I was working through Luke 14:25-30 for Sunday when I came across this statement, "This fellow is a great hand at starting things, but he can't carry through on them." (Luke 14:30 Cotton Patch Gospel). I read those words in Jesus' parable and since I take my call very seriously, I began to ponder how often I have left something unfinished.
Sadly there is a lot.
There are four attempts at this blog, this one being the longest one maintained. There are projects here and there around the house that I started but didn't finish. There are projects around the church that I started but didn't finish. I have a plethora of books that I started but didn't finish. The same can be said of the books I said I was going to write, which is a total of about ten. It appears that I start a lot stuff and never finish it.
As I fight that little voice in my head that tells me I am a complete failure, I focus on what Jesus was actually saying and things become clearer.
When I die, Connor will sit down at my desk and begin shifting through my things. He will find incomplete journals, incomplete books, incomplete websites, incomplete lists of goals and things to do, all of which would say to him that his father was an incomplete man. Yet when that voice enters his head he will most likely have memories of why those things are incomplete. An interruption for a funeral here, a wedding there, a hospital visit here, and a "Daddy, come play with me!" there. What I think he will discover is not an incomplete life but an interrupted one filled holy interruptions of games, dinners, and laughter.
At least that is what I hope he discovers.
Because it is what I am discovering.
Jesus' parable of the man building a building is not about finishing your do-it-yourself projects or your honey-do list. It is not a parable about finishing your books on preaching or ministry (There's enough of those out there). It is not about anything except starting and finishing following Jesus and being an active participant in the kingdom of heaven no matter the cost.
And that is something I know I am not incomplete in rather I am following with every fiber of my being.
It reminds me of my ordination gift the deacons at Hatcher gave me. It reads, "This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished but it going on, this not the end but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory but all is being purified."
Suddenly that little voice disappears and I get back to work.
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