Good day
Recently I was reflecting on a particular area of my life and it seemed/felt incomplete. In that moment, and I believe it was the Holy Spirit, the following phrase came up, "Don't confuse something that's incomplete with something that's in progress".
With most areas of our lives, whether it's the quality of our relationship with God, our spouse, our ministry, our career, etc. it's all in progress. Our journey with God for example - which influences the quality of all the other areas of our lives - is in progress - it hasn't reached a stage of completion for us to say it's incomplete. Incomplete means "not having everything that it should have; not finished", and is often viewed upon/received as something that is final, as though there's no coming back to it, and this perspective is influenced by how we understand the word "complete". See below examples of how the word "complete" is used in sentences:
No trip to this city would be complete without doing this / visiting a particular place.
This is the complete picture.
I've collected the complete set.
This is a complete guide on how to use something.
You've made my life complete.
Because the word complete is associated with finality and wholeness, when something seems to be missing or if something is lacking in a particular area, we tend to view it as "incomplete" and it can trigger feelings of despair, hopelessness, discouragement, etc.
Whereas the encouragement that I believe God is bringing across here, tells us that if we view something as "in progress", then we won't feel despair or discouragement because it's not perceived as "final". When something is perceived as "in progress" we believe it's ongoing, that there's still time for things to improve, to get better, to make progress, etc. And when we understand that our relationship with God (and the areas it influences) is not a once off event, but rather something that's in progress, it helps to take the pressure off because we're still reaching our destination ... The journey still lies ahead of us ... it's continuous ... There's hope for a better outcome ... There's time to improve ... Time to repair ... To rebuild ... To strengthen ... To straighten out ... To get better results ... Because the journey we're on, isn't incomplete, it's in progress.
Amen
Thank you Lord for this encouragement