Finsished the Course

Paul said in 2 Timothy 4, "I have finished the course," Paul says that he has finished. Starting is easy, but finishing is difficult. I think about the things I've started in life. Karate, I made it to orange belt, but things got busy and I lost interest. I tried my hand at wood carving, that lasted a few weeks and just got tedious. I was teaching myself to play guitar, and then life happened. I was so excited about all of these at the beginning. I had thoughts of me in the future successful at each one, and today, I know one chord on the guitar, have some unfinished piece of wood in my dad's garage, and my karate uniform is somewhere in my parent's house.

Finishing things is difficult. Many people quit when things get hard, when they encounter things that they didn't anticipate at the beginning. There is a goal we set out to attain, but something comes up and we never reach it. Paul didn't have that happen. He said finished the course. He had reached the goal. In the book of Philippians, written 5 or 6 years before 2 Timothy, he says that he hasn't attained the goal yet, but that he is striving after it. God had called him into Christlikeness, and Paul said he had not attained it yet, but that he was striving towards it.

Earlier in Philippians 3.10-11 Paul stated, "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." Paul had died to himself years earlier when he had embraced the call of Christ on his life and accepted the mission to tell the Gentiles about the love of Christ. Here at the end of 2 Timothy he is preparing to physically embrace death. And as he said in Philippians 1, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better;"

Paul has finished the course, he has reached the goal, and he can now go to death satisfied because he has fulfilled the call that God has given him. My friend Linda finished her course as well. Linda never quit. As the cancer took it's toll on her, she never quit encouraging, she never quit teaching, she never quit glorifying God. She never quit loving and caring for friends and family. Linda was a dearly loved woman, and she knew how hard her funeral would be for those of us she left behind, so she planned it out for us. The songs that were to be played, how her hands were supposed to be placed in the casket, even the meal that would be served after the grave side service. Had she been able to bake in her last months she would have made the cookies that were served as appetizers. Linda never left anything unfinished. She showed me how to finish the course.

There will be tasks in life that we don't finish. There will be things that we lose interest in, or don't have the passion to make time for. But there are things that matter that we must stick to, no matter how difficult life gets. In 2 Corinthians 11.22-28 we find a list form Paul about the hardships he's endured, "Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches." I doubt at the beginning he knew what was ahead of him. But through all of that Paul stayed the course and at the end of his life was able to declare, "I have finished the course."

Stay the course, finish it through the power of Christ.

Peace be with you