How to Finish What You've Started: It's All in the Seasoning

Yesterday, the family went to Pink Palace. Saunders, founder of Piggly Wiggly, the first self-service grocery store, began building the mansion, but couldn't finish it. I've been thinking about that. Finishing what you've started. It's not always easy. We set out with the intention of finishing things but somehow a lot of what is begun doesn't come to completion. And to those onlooking, and perhaps even more importantly, to ourselves, we are mocked as someone "who couldn't finish what was started".

Jesus had something to say about that. In Luke 14 he begins talking about counting the cost and compares it to building a house or fighting in a battle. He states clearly to the many people following Him, many who were hanging around because of the obvious benefits of being around Jesus, that it costs everything to be a disciple. You've got to be willing to give up everything to be a follower of Christ. It's the only way to make it to the end.

I like that in the Message bible Peterson includes that disciples must be seasoned (salt) to finish the race. There is some clue in that "be seasoned" message about how to be a finisher: remember your first love! The only way to finish is to go in the way you began, with the spark and the passion that brought you to the journey in the first place.

Saunders began his mansion in faith that he would be able to finish it, but he ran out of money, and could not configure funds, though he did try, to finish. He didn't complete it, but his vision was so compelling that others did complete it. So, his is a confusing case. The mansion will forever be associated with his name, though it was not entirely his resources that were able to bring about its complete construction. And he did not get to benefit from its construction, at least not for his intended use. I wonder if he ever stepped foot in it, not as an inhabitant, but as a visitor.

Lord Jesus, help me to get back to my first love, You, to the very essence of what it is to be human, to follow Christ, to love You forsaking all else. Let me live in that place, to not stop by as visitor, but to inhabit the space of the indwelling Christ.

In Jesus Name,

Amen

Luke 14: 25-35
Ephesians 3: 14-21


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