“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.” Philippians 1.3-7 ESV
If you really pay attention to this text, rereading it again and again and meditating on the truths Paul is communicating to the church at Philippi, you can learn a lot about the gospel that changed Paul’s life so radically.
He finds grace in his imprisonment, for one. Who does that?
He overflows with gratitude that the church gets it about how the gospel is a lifelong partnership.
He understands clearly that grace is a thing to be used, to be partaken of, not left on a shelf while we pursue self-righteous alternative paths to self justification.
More important to the topic I chose for today, God, as only God can, is guiding every single loose end to a single destination and moment in Christ. The very last second assigned to time will tick away into eternity as witness to the genius of God to anchor every individual trajectory that sprung from Christ the Beginning right back into Christ the End because God finishes what He starts.
Yesterday I took a run in the woods believing I had adequately committed to memory the path I needed to take in order to do a little two-and-a-half mile loop. I was trying to avoid the long route, which was over five miles. By the time I realized I had taken a wrong turn, resulting from a misunderstanding of where I actually was on the trail system, I was so far from home that it didn’t matter if I kept going or turned back. I had come almost three miles, and it was almost three miles back regardless of whether I retraced my steps or finished the loop. I finished the loop, clocking a little over five miles, but I was amazed at how much of a mind game it was. I had to decide again and again that I was just fine, that I could do this, even that I could enjoy myself.
I made it back fine, if a little mindblown that I had in fact made it back. That little jaunt is a metaphor for how we must walk with Jesus. We set off thinking we know the path and the things we’ll see and what the journey will require of us, but then life gets real, doesn’t it? And it requires much more than we thought we would have to bring. We have to reach well outside of ourselves and what we think is possible in order to finish.
We cannot hope to get there without the God who finishes what He starts.
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