Finish What You Started

It's been hard for me to write again because I never want to publish anything just for the sake of saying I did. There's so much dead content on the internet these days that I'm fearful of adding to it with something that doesn't need to be shared, but writing has been therapeutic for me to process the contrasting life moments of highs, lows, joy, pain; the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are moments in life that we count on and predict, but then there are those moments that you don't expect. The moments where you feel frozen in time and all you can muster is a, "How the heck did I get here?".

For me, this has been life.

I predicted I would graduate from high school and go right on to college, but what I didn't expect was to make the decision to take a gap year that turned into one semester off. I predicted I would graduate from college with a degree in ministry, but what I didn't expect was to launch myself into a ministry experience that would be far from what I envisioned or hoped for. I predicted that I would heal from that ministry experience, but what I didn't expect was the next few years of financial hardship, loss of jobs, loss of relationships, and a sense of panic as I desperately tried to move on and put those things behind me. Within my desperation to try and figure it all out or rationalize (in my own strength/sheer willpower), I arrived at this conclusion: I'm in an endless war with myself. Do things out of my own strength because I'm impatient and impulsive...or...wait on the Lord like I'm commanded to do because His way is better. My war continues to flow from a steady stream of doubt. I doubt that God has great things in store for me and that if I wait long enough, pray hard enough, or seek through Scripture hard enough that they will come to fruition. But then they don't. 

Mentally, I'm left standing in the middle of the busiest intersection you can imagine, watching everything happen to everyone else, and there I am...doubting and waiting for a never-ending red light to turn green. My doubt starts with longing for things I've been dreaming of (ministry, marriage, family, etc.), but I can’t get out of my own way long enough to stop believing the lies I’ve been telling myself for years about who I am or what I’ll never accomplish. I feel the freedom to pursue who I know God has called me to be, but fear creeps in just enough to fuel the fire of my complacency and…more doubt; lather, rinse, repeat. Everything about what I thought my life would be has felt like such a far-fetched and unattainable reality. There has been some type of blockage in me that I can’t shake, and it scares me that I’ll never get rid of it. 

In a sense, I predicted that things were going to be hard somewhere along the way.

But outside the scope of my expectations was how good, faithful, and trustworthy God was going to continue to be despite my doubt that, "...he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6 - #coffeemugverse). 

I'm grateful I serve a God who isn’t dictated by my feelings. Instead, I am led by His never-ending mercy and grace, and by His love and kindness. I can doubt all day every day but He isn’t fazed by it, He’s not confused by it, and He’s not angry with me about it. Through it all, He pulls up a chair at the table and invites me to sit and talk a while to work it out. Then I get up, and put one foot in front of the other in an attempt to do the next right thing, although what exactly that next right thing is seems to be clear as mud. In this present moment, the only thing I know is that there is something in me God isn't finished doing yet. But I know that in His grace and power at work within me, He will finish what He started.