My dear friends,
Henry Ford was once asked: ‘How can I become a success?’ Ford
replied: ‘If you start something, finish it.’ Apparently it took Henry
many a long hour in his garage at home (‘Happy days’, his wife no
doubt reflected) to develop his first car. Yet even before completing it
he was acutely aware that he could build it much better. The desire to
give up on the first car, he said, was strong but he carried on regardless.
He later reflected that he learned even more about how to improve the
second car by finishing every detail of the first one.
I know something of his nature. I was once engaged on a similar feat of
engineering ingenuity and probably spent equally long hours locked
away in my garage, measuring, designing, testing, creating,
constructing, persevering, perfecting, adjusting, refining, and finally
completing. And I can tell you I agree with Henry Ford – for I learned
even more about how to make my next shelf by finishing the first.
It is one thing to be a perfectionist, but it is altogether better to be a
‘completionist’ – someone who actually gets the job done.
What God began with the birth of the Saviour, He finished when His
Son was crucified. Christmas hailed the beginning of God’s great
salvation plan. But Jesus’s birth in and of itself achieves no more than a
phone call to the fire brigade – it is a start, but needs carrying through
until the job is done.
God is described in the Bible as the author and perfecter of our faith -
having started something, he will finish it.
Jonathan
in Astbury Village
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