“Unfinished”

This week in our “Un-Crowd” Bible study we began our discussion with an icebreaker.  We had a list of “un” words and were asked to pick the one that best described us. I chose “unfinished” because that’s how I’ve felt lately.

Unfinished laundry, unfinished organizing, unfinished writing, unfinished book marketing and last night unfinished cooking.  I am grateful for pizza delivery.

It frustrates me to be “unfinished.” What about you?

There was a time when I was elated to be unfinished. During my broadcasting career, I had a deadline every day for the sportscast and I could never be unfinished.  The only time I ever missed my timeslot  was when I was nine months pregnant and covering a Spurs basketball game.  The Spurs report was supposed to be the lead story but I was moving slow, couldn’t think as quickly and when I finally waddled to turn the videotape in, I missed the first segment of sports and had broken my string of making deadlines. Later when I took a job out of television, it was freeing to be able to say, “I can get to that tomorrow.”

However, I still like to finish things, don’t you? You may be remembering your unfinished projects right now, but before you say this devotion is doing nothing but discouraging you, I want to offer some encouragement.

It’s OK to be “unfinished.” Think about it.  If we finished everything each day, we wouldn’t have anything to look forward to the next day. “What am I going to do today?  I don’t know.  It’s all finished.”  Now that does not sound like an interesting life, does it?

If that thought doesn’t encourage you, remember God is “unfinished” with his work. I know. In Genesis 1 it said on the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing….but that was creation. He is not finished with the created.

In Philippians 1:6 the apostle Paul confirms this idea: 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. If God has to carry the work in us until completion, that means he’s “unfinished” with us. What a relief! When I think about myself, I am so glad this is not it. I’m happy God doesn’t say “What you see is what you get.” and has more work to do on me before he calls me home. I want God to continue to tweak me and improve this imperfect, sinful creature. I long to be more like Jesus, don’t you?

God’s also unfinished with our bodies. As we continue to break down with age, our maker promises this body is not the end. When Jesus returns, he’ll give us a brand new perfect body: The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

A body without spider veins and belly fat.  Now that is something to look forward to.

So the next time you get down about being “unfinished” try to give yourself a hall pass. Even our Lord God is “unfinished” with his work and aren’t we glad he is?