There nothing quite like the feeling of completing something that you have started. It could be a marathon, a jigsaw, it might be a dissertation or a DIY project you have put off again and again. Completing something brings a huge amount of satisfaction, it means you have finished the course…you did what you set out to do. Anybody reading this knows the sense of joy and satisfaction I am talking about. I have had this feeling when completing village water projects; a long trek and finishing my masters degree – what a feeling!! All that resolve, grit, discipline and tenacity paid off.
However, the reverse side of this feeling though is all too familiar. The things we may have started but never completed. Sound familiar eh? Projects that we began with good intention, indeed with great enthusiasm but something happened, something distracted our attention. Homes, garages and sheds are full of projects started but alas, are still waiting for completion.
If I were to weigh these two feelings of complete and incomplete projects on the scales I think ‘incomplete projects’ would come out on top. There is nothing more thought provoking looking at something you started and having that sense of self disappointment come over you. I have been there a good few times. I have books yet to be read and an ‘out house’ at the bottom of my garden that just ‘stares’ mercilessly at me every day waiting for renovation….I am still not sure if that day will ever come!
When it comes to spiritual things the weighing scales are even more pronounced. I have met so many believers riddled with self-disappointment and a sense of never being able to get to the place, in faith, where they long to be. Even worse, some have just resolved that things will never change, so they have settled for the way things are.
Here’s the thing, you cannot change yourself – not when it comes to becoming more like Christ. Sure there are things we can do to enhance growth, to prepare for growth, the create the environment for growth….but let me assure you, only God can give the growth….
1 Cor 3:6-9 “I (Paul) planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. It’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the centre of this process but God, who makes things grow” (MSG)
It is God who makes things grow…let me say it again, it is God alone who makes things grow and He is the God who completes everything He starts. What God initiates cannot be thwarted no matter how powerful the opposition or circumstances – God is infinitely greater.
Phil 1:6 “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”.
Jane Austen said, “It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do”. I one hundred percent agree.
What we can do is create the environment for God to complete what He has started in each our lives. It is God who makes things grow.!
Stay strong in the King
Steve