Thomas Completing Project Me

How Understanding God's Perspective Changes Yours
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4245-5887-2
Verlag: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

Your life is a project. Let God lead it. When failure occurs or tragedy strikes, we struggle to make sense of it. Divine interruptions can sometimes leave us feeling confused. From Genesis to Revelation, God uses conflict as a vehicle for growth. Matthew A. Thomas understands there is more behind every situation than what we can see at first. Completing Project Me is an invitation to understand how God uses challenging experiences to make our lives richer. Learn to: - Consider divine interruptions from God's perspective, - Cultivate resilience in faith, - Deepen your prayer life, and - Center yourself on gratitude. God doesn't start something to leave it unfinished. He is doing more in your life than you know. Let Him lead you through your conflict and into a more complete life.

MATTHEW A. THOMAS has been an active part of the Free Methodist Church since 1979 and was consecrated as Lead Bishop in 2007. He has served in a variety of roles, including pastor, church planter, missionary, and superintendent. Bishop Thomas has been married to his wife, Marlene, for forty years. Together they have four children and eight grandchildren.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Thomas, Matthew A.

Leseproben

1

Completion Is the Goal

I generally finish what I start. I wanted to play saxophone in the school band from a young age. Fifth grade was the first year of band in our school. My father said he would buy a saxophone if I would commit to playing it all the way through high school. He said, “I won’t contribute to helping you start what you can’t finish.” I said that I would, so he bought the saxophone. And I held up my end of the bargain. I heard him say many times, regarding relational, athletic, or work commitments, “Don’t start unless you are committed to finish.” For the most part that describes my life. However, there have been moments when I started well but failed to finish. I am not likely the only one to have unfinished pursuits in some area of life.

One of the most glaring memories of not finishing what I had started was when I competed in track and field. I was a modestly good distance runner as a teen. In my early years of track and field, I finished most of my races in the top three, winning a fair share of them. When I was sixteen years old, in a statewide meet I qualified for a regional event in the two-mile run where the top two finishers would then qualify for a national event. The national event would be on the East Coast, and I lived on the West Coast. I really wanted to see the country and compete against the best runners in the nation.

The regional qualifying race began at 2:00 p.m. on a day in early August. It was 102 degrees on the track at the start of the race. About sixteen runners had qualified for this event from three states. Four decided not to compete due to the heat. I thought that only increased my chances of winning. The gun sounded, and after about two of the eight laps I found myself in second place. Not bad. I held that position for two more laps. Then something happened that I had never experienced before. I think I was experiencing heat stroke. My teenage vocabulary was less medical. We called it “bonking.” And I bonked hard. With only two of the eight laps remaining, I did something I’d never done before, and never did afterward, at a track event. I walked off the track. I fell on the infield grass. I did not finish. For some reason, I remember that race with more graphic detail than every race I won.

Most of the time, I am able to finish what I start. Sometimes, as with all people, I have not been able to finish well or at all. You likely understand. Most of us experience failure at one time or another. Sometimes lack of commitment or excitement does us in. Sometimes hitting our limits or overpromising lead to quitting early. Sometimes we just get tired, distracted, or have other more important things that take precedence. We are only human. And that’s the point. Humans fail though they desperately want to succeed.

But God is different. He never started anything he did not finish or is in process even now of finishing. From the beginning of the Bible until the end of it, God famously starts things and completes them. Genesis 1:1 begins, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Then, after a chapter filled with detailed descriptions about both the order of creation and the roles and limits he granted creation, Genesis 2:1 says, “Thus the heavens and the earth were created in all their vast array.” This is a statement dripping with starting and finishing what is started. God started it, and he completed it. He finished what he started with all of the goodness he pours into everything.

How God worked in the creation is the pattern for everything that follows. The whole Bible is full of God starting and finishing. In fact, after he completed that initial work, he rested (Genesis 2:2–3). We certainly do not believe that God needed rest. He is not susceptible to physical weariness or exhaustion. Yet he rested anyway. Many would say that he was setting an example for us to follow. Resting found its way in the middle of the Ten Commandments telling us how we should live. The fifth commandment has more words than most of the other commandments put together. He commanded it because he knew we needed it on multiple levels.

God himself did not need rest. He simply did it. It could be that his rest was nothing more than an example for us to follow. He certainly did not need it. Perhaps he rested for his own enjoyment. It may have served as a pause; a pause that signaled a break before resuming more activity, before the next phase of his plan, indicating that more was to come. Or perhaps he rested to note that he had completed something. If that is the case, it’s no wonder that resting would be part of God’s rhythm. He is constantly finishing things—fulfilling promises, getting people to safe places, performing miracles that overcome obstacles, and fixing human messes.

After that creation event, humanity fell from relationship with God and his design for them. They fell hard. Still, before he got very far from the start, he made the appropriate adjustment to the colossal human collapse and reiterated to Noah what he said before to Adam: “Be fruitful and increase” (Genesis 9:1, 7). In short, God was bound and determined to finish what he started regardless of human failing. He wanted to get back on track. He does not quit though we sometimes do. He will not fail. He is sure to succeed.

And that is how it goes throughout the pages of Scripture. God has completion in mind before he starts anything. Consider the prophets themselves. They are evidence that God continues the theme of finishing what he starts. The prophets were assigned words from God to share with the people. Sometimes the prophets affirmed the people with words from God, but most often they spoke corrective words to the people, telling of the consequences for disobedience or bad behavior. In the case of the latter, the prophets’ words contained several elements.

First, the prophets conveyed God’s thoughts about the current condition of a specific person or society in general. Usually that behavior was bad; hence, they needed the prophecy. The prophets would tell the people that God saw their hearts and knew what they were up to, which was usually unacceptable.

Nathan was a prophet during King David’s time. He knew what David was up to: an affair, a conniving coverup, and ultimately a murder (2 Samuel 11). David was God’s man, but he could not be God’s man like that, so God had Nathan call David out (12:1–12). Nothing gets better by adding foolishness to foolishness, which David was doing. Of course, Nathan did what any good prophet would do—reveal the nonsense to stop the charade. Prophets spoke truth to people and confronted sin. That is what they did the most. And it was always to stop something that was impeding the person from achieving what God wanted to achieve through them.

Second, prophets would typically convey the consequences that would result from bad behavior. Often, the prophet would relay (quite specifically) what God was going to do if the people did not stop their bad behavior. Sometimes these consequences included the people being dispossessed of their land or possessions; other times the consequences took the form of invading nations, pestilence, drought, or something leading to death or injury. Sometimes it included all of the above (see Habakkuk). That part of the prophets’ job never endeared them to the kings or wealthy and powerful individuals of their day.

Jeremiah was successful in God’s eyes as a prophet because he spelled out consequences to kings and the whole nation of Israel, but he was nothing more than a nuisance to the societal elites. Despite being arrested, abused, and jeered, he didn’t stop telling them what would happen. At one point, the leaders were so exasperated with Jeremiah that they threw him in prison (Jeremiah 37). Their frustration later escalated, and he was thrown in a cistern (38:1–6). In both cases, they wanted him out of sight, out of mind. Having someone constantly warning you about your failure is bad enough. It is worse when people like Jeremiah tell others what horrible things will happen if you persist. But, again, that’s what biblical prophets did.

That brings us to the third responsibility of the prophets: spreading hope. They frequently closed their messages with some good news. They revealed what God would do to fix, restore, or complete the work that had been delayed because of the people’s disobedience. The prophets were reminders that people fail but God does not. People fail to finish but God always does. He never gives up on a promise or commitment. This is the prophets’ message that we like the most. Hope is in it because God promises to continue working. Examples are found and often quoted from passages like Isaiah 55, Ezekiel 37, and Jeremiah 33, since the happy resolution part of the prophets’ words are welcomed by everyone who reads them today. After all, who doesn’t like a happy ending? We like God’s commitment to complete his work.

Those chapters, and others like them, promise us new hearts, the rebirth of a nation, descendants who will have it better than their parents, and God’s continued presence. Through prophets like these, we hear about nations rejoicing, mountains dripping with new wine, sickness being a thing of the past, lions and lambs getting along as friends, and the hungry being satisfied. Of all the words of the prophets, these are the words that make us smile. We feel that justice will be served. The downcast will be lifted up. Hurts will be healed. Troubles that have plagued so many people for so long will go away.

With the...