Ifs, Ands, and Buts...

Philippians 1:6, "...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of  

Christ Jesus." 

"If." It's a pretty small word but what a powerful one. It can be a powerful positive word or a powerful negative word. 

"I wonder...if...we could do this?  If we perhaps do this I wonder if it would work? If this lines up then it should go through." 

Used in this way the word "if" becomes this powerful word of possibility. 

I like being around people with a positive "if." They open up a world that I am often blind to and they give me hope. They allow me to see the creative wonder of God through his people and through his creation. 

Too often, however, I live in the negative "if." It's the world of regret, a world of speculation, of worthless imagination. 

What if I had done this?  What if I would have gone there? What if I would have met this person or chosen that career? What if I would have said, "Yes" or what if I would have said, "No"?

When I was in my 30's and going back to college I was often wondering why God called me into ministry so late. What if God would have called me when I was a teen? Then I would be, could be, should be... 

Someone has figured out that 40% of our anxiety comes from thinking about the "what if" that will never happen and 30% of the "what did happen" that can never be undone. It's a futile "if"and it robs us of the blessing of the moment.  

It is an attitude of discontentment that drives the mind away from the present blessings and realities of a loving and sovereign God. 

Think about this for a moment:  If God lovingly created you and called you to himself, not only for a deep, abiding relationship, but so that you might live with purpose, then why would you think there could be miss-steps in your journey?

What "if" everything....everything in your life has been placed there for the great purposes of glorifying God and bringing your life into it fullest completion and joy? 

What "if" there are no miss-steps, no wrong turns, no wrong choices. What if God does indeed have this incredible plan for your life that draws you into the cosmic fabric of his pre-planned tapestry?

Honestly, it's relieved a lot of stress in my life so that I can sinfully worry about other things. God has not called me to be anything else than what I am - today. And I will be exactly what God wants me to be tomorrow. 

Through the good times, the troubled times, the poor times and the rich times, through times of deepest sorrow and times of deepest joy, through times of obedience and times of disobedience, through absolute certainty and absolute uncertainty  -- God's loving plan is unfolding. 

We wonder "if" because we cannot see the end. But I am confident of this one thing: that at the end of my life I will know that the one who began a good work in me was, indeed, able to complete it until the end. No "ifs," "ands," or "buts."