“It’s never simple.”
This is the phrase that my wife and I have been repeating to each other for months now.
We’ve had a busy year. We had our first child in January, and then, a few months later, we decided to buy a house. We are incredibly grateful for our home, but it hasn’t exactly been easy. It was built in the 1960s and needed plenty of work. In less than a week before moving in, we pulled up carpet, refinished the hardwood floors, painted, and fixed up a bathroom.
Since moving in, the projects haven’t stopped and… it’s never simple.
There’s always the way I plan for a project to go, and then there’s the way the project actually goes. For example, we needed to replace a bathroom exhaust fan. In theory, it was simple: pull the old one out and put the new one in. In reality, I ended up cutting a hole in my roof and patching a large portion of the bathroom ceiling.
This has become a pretty normal occurrence. We intend to fix one thing on a Friday and discover two other problems that need to be addressed first. So the original project gets set aside. I make another hardware store run, come home, realize I need a tool I don’t own, head back to the hardware store, and suddenly it’s Monday morning and I never even fixed the original issue.
Our current project started when our tiny, 30-year-old wall oven and our brand-new cooktop broke. What should be a simple appliance replacement has now involved an HVAC tech, an electrician, and a plumber.
It’s never simple.
This phrase seems to encompass not only my home renovation life, but my spiritual life as well. Following Jesus isn’t always simple either. Not that the gospel itself is complicated, but God’s work of shaping me rarely keeps to the plan I have in mind. He doesn’t follow the neat timeline I would choose. I would love spiritual growth to be simple: identify the problem, fix the problem, and move on.
Yet, I often find that the Lord uses one issue in my life to expose two others that also need to be addressed. I think He’s working on my patience, only to find He is also exposing my grasp for control and my pride. Or I think I’m dealing with anger or criticism, and He shows me there’s fear underneath driving it.
The hardest part for me isn’t that the work is complicated. I honestly enjoy challenging tasks and researching until I know exactly how to fix the problem. The hardest part is having things sit unfinished. As I write this, I look around my house, and I don’t see the painted walls or the refinished floors. I see the unfinished projects still taunting me. My eyes focus on what’s not done yet.
I’ve realized I often approach my spiritual life the same way. I want to identify what’s wrong, figure out how to fix it, and move on to the next thing. And when that doesn’t happen, my eyes naturally focus on everything that’s still unfinished. I see the same struggles coming back, weaknesses I thought I would have outgrown, and places where I thought I would be further along by now. It’s easy to overlook how much God has already done because I’m so focused on what He hasn’t finished yet.
“I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)
Paul writes these words to the church in Philippi, thanking God for their partnership in the gospel. He sees evidence of God’s work in them, but he also knows that work isn’t finished. Just a few verses later, he prays that their love would “abound more and more” and that they would continue to grow in knowledge, discernment, and righteousness.
Paul can look at the Philippians and see how much God has already done and how much work still remains. I tend to focus on the second.
If I’m not careful, I can become discouraged by what’s unfinished and ignore that God has been faithfully at work all along. This robs me of thankfulness and the opportunity to praise Him for how good He has been to me. I have to remember that I’m not a task list to complete. I’m a person being sanctified.
Paul’s confidence isn’t that the Philippians will finally figure it out. His confidence is in the Lord and His faithfulness to finish what He started. Paul points all the way ahead to “the day of Christ Jesus.” There is supposed to be unfinished work right now. God isn’t done yet. But that shouldn’t keep me from thanking Him for the work He has already done.
Maybe I need to get better at noticing those refinished floors.
There are still plenty of unfinished projects around our house. There probably always will be. And there is still plenty in me that the Lord is shaping, exposing, and changing. It’s never simple, and it’s rarely as quick as I would like it to be. But unfinished doesn’t mean abandoned.
God has been faithful in the work He has already done, He is faithful in the work He is doing now, and He will be faithful to finish what He started.
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