This here post is a part of a four-part blog series I am writing. It’s about being finished… Buuut ironically it’s not finished yet. So here is part three. View part two here.

There will always be
another course to take,
another bill to pay,
another milestone to achieve.

But those milestones might last a day.

What about the rest of the days? Are 98% of them just doomed to be this anxious in-between?

Now, there are two attitudes I’d like to address here:

(1) We could live every day reveling in what has already been finished.
(2) We could also live every day with anxiety about what is not finished.

Finished?

Functional.

Getting into my car and driving this week was nerve-wracking. But now that I think of it,
most of my days I simply expect my car will get me to my destination safely
and on time (well, sometimes:) ).

Finished.

Most of my days I pop into my car expecting 100% of everything will function.
If I ignore an indicator for the sake of “peace,” then my car won’t function.
But if my mind always spends itself worrying, *I* can’t function.

How can I have peace and certainty in the right things,
even when the other things are uncertain?

There is one finished, ever-certain thing in which I’ve ever been able to put my trust,
upon which I’ve ever been able to cast my worries,
whether moral or existential or practical,
with any kind of certainty.

 

This Sunday my friend Keith talked about something called “The finished work of Jesus.”
Long story short, this pretty much means that,
all the moral striving we do to get on God’s good side… well,
we don’t have to do it anymore. 

Because what Jesus did on the cross, is vouch for us. So whenever we sin, he’s like,

“Hey God, look. That thought/attitude/action Meg just had was against your perfect law, which means it has racked up a moral debt. But I paid the bail for that already. Don’t hold it against Meg. I love her. I just want her to live free from that punishment and feel loved by us and be in a good place to make ever better choices next time, instead of getting stuck in what happened.”

So that means, when I wake up tomorrow, I don’t have to be anxious, like, “Oh my gosh, I’m gonna sin a ton today if I’m not careful, and God’s gonna be mad at me.” The finished work of Jesus means I can think instead, “God knows just how much I’m gonna sin today, but he’s already paid for it. So instead of focusing on my sin, I can focus on His sufficiency to help me have an awesome day where other people are better off because I lived it.”

It takes the attention off myself and my lack, and onto His sufficiency — and how that can impact other people.

See what I did there?

Functional.

So what does this look like with the example of my car?

When I was uncertain… I was driving like a grandma, okay? Everyone was passing me, and my blood pressure… probably was not okay. People were passing me, I was incredibly late to things — it was just a bad time.

But let’s say, tonight I could go back in time to last Saturday and say, “Hey Meg. Your EPC light is on, and that’s weird and scary, and I know. Go ahead and be cautious… but don’t worry about dying or getting in a wreck or anything.  A few days from now, your car will be fixed and it’ll be fine.”

If I could somehow have driven around this week with the guarantee that the work on my car would be done…
man. I would had a much better time.

Finished.

The “finished work of Jesus” doesn’t mean my work is finished.
It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be cautious and alert about how I’m driving.

But the finished work of Jesus is the only thing that’s gonna empower me to do my work with any kind of excellence.

With any kind of peace.
With any kind of effectiveness.
With any kind of attitude that is not focused on me and my insecurities,
but on Him who actually deserves my attention more than anyone else anyway.

Unfinished.

Many people see the cross as simply a moral symbol. But it’s truly holistic in its scope… If it’s God’s will to have peace,
then this peace is not simply moral, but also practical. Because if I have moral peace, but a broken car, I’m not getting anywhere.

So in your unfinished work today at your job, on your broken car, on your garden, as you’re waiting on a verdict at the hospital… where does your peace come from? Your circumstances, or your knowledge that God is good,
that He’s working things together for good,
and that He’s not so weak that
one broken thing could break down His sovereignty and great love for you?

Is it possible that even amid the tragedy, that God is still holding you, and that He is going to bring you  through it?
Is His love so weak that sickness, even death — the last enemy He conquered on the cross — could leave you hopeless and alone?

Finished.

My unfinished work is not to fix all the problems of the world.
My unfinished work is to use what He has already fixed to bring His love to a broken, but not hopeless, world.

My unfinished work is not to pretend I’m a mechanic and try to fix something I can’t fix.
My work is to focus on what is in my power, and trust the mechanic to do his job with the rest.
Only then will my life and my spirit and my attitude be
functional enough to do precisely the task before me.

 

Part IV is on the way. In the meantime…

  1. Have you ever worked through a project that was uncertain, but somehow had peace through the process? Describe this experience, and what gave you peace.
  2. Have you ever worked on something and been anxious the whole time, only to find you were okay in the end? Do you think you could have achieved the same result without the anxiety, or was the anxiety a necessary part of finishing your work?
  3. When something is unfinished, we can focus on Jesus’ finished work to get us through. But the work still has to be done. How can we have the right attitude amid the unfinished?
  4. Is it possible to work hard and live in uncertainty without being anxious?