Daily Thought

It is a sad reality of life on the planet that there are many people and projects which start well but do not finish well. The very nature of living in a world fraught with calamities and crises means that perseverance is a requirement for everyone seeking to accomplish things in life.

But perseverance alone cannot guarantee success. There are too many factors at work outside of our control. Even absolute rulers like Solomon and Nebuchadnezzar recorded their inability to control the affairs of their lives. Even if safe passage is made through life, death awaits to defeat us at the last. Solomon drearily wrote, ‘All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked … This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live’, Eccles. 9. 2-3.

But there is one Man who never sighed at failure nor blushed in shame. Never did He put aside a project in frustration or yield to circumstances outside His control. Death itself yielded to His will. In sublime understatement, He could say, ‘I have finished the work’, John 17. 4. Indeed it was impossible for Him to do otherwise. More than seven centuries before, the Holy Spirit had moved Isaiah to record the Father’s seven blessed negatives regarding His Son: ‘Behold my servant … He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged’, Isa. 42. 1-4. In an Old Testament equivalent to His triumphant ‘It is finished’, David wrote of a day when at last the tale would be told. Then a generation yet future would make declaration, ‘that he hath done this’, Ps. 22.31. Yes, it will be seen in that day that ‘He hath done all things well’, Mark 7. 37. God’s Omega will indeed have the last word. And He will not only complete what He is doing for you, but also what He is doing in you. ‘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’, Phil. 1. 6.