Sunday Devotional: A Work in Progress

At a certain point in our lives, we’d like to be able to settle in and just “do life.” Not think about the things we struggled with when we were younger. Move beyond the griefs, the heartaches ... hopefully even our own issues and baggage.

Real life doesn’t work like that.

Real life is, as I’ve written before, a journey, not to be finished until we step from this life into eternity. Patience is in putting one foot in front of the other, regardless of how weary we are. Courage is being willing to face whatever rears up in the path, demanding our attention and energy. A loss might be decades past, barely registering now as a dull ache ... a hurt from a friend might be long scarred over ... but one blow (or several) from the enemy of our souls, whether in a news report or careless words from those we love, can hit us where we’re most vulnerable and leaves us gasping and bleeding all over again.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of regaining our equilibrium and raising that shield of faith again. But sometimes God uses that to reveal that we haven’t really healed, we’ve only ignored the stinking, dirty bandage over a still-oozing wound, where things are embedded that really need to come out.

Time to pull off that bandage and throw it away. Let the Spirit wash the wound with the Word, reminding us of God’s relentless love and everlasting goodness, in all circumstances.

Let God reach in, despite the pain, and draw out the shards of bitterness, resentment, insecurity.

Then ... move on. Leave it in His hands. Learn to walk in true strength, instead of merely compensating.

And be prepared, the next time He taps us on the shoulder and lets us know that something needs attention, that this is a process, a journey. That we’re a constant work in progress, regardless of how old we are or how long we’ve walked with the Lord.

But someday ... someday, we’ll be home. And we’ll be finished works of art.

³ I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, ⁴ always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, ⁵ for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, ⁶ being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ... (Philippians 1, NKJV)