“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” — Philippians 1:6 (ESV)
There are seasons in life when it can feel as though God has gone quiet. Sometimes those seasons last a few weeks or months, and sometimes they stretch into years. We look back across the landscape of our lives and see chapters where God seemed distant, our sense of calling disappeared, and the person we once imagined ourselves becoming somehow got lost along the way. We can begin to wonder whether we missed our opportunity, whether we wandered too far, or whether the things God once placed within us belonged to another version of ourselves.
I know something about that.
There was a time in my life when ministry was very much part of who I was. As a young man, I was involved in youth ministry, leadership and serving people, and there was a genuine sense that God was doing something with my life. I couldn’t necessarily see where it would all lead, but I believed there was a calling there. Yet my story didn’t continue along the neat path I might have imagined. Life happened. There were disappointments, decisions, relationships, failures and questions, and eventually I spent more than twenty years away from an active Christian faith.
For a long time, it would have been easy to look at those years as the interruption in my story. There was the part where I followed God, then there was this enormous gap, and now there is the part where I am following Him again. Increasingly, though, I wonder whether God sees my story quite so neatly divided. Philippians 1:6 doesn’t tell us that God begins a good work in us and continues it only while we’re getting everything right. Paul says that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. There is something deeply reassuring about that because it means God is not intimidated by the messy middle of our stories.
Perhaps you have some years like that too. Maybe there are chapters you would happily remove if you were given the opportunity. There may be decisions you regret, relationships that ended, dreams that never eventuated, or a calling you once believed in but eventually abandoned. Perhaps you have struggled through grief, disappointment, trauma, addiction, failure or simply the slow drifting of a heart that once felt much closer to God. When we look at our lives, we can become very good at dividing the years into those God used and those we wasted. But I’m not convinced God makes that distinction as readily as we do.
That doesn’t mean everything that happens to us is God’s will. It doesn’t mean our mistakes suddenly become good decisions, and it certainly doesn’t mean that suffering or trauma should somehow be romanticised as though God needed to hurt us in order to teach us something. Scripture gives us something much more hopeful than that. Romans 8:28 tells us that God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Paul doesn’t say that all things are good. He tells us that God is capable of working through all things. God can take something He never desired for us and still refuse to allow it to have the final word.
That is something I have begun to recognise in my own life since returning to faith. The man who came back to Jesus was not the same young man who had walked away all those years earlier. Life had changed me. For years, I had worked alongside people living with disability, trauma, mental-health challenges, complicated family circumstances and situations that could never be solved with a few easy answers. Somewhere along the way I learned to listen differently. I learned that sometimes sitting beside someone matters more than telling them what they should do. I learned that behaviour often has a story underneath it, that pain doesn’t always announce itself clearly, and that caring for somebody doesn’t mean trying to fix them.
When God began stirring ministry in me again, I slowly started recognising that perhaps these weren’t unrelated chapters after all. Perhaps God was gathering threads together that I had assumed belonged to completely different parts of my life. My writing began to change. Bible teaching became less about finding impressive answers and more about helping people encounter Jesus within the reality of their lives. Pastoral care became less about telling people where they needed to go and more about being willing to meet them where they actually were. Gradually, a calling that I thought belonged to another lifetime began breathing again. It hasn’t returned exactly as it was before. In many ways, I think it has become gentler, deeper and far more aware of grace.
We sometimes imagine that restoration means God taking us backwards and returning us to the person we were before everything went wrong. But perhaps God isn’t interested in simply recreating an earlier version of us. Perhaps He wants to form something new from everything we have carried through the journey.
Peter’s story reminds me of this. He was absolutely convinced that he would remain faithful to Jesus no matter what happened. Yet when pressure came, Peter denied even knowing Him three times. If calling depended upon maintaining a flawless record, Peter’s ministry should have ended that night. Instead, after the resurrection, Jesus met him beside a charcoal fire. Jesus didn’t pretend Peter’s failure hadn’t happened, but neither did He allow that failure to become Peter’s identity. Three times Jesus asked whether Peter loved Him, and then came the invitation: “Feed my sheep.” The man who would eventually help care for the early church would do so knowing what it was like to fail spectacularly and still discover that Jesus had not finished with him.
I find myself in an interesting season of life now. There is writing happening. Books are being written. Opportunities around ministry are opening again. There is Bible study, teaching, pastoral care and a growing sense that God is bringing together threads that once appeared completely disconnected. Simon Cornwill Ministries itself has emerged from that renewed sense of calling and from a desire to create somewhere people can encounter Scripture, honest reflection, encouragement and ultimately Jesus.
But I don’t feel as though I have arrived. In fact, I think that’s becoming increasingly important to me. Calling isn’t primarily about arriving somewhere. It is about following Someone. Jesus doesn’t ask me to understand everything that lies ahead. He doesn’t require me to have the next ten years mapped out or to somehow prove that I am worthy of being used again. The invitation remains remarkably simple: “Follow me.” One step, then another. One act of obedience followed by the next.
Perhaps that is also why the words Room for You have begun to mean so much to me. I have become increasingly convinced that there needs to be room within Christian community for complicated stories. There needs to be room for the person returning after twenty years and for the person who never left but is exhausted. There needs to be room for questions, grief, trauma, rebuilding and uncertainty. There needs to be room for the person sitting quietly at the back wondering whether Jesus could possibly still want them.
The Gospels continually show us that Jesus made this kind of room. He made room for the woman at the well and for Zacchaeus. He made room for Peter after his denial and Thomas in his doubt. Even while hanging on the cross, He made room for the dying criminal beside Him. These were people with stories, histories, failures and questions. Jesus met them where they were, but He loved them enough to invite them forward.
Maybe today you don’t need to understand God’s entire plan for your life. Perhaps you simply need to be reminded that God isn’t finished with your story. The chapter you are living today isn’t the whole book. The years you regret are not beyond redemption. The wounds you carry do not automatically disqualify you, and the calling you thought had disappeared may not be dead at all. It may simply return in a form you never expected.
I cannot tell you exactly what God is doing with your story because I am still discovering what He is doing with mine. But I know where we can begin. We can begin at the feet of Jesus. We can bring Him the calling and the confusion, the faith and the questions, the chapters we’re proud of and the ones we would rather tear from the book. And we can trust that the One who began the work knows exactly what He is doing with an unfinished story.
“He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.”
That promise includes today.
Prayer
Father, thank You that You have not abandoned the work You began in me. There are parts of my story I understand and parts I still don’t. There are things I am grateful for and things I wish had happened differently, but today I place all of it into Your hands.
Redeem what can be redeemed. Heal what needs healing. Teach me through what I have walked through, and don’t allow my past to convince me that You have finished with my future. Give me the courage to follow Jesus one step at a time, and if there is something You are calling back to life within me, help me recognise Your voice.
I don’t need to know the entire road today. I simply want to walk with You. There is room for my story in Your hands.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
Carry This With You Today
Your story does not have to be perfect for God to use it. The God who began the work is still writing.