God’s Long Term Growth Project
When I was about 20 years old, I thought, “I feel like God’s done a lot in me. I don’t know that there’s much else He wants to change. I think I’m pretty much done.” Like for REAL, I thought this.
And the Lord, in His mercy, chose not to strike me down.
Decades later (has it really been decades?), I am more than aware that I was not done then, and I’m still far from it now. God continues His work in me.
If you’ve read my blog for a while, you might remember my yellow coffee table. When we first had it custom made overseas, it came to us traffic sign yellow (not what I ordered).
Some might have looked at that table and said, “Good enough.” But I believed under all that eye-blinding yellow, my real coffee table existed.
So I sanded it down.
Better.
Three months later, I sanded it down again.
Still not quite there though.
So, a few months later, I tried again. When my daughter witnessed me doing it, she asked me why. “Because this is what I do now. This is my life. I sand this table for a living.”
Actually, I did it because I had a vision of something greater.
(Truth be told, in the end, I stripped it completely. It’s white now. Sometimes we need a complete overhaul).
The whole process causes me to think about the process of growth in our lives. It’s easy to look at the surface and think, “Yep. Good enough!” But God has a bigger vision for us.
God’s Bigger Vision for Our Growth
That vision involves a lot of stripping and sanding and polishing to get to what is underneath.
He knows our layers, what lies beneath, where the real stuff is. He won’t stop until He is satisfied that we are the way we are meant to be.
It’s a long process. Tiring. Baffling. So often I want say, “Good enough, God. This is good enough. No need to keep working.”
But He does. And what it’s reminding me today is that He is faithful. He will never stop working on us, bringing us closer to Him, molding us in His image.
His ways are higher and bigger and better than what I can see. He sees what lies beneath, the layers of our hearts that even we don’t know. He is determined to reveal every part of us.
God is relentless. He never gives up on us. He doesn’t settle for “good enough” or “close enough.” What He began in us He will complete.
And He is patient. However long it takes, however much it takes, He will fulfill His promises to us and in us. We are his long term project.
“He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
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