Reflections by Chuck Cluff, Atherton resident since 2004
Passage: Phillippians1:6 “ He who began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
Every great product has gone through a series of stages, from beginning to end to get to where it is. Any finely tuned product started from an imperfect or undeveloped state, and went through the steps needed for the imagined product to come to fruition: It begins as an idea- the imagined outcome; then comes extensive planning, followed by making a prototype. This is subjected to rigorous testing, and finally it is ready for manufacture and use. There is often a large gap between start and finish, with lots of failures and adjustments along the way.
This kind of development is also true with people. As we all understand, there are no completly “finished” people; but we don’t often think about how much development it takes from the start.
No one is able to play the piano or violin from the get go. If there were no stages of development the world would have had to have been made with everything perfect; the material and physical without defect from the beginning. Life is not a piece of jewelry created flawlessly, without coming from the raw material or enduring the artists’ refining processes to make it beautiful along the way. It is good that nothing and no one is fully mature at creation or birth. There would be no growth, no new awareness, no discovery.
Of course the world doesn’t work this way for things or people. Everyone is somewhere between start and finish, between knowing nothing to knowing everything. As we look at our lives and those around us we should see everything and everyone is in process, in production. We are all “not there yet”.
The comment in scripture that “all things work together for good” is comforting for sure. We hang on to the promise that eventually everything will show to have been part of the plan we have been within all along. It is a huge thing to know we have leading and guidance. That there are those beyond our seeing who are constantly attentive to where we are going and how we are doing is very reassuring. There is a road we can follow, there is a spiritual path that goes before us. It helps us to point in the right direction. God does not seem to think we need details about that path, he just wants us on it. Steps appear before us while we are walking, like a trail unfolds on a foggy day. Faith knows we won’t crumble when seeking God’s leading.
At times we can’t see the path at all, in fact occasionally we may not know we are even on it. But God and our spiritual friends know. They keep us safe as they hang in with us. “I will never leave you nor forsake you” is the promise that leaves us very secure. We are His “workmanship” and He will bring us all the way.
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