I Am God’s Project

[415 words]

“For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

There are benefits to an extended, do-it-yourself project, like painting a house, building a model or even assembling a 1,000 piece puzzle. For one thing, it teaches patience. Large projects are usually not done in a day. They have to be repeatedly left and come back to. Keeping on without quitting can be tough.

Also, I have found that with large projects, when facing a problem, stopping for a while, maybe a day or two will allow me time to work out solutions in my head. When I go back to the task, I am able to solve the problem and go on. I have often learned that walking away for a while is the best way to solve a problem.

Here is a fact that many Christians do not think about: Each one of us is God’s project. If you are a Christian, the Bible says that He “is at work in you.” Through the word of God (see John 17:17, Ephesians 5:26), providential intervention (see Romans 8:28) and even angelic involvement (see Hebrews 1:14), you are God’s enterprise. He is working on you to undo all the bad habits that Satan has taught you and to bring you to His own nature.

“I am God’s project” is a profound concept. He does not undertake work on me because He needs to learn patience or problem solving. He does not do it because He would otherwise be bored and have nothing else to do (see Revelation 4:11). What He does for me He does because of never-diminishing love.

While God working in me ultimately depends upon my doing His will and supplying the knowledge of His word, a consciousness of the process, I find, benefits me as the work is being done. What I mean is that when I am agitated or depressed by life I try to promote the thought, “What is it that God is working in me?”

The more clearly I can develop this sense ofbeing a co-worker and willing partner in my own development, I do not sense then that anything is ever for nothing. Any emotion I suffer, any battle scar I bear or doubt I entertain is for a reason. Every day I live and all the “highs and lows” found therein, I try to look upon as God’s work in progress, in me.

“Thank you God for doing your work in me!”