🔥 To Completion

 We were never meant to just wake up like this.

Genesis tells us that God intended to make man in His image. The word used in Genesis 1:26 for "make" is a verb often meaning to fashion, to accomplish. Then, in the very next verse, we read that God created man in His image—using a different verb, meaning to shape, to form. This isn’t random. It reveals something profound: being made in God's image isn’t just about origin—it’s about process.

God didn’t just create us—He is still making us.

And like anything being formed, there’s shaping, pressing, stretching. Becoming isn’t always beautiful. But it is holy.

We can trace the same process in the way God reveals Himself. In Isaiah, He says:

“I have declared, I have saved, and I have proclaimed...” (Isa. 43:12)

He declares the end from the beginning.
He saves us in the middle.
He proclaims His work when it is finished.
And His proclamation is always the same: that He is the LORD God—gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in love, and faithful, faithful, faithful.

There’s a rhythm to this:
Intention → Formation → Manifestation.

Even Jesus Himself followed this path.

“For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame...” (Heb. 12:2)

He saw what was coming—what had been declared of Him beforehand in the Scriptures—and it gave Him strength to walk through what was.

This is what we must hold on to in our own journey. The pain, the shame, the not-there-yet stage—it’s all part of the making. But it's not the end. The joy set before us is this:
That we will be made fully in His image.
That we will walk in the blessing God gave humanity from the beginning:

“Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it, and have dominion...” (Gen. 1:28)

He is taking us to completion.

And maybe it’s not just about trusting the process for ourselves—
Maybe it’s also about giving others the same grace.

A lump of clay on the wheel doesn’t look like a masterpiece in its early spins. A slab of stone under the chisel doesn’t look like a statue while the hammer is striking. The shaping hurts. The pressing feels unfair. But it’s all working—a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. 4:17).

“Only a fool answers a matter before he hears it...” (Prov. 18:13)

We are often too quick to conclude what someone is or isn’t, based on what we see mid-process. But what if God is still forming them? What if the hand of the Potter is still at work? Would we dare interrupt the shaping or speak against the sculptor before He’s finished?

If we could see what God sees—the image being formed beneath the rough edges—we might hold our words, withhold our judgment, and worship instead.

Let us not just endure the process. Let us honor it—in ourselves and in others.
Because when He’s finished, it will be glory.

So when it hurts, when it’s messy, when shame tries to creep in over who we’re not yet—let us despise it. Not because it isn’t real, but because it’s not the final word. Let the knowledge of where this ends give us strength to trust Him through the middle.

As Paul reminds us:

“Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” (2 Cor. 4:17)

And:

“He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 1:6)

We are being formed.
We are being made.
And He will finish what He started.

To completion.