary, buttery vanilla cake were cooling on my counter.

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The frosting was next. That recipe is a bit more complicated: egg whites and sugar must be heated until the sugar is dissolved, and then beaten with whisk attachment until it resembles a soft marshmallow fluff. Meanwhile, a bag of ice should rest against the outside of the bowl to cool the mixture as it beats.

Next, the recipe called for a sinful amount of softened butter to be added, bit by bit, as the entire mixture continued to beat at high speed.

(At that point, my ears were starting to ring from the sound of my KitchenAid running at high speed for twenty minutes.)

After all the butter was incorporated, the mixture was supposed to morph into a fluffy, shiny frosting that would hold its shape, but melt in the mouth.

Instead, my mixing bowl was full of marshmallow butter soup. Delicious, but not exactly spreadable.

The recipe said that if the mixture failed to come together, one must keep beating and cooling the mixture until it did.

It will happen, said the recipe creator. Trust the process.

And of course, the recipe creator (who happens to be a professional cake decorator) was right. When the mixture finally cooled enough, it transformed from soupy gooiness to fluffy spreadability in about thirty seconds.

Amazing! Though I couldn’t foresee the result, the process could indeed be trusted.

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So many times, the Holy Spirit has gently reminded me to trust my Creator’s processes.

If I’m following His Word and seeking His will, I can trust that all the events of my life – whether seemingly important or inconsequential – will come together as He intended, and for my good. He will not steer me wrong.

And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. – Isaiah 42:16

My husband and I are prayerfully considering some major life changes. We want to please the Lord and align our will with His, but that’s not always easy. God’s ways can be a bit mysterious.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:9

And, His wheels can grind slowly.

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. – 2 Peter 3:8

Yet, I know that living according to God’s will happens moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day – not just during the pivotal events of life.

So, we wait, we watch, and we pray, trusting that the Father’s plan for us will come together when the time is right.

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Do you enjoy baking? Are you having to trust God’s plans and processes in a particular area of your life right now? How do you maintain peace through such times?