Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Finishing Strong
By Susan Klein

“I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me…”
Acts 20:24 (NIV)

In his book, Nearing Home, Reverand Billy Graham shares an anecdote involving his wife Ruth. He tells of a time when she was driving along a stretch of highway that was under construction. As she came to the end of all the detours and cautionary signs, she found one that read, “End of Construction. Thank you for your patience.” Chuckling, she conveyed the incident to her family and proclaimed that was what she wanted inscribed on her headstone when she died. [1]

While this is indeed sweetly humorous, it really does speak to each of our hearts. We are always under construction by our heavenly Father. He is shaping, refining and perfecting us until we are conformed to the image of His Son. While it is true we are created in His image at our conception, the conforming of our sin nature into that of a Christ-nature is quite a lengthy process. Lifelong even. None of us ever gets to the point where we can say, “I’m finished!” God is not finished with us until He takes us home to be with Him.

The problem is, we never know when that end will come. It may be tomorrow or several years down the road. Too often, we fall into thinking we have lots of time yet. We may think we can just coast through some of the stretches of construction because the end is so far away. But what if it were just around the next bend? Would we be more alert? Would we be more willing to welcome God’s refining process? Would we be more pliable in the hands of our Creator? Would those irritating detours become something to look forward to?

What if we lived each day as if it truly were the end of our construction zone? What if we got up each morning and spoke the words of the Apostle Paul in the verse above, “I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me [today]”? We could truly finish each day strong, and go to sleep knowing God was whispering, “Well done, my good and faithful child.”

GOING DEEPER:
1.  Are you alert to God’s construction in your life or are you on cruise-control?
2.  How are you steering (each day) toward “completing the task the Lord Jesus has given you”?

FURTHER READING:

[1] Nearing Home: Life, Faith, and Finishing Well, Billy Graham, Thomas Nelson Publishing, ©2013.

Susan enjoys teaching Bible studies, writing, and mentoring. She and her husband Mark co-lead an on-site small group studying 1 Corinthians with Oakwood's Wednesday Night Community.