Chipping Away

     Do you have any unfinished projects around your house?  My wife and I have moved a lot.  Every now and then I meet people who have lived in a certain city or town all of their lives.  That was not the case in our lives.  When you think of the Navy, A. T. and T and finally, the ministry, we moved a lot of times.  I painted a lot of houses on the inside.  Sometimes, I just plain got tired of painting room after room, house after house.  The house in Mineral Wells, West Virginia never got painted on the inside.  To me, it looked good enough.  I may have had intentions of painting it but just gave up on it.  You could say that it was an unfinished item in my life.  I have a few here and there.  Philippians 1:6 says, "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:"
     The Christian life is often compared to a construction project.  God is actively chipping away everything in our life that does not look like Christ.  The above verse of Scripture is one that tells us that God won't give up on the project, no matter how hard or impossible it seems to be.  Our Christian life begins when we receive Christ as our Savior and Lord but we have a long way to go.  That then, is the building process that is taking place each day of our lives.  Oh, we will never arrive at perfection, but we are headed in that direction.  God just keeps working on us and some of the chipping in our lives doesn't feel too good, but it is necessary.   God never comes to a point in our lives and declare us to be impossible.   He is not finished with the project.  You could say that He has put some orange barrels around your life and that you have been declared to be a construction zone.   The exciting thing for me in this passage is the place where it says that He will complete the work.  Of course, when that happens, you will be in glory.  So, be patient today and in the days to come as God continues to chip away at your life.  You might say, He chips away because big chunks would be too painful for you to bear.  I am reminded about a phrase that was the purpose statement of a church which simply said, "Scripture and Prayer to conform us to the image of Christ.  Praise God that He is not finished with us yet.