For five days in a row the same devotional came to my inbox! Obviously there was a glitch in the system that wasn’t caught yet. On this, the fifth day, I was frustrated and wondered, have they not noticed yet that they have sent the wrong thing for four days? As I typed out my message to let them know that they had sent out the same message every day for 5 days, I heard the message in my heart-this may be their mistake but not God’s. The message of the devotional was titled “Let Me Finish” and it was about crying out to God with everything on our hearts…and then leaving God to finish what He started.
“I cry aloud to the LORD; I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy. I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble.” Psalm 142:1-2 (NIV)
The writer of the devotional was directing us to hear God say to our hearts “Let Me Finish”
Things may look messy and hard but God is working. Her point was that while we pour out our true and heartfelt lament and pleas to God, that we remember who God is and His goodness and therefore be lead to expect whatever mess we are in, we will come out, because God isn’t finished yet. He will fix up. He will clean up. We can trust God in the storm, the silence, the sorrow, the hidden, the unfinished and incomplete.
Well, if you only knew the challenges and storms I am in right now, you would know even more, how right this message is for me. Right because, I needed to do both. I needed to release my heart- the stress-the disappointment-the slow creeping anxiety-the looming fear-the feelings I couldn’t explain and didn’t want feel. I needed to remember not just in my head but in my heart who the God that I serve is, has always been and forever will be. I needed to remind my soul of His goodness. I needed to hear “Let Me Finish” because I am in a mess and am a mess, but God never leaves things this way. He always cleans up. He always finishes what He has started.
Maybe you need this message as much as I do. Join me in unloading and stepping aside to let God finish well, in only the way that God can- complete and beautiful.