By Terri White

A long time ago, God admonished me not to despise the process of alignment. As the Lord puts His Body together His way, there is a process – adjustments are made much like a chiropractor works over his patient. And God’s methods are often rather uncomfortable, as every reader of this article knows full well.  Here is one account of how God made ‘adjustments’ in my life.

Hungry and zealous for God, Steve and I spent many years looking for ‘The Key’ – THE Answer that would awaken the Body of Christ, THE Answer to the mysteries of God.  As we read, studied, and discussed, God stretched our belief system, trashed our belief system, and nearly wiped it clean!  Inevitably, God instructed us to stop looking for ‘The Key’ because He IS ‘The Key.’  That was years ago.   

In my experience, revelation rarely comes unencumbered by chaff, and many never discard it.  Not knowing this during those years, however, we embraced each discovery – guts, feather, and all. And then we immediately served it up as ‘The Key’ to bringing about God’s purposes.  Since chaff is indigestible, not a few ‘vomited’ our ‘revelations’ all over us.  We stunk – often.   

With each discovery, though, we would gradually begin to see more clearly and discard the chaff, leaving a tiny seed of truth.  This is the process of alignment.  In time, even though I treasured our ‘seeds,’ I began to wonder if something was wrong with us.  Soon I became down right irritated with myself for latching on to ‘this and that.’  Why couldn’t we just settle down like most believers?  Perhaps we really were rebellious as others had suggested. 

Then one day I say myself on my journey with scaffolding littering the path behind me.   The scaffolding, explained the Lord, were ‘the means’ by which I had received so much truth.  Whether we had received revelation through reading a book, studying the scripture from the original language, or by hearing a teaching – all the while swallowing the ‘revelations’ hook, line, and sinker – these were the stepping stones (the means) used to broaden our horizons, to enlarge our vision, to stretch us out of our ‘religious box.’ This stretching process enabled us to climb out of the ‘box’ and see God more clearly.

However, scaffolding is a temporary device and is meant to be discarded.  While we are digesting the revelation, the scaffolding enables us to be “built up.” Once the process is finished, the scaffolding no longer serves any purpose; it’s discarded and we move on.  In the vision of my journey, I also observed groups of believers camped around the scaffolding. Instead of discarding the scaffolding, they continued to build, creating a monument instead of moving forward.  Those groups appeared so neat, successful, and orderly while debris littered my path.  So much for appearances!  Progress is a messy business as God transforms us “. . . from glory to glory. . .” (II Cor. 3:18).

As we have become acquainted with believers from all over the world, I have noticed that God leads each one differently.  Yet it is all “of Him, through Him, and to Him.”  He initiates our journey, He continues it, and He finishes it. Don’t you just love that?!  For Steve and me, God awakened us in the ‘70s and plunged us into the United Pentecostal Church – the strictest of the Pharisees.  Doctrine ruled.  Soon, though, we connected with the wild and wooly Keith Green, and gobbled up his teachings and  those from Youth with a Mission.  Next God placed me in Women’s Aglow where I met Charismatic women of different denominations who loved God.  Wonder of wonder, they were a part of the Body of Christ, too.  Heresy! Announced my staid Pentecostal friends.  Later we began homeschooling our children.   When we formed the first support group in Johnson County, many families flocked to us – some not even Charismatic or Pentecostal. And guess what?  They loved God.  My vision of the Body of Christ continued to swell.  Remember, God is using scaffolding during this process to open our eyes. 

Inevitably, we became disenchanted with the organized church.  While journeying through deliverance and emotional healing ministry, team leadership/no paid leadership/no leadership, cell church, home church, organic church, open church, Jewish roots, we gobbled up teachings that brought us into grace and covenant.  Prayer, fasting, worship, prophecy, and studying scripture through the original language influenced each step.  We planted a church, they kicked us out, then begged us to come back, and finally they laid hands on us and ‘sent us out.’  We were too messy for them.  We feared we were too messy for everyone. 

While loneliness and frustration hounded us, God thrust us into the revelation of koinonia and Christ in/as us – launching us into the deep yet again, increasing the Body of Christ, revealing the very nature of God and hence, the salvation of all.  

Jesus/Adam? Angels/demons/Satan? And so many more ponderings. . . . Do we have scaffolding to discard?  You bet!  Are we there yet?  No, says Abba, we are still journeying. 

"I am The Journey, The Truth, and The Life. . ." John 14:6