Day 7. Philippians 1:6

I had a bit of a time sorting through the plethora of options with which to finish this challenge—as it turns out, there are more than 7 good verses in the bible!

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.

This.

This has been an incredible source of hope for me, and I’m sure countless numbers of others who have ever doubted God’s presence, intentions, or sovereignty in their own lives. Time and time again, we fall short—we’re humans, sure, but couldn’t God be working a little harder or faster to make us not suck so much? It’s not like that’s not within his power to do so, right? I have no idea how God works, but if both his word and his spirit affirm that he is doing a good work in us and slowly bringing it to completion, then gosh golly gee… maybe that's the still small voice we should be listening to, rather than our own shortsighted impatience.

I’ve heard it said that your goal in life should be to not recognize the person you were x-amount-of-years ago. Since Jesus has become part of my life, I don’t recognize the person I was a month ago, or even last week—inwardly, we are being renewed day by day […] so we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal – from 2 Corinthians 4

I also want to talk more about this CD my mom gave me for Christmas…

On this album, Welcome to the New by Mercy Me, there is this song, called “Finish What He Started” that is based on this piece of scripture. There’s one line in particular in there that really gets me every time I listen to it:

Remember you’re forgiven, so there’s no need to give in to the lie that you’re disqualified

God is able, more than capable to be faithful to the end, and finish what he started

Yes.

How often have I thought that grace isn’t for me specifically, but humans in general (which somehow doesn’t include me—my logic is just impeccable sometimes), and given into that lie that somehow God doesn’t want anything to do with me, and I’m on my own. This has manifested itself in so many ways: avoiding prayer because I think God doesn’t care and won’t answer, not volunteering to serve in church because other people are more gifted than myself and their gifts are more desired than anything I can offer, and failing to attend church and seek out community in other ways because I feel like already established communities are better off without me, just to name a few.

Grace is for all of us, individuals, as we are. God doesn’t leave unfinished business. Just because our lives aren’t unfolding the way we’d planned doesn’t mean that God isn’t working. He is working, all the time, in ways that are higher than our ways—we can’t even comprehend them since his thoughts are higher than our thoughts and his vision for us is bigger than we could ever dream for ourselves—it is infinitely bigger than our own.

No matter what you see or think when you look in the mirror, God loves you, so, so, SO much. He is doing good work in you. That love that he has for you is far too big for him to give up on you, ever.