Tonight I had a realization. I’m great at starting projects.
But do I finish them?
This is one of the first blankets that I ever started to make…. 8 or 9 years ago. While making it, I ran out of the pink yarn that I was using. After that, I never really went back to it. I had a pretty good excuse, though, right?
In this near decade, so much has changed. In the years since I started it, I graduated from high school, went to college, graduated with a Bachelor’s, and started a Master’s degree. With such pursuits, my priorities had to change in order to complete each stage. Still I kept the blanket wherever I went and thought that I would someday pull it out and finish it. So why is this story so significant?
Tonight, I pulled that blanket back out. The greatest concern I felt while staring at this unfinished project wasn’t about the blanket itself. Sure I felt the conflict of “Should I keep it or should I throw it away? Wouldn’t that be a waste of all that time that I spent before to make it? But when will I ever have time to finish it with everything else that I have going on?”
And that’s when it hit me. Is this the same mentality that I’ve had, have, or will have towards ministry? Is it just a hobby on the side that I will one day set down because I believed that I didn’t have the right tools, time or energy to do it? Will it get washed away in the flow of life’s other pursuits with the excuse of, “Well, I’ll get to that when I have more time and when I’m in a position where I’m able to do it… But for now, first things first…”
I don’t just want Christianity to be my hobby. In the same way, neither should God’s will be second to anything else. It should be “the first thing first.” Ten years down the road, I don’t want to see a remnant of the calling I once thought I had heard God whispering to me and say, “Wow, that had a lot of potential and could have been something beautiful. If only I would have been faithful to finish…”
Praise be to God that He is faithful! Through this scripture–and the Bible as a whole–we know that God has a purpose for everything, including every person (Proverbs 16:4). As the Psalmist proclaims in chapter 138,
He tells the Lord, “Do not forsake me.” In other words, do not reject, fail, leave, desert, abandon, depart, or withdraw from me.
But what if we’re the ones that are abandoning Him? What if we’re the ones that daily choose to pursue someone or something else?
Tonight let’s be in prayer about our lives–our priorities and pursuits. May God test our hearts and minds and help us to discern His will for our lives!
Praying your day is filled with SONshine,
Sarah 🙂
COMPELLED 