God isn’t finished with you

God has done a marvelous thing in you, but He isn’t finished yet.

Paul’s message to the Philippians assures that the best is yet to come: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6, ESV).

Most of the time, we grow frustrated over the unfinished business of life. Isn’t there something in you that yearns to just be finished with something?

Some years ago, as we prepared to move, I hired a couple of teenagers to help me clear out the massive, stuffed attic that had been accumulating junk for sixteen years. I thought we’d never finish. Childhood toys and clothes. Knicks and knacks. Moldy furniture and broken lamps. Boxes and crates. At first, I tried to go through it all to make sure we didn’t get rid of anything valuable. But when it seemed that it would never end, I became more generous toward the giveaway pile. One of the young men picked up an item and said, “Do you want to keep this?” I grimaced, sweat rolling down my neck in the hot attic, and declared: “If it isn’t a solid gold brick, get rid of it!” I just wanted to get finished.

Most of life is unfinished business, which is, in many ways, great news.

In my younger years, I enjoyed painting landscapes and animals. One painting, though started over 30 years ago, remains unfinished. It is my famous acrylic rendering of “The Horse in the Mist.” It started as a horse in a field, but there was clearly something wrong with the horse. To hide some of the horse’s abnormalities, I decided to add a beautiful mist rising from the field around the horse’s hooves. The mist looked better than the horse, so I added more mist. Eventually, the painting became more misty than equine. But, I have declared it an unfinished product because as long as it is unfinished, it can be improved.

Though we crave to get things finished, and it’s frustrating to face so much unfinished business in our daily lives, it is a marvelous piece of Good News that you and I are unfinished.

There is a good work going on in you by the Spirit, but it is not finished. God isn’t finished with His work of grace in you.

If you ever become elated thinking you’ve “arrived,” you won’t find your elation to last long. Growing, changing, and improving is what makes life wonderful and adventurous. You’re not all that you will be. And that’s the Gospel!