June 1

Faithful to complete it

             I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 1:3-6

My dad built our house.  We started off in a little home that was connected to a trailer.  Everything was in poor condition and falling apart.  We packed up our family of 5 and moved everything into the trailer.  Dad tore down the small home and built half of a house.  Then we moved everything from the trailer into the half of a house, pulled the trailer and built up the 2^nd half of the house.  Then we knocked out the middle wall and had an entire house to fill and finish.  The plan was that this entire project would take five years from beginning to end.

It took over 30.

I grew up with plywood floors and sheetrock walls and endless projects.  Everything in the house was just a transition to the next stage of the plan.  In some ways it was the perfect house for us.  There is something immensely freeing about having a house with three teenage boys where nothing is fragile and permanent.  Our names were written in the concrete and inside the walls and on the floors.  There were pieces of masking tape ten feet up the walls, marking who had reached the highest in our jumping competition.  One of our saddest days growing up was when we were told that our rec room was now becoming our kitchen so we could not play dodge ball and nerf basketball and soccer in there since mom needed a permanent place to cook.

The process of living in an unfinished home for three decades drove my mom a little batty.  There was always the haunting question that lingered, “Will this house ever be done?”  Our community is littered with buildings that were started but never completed and that was the nightmare.  She was incredibly gracious and she and my dad did an amazing job of creating the house of their dreams that is warm and safe and beautiful and functional without going broke…but it was a long, hard process.

God is faithful to complete the process that he has started within our lives, even if it takes decades.  God is at work within the lives of our children, crafting them into something amazing and whatever projects He begins, He promises that He will finish.  For some of us the work is still in the foundational stage.  Things have been torn down and discarded but there is nothing rising to take their place yet.  The work is being done underground, creating a strong base of relationships and connections and faith that everything in the future will be built upon.

For some of us the work is in process…things are visibly coming together but the house is not completed yet.  There are elements in place; maybe a vocation or a spouse or a city or church that feels like home but there are still pieces that are missing.  Some of us have completed the exterior but the insides are still under construction.  God is working at growing our mind and our heart and our character to match His.

I tire of the process.  I want to be finished.  I want my child to be finished.  I want him to be confident in where he excels and where he struggles.  I want him to flourish in the former and be able to ask for help in the latter.  I want him to be finished wrestling with his value and his place in the world.  I want him to know and love and follow Jesus and be done with the hard questions.  I want him to finally find real relationships with people who see and appreciate the amazingness that is him.  I am tired of us taking two steps forward and then one step back.  And then another step back.  And then a step forward.  And then four back.  And then two forward.  And then three forward.  And then one back.  It all adds up to a step forward in progress…but it is slow.

The best advice that I can give for myself and others struggling with being in the middle of the progress is two-fold:

·         Enjoy the journey.  Find things about the unfinished house that make it fun to play in.  Enjoy your child’s quirks.  Enjoy the time that you get to spend with them.  Find things to do together that make the journey fun and invest time in those as well.

·         God is faithful.  He will complete the process.  Maybe not today.  Maybe not tomorrow.  Maybe not 35 years from now.  But someday He will bring it to perfect completion.  Promise. 

A moment to reflect:

How can you enjoy your child through their process?