"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." (Philippians 1:6)
Where do I even begin?
I absolutely love the book of Philippians, and if you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll definitely know that already. I often reference it and God often leads me back to it when He's trying to teach me something. But strangely, what I'm going to share with everyone this time doesn't stem from Philippians. In fact, the verse I decided to start the post of with doesn't even really have anything to do with what I'm sharing. I only chose to lead with this verse because it's a really good depiction of where my relationship with God is right now. It's also a really good depiction of where my relationship with God has been and where it will always be. I used this verse in my baptismal testimony last summer because of this very reason.
So why am I telling you all of this?
I read the creation story the other day. That's right, very first chapter of the Bible. One that I must confess I skip over a lot and very often forget about. Why do I skip over it? Because I've heard it ten billion times. (That might be an exaggeration, but I suspect you understand the feeling.) This time when I read it though, God surprised me. He likes to do that, doesn't He? He used the story I've probably heard the most times in my life to speak to me about something I've been struggling with right now. I hate talking about right now struggles, I'm much more comfortable talking about past struggles. What did I learn from the creation story? Things take time. Very vague and very obvious, right?
But maybe it's not so obvious. I discussed this a little bit in my new year's post about today. Instant gratification. Don't you ever wish that you could wake up tomorrow morning and everything that you've been frustrated with or struggling with would just be gone? It would be over? You pray and God takes it away instantly? I know I'm not alone in this. But what God reminded me of was: things take time. Healing takes time. Moving on takes time.
God instantaneously putting us at our optimal recovery destination makes about as much sense as God creating humans first, in that it doesn't make sense. There's a reason that God created a whole bunch of other stuff first before He created humans. First, He created the Earth, giving us a place of habitat and water, and the heavens. Then He created light and separated it from the darkness, giving us a time for being awake and a time for resting. Day and night. Then He created the sky and perhaps the atmosphere, giving us what we needed to live: air to breathe. Then He created land, giving us a place to stand and work and live. Then He created all kinds of plants, giving us food and nutrients needed for survival and oxygen. Then God created the sun, moon, and stars, giving us time, heat, and art. (Art meaning something beautiful to enjoy.) Then He created all kinds of animals, giving us working help and, again, food and nutrients needed for survival. (And, as I like to think, a fun and different kind of companionship.) Then, only when He knew it was ready, God created us.
Even though humans were the apex and purpose of God's creation, it would have made no sense whatsoever to create us first. We needed all the things God created before us in order to live. In the same way, we need all the time before we reach our "optimal recovery destination", as I called it earlier. Why? Because God uses that time to equip us with the things we need in order to survive once we reach the destination point of that particular struggle and teaches us how to use them. It's a process and processes take time. I'm reminded of the verse in Romans 5 that says "suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope" (verse 3 and 4, ESV). Baby steps.
Why is this so significant to me? Because I've been struggling with the same one thing for a very long time and IT. IS. EXHAUSTING. I was extremely frustrated about it right before I read the creation story in my devotions that day and the only thing I could muster myself up to pray before starting my devotional was: "God, I just want to get better". And God spoke in the most incredible way.
That's where the Philippians verse comes in. God is always working, even if it feels like He's not doing anything. And because of that, I can have hope. We can have hope.
