Finishing is where it’s at

I am very good at starting things. I am visionary and can see in the tiny seed of an idea the forest it can become. Starting things is exhilarating. Like a new love interest, you can’t wait to dream and plan and work on the relationship. The new thing is filled with possibility and hope that it will work out like you have envisioned.

There are three steps to any project: planning, doing, evaluating. This is God’s nature: king, judge, lawgiver (Is. 33:22) and it is a principle that we can take to the bank. Success in any endeavor depends on these three simple steps.

I am really great at the first step. Things are sparkling and bursting with potential. To me, planning is great fun. It’s the chance to dream big, to let an idea play out in your mind to its fullest potential. This is the best part, or so it seems. Like new snow, an opportunity begs for footprints, for action. But all the emotions and newness can be deceitful. It isn’t the best part.

I skip the second step for the most part and move right to evaluating. This is where the frustration really sets in. When there is no doing, there is nothing to check, except the plans. It is easy to get down on yourself because you didn’t do your plans. Or you didn’t do them well, or long enough, or whatever. This is not the reason for the steps. Others are stuck in this step, always doing and never taking time to plan or stepping back to see what was accomplished.  Doing doing doing isn’t the best part either.

During the creation week God would end each day by evaluating what He had done (which, of course, is good). He’s really great perfect at these three steps. Me? Not so much. I’m into the rush of the new. So I never get to the “atta girl” satisfaction part. For the most part I never get to look back and say, “That was good.” And I’m not just talking about monumental projects. I mean I need to consciously do these three steps in the little things. Planning time, cleaning out the fridge and saying, “That was good.”I am not in this three step habit. But I want to be and prayerfully I will be more tomorrow than I am today.

I have to toss in more of the second step. The daily grind of checking off the list and doing the dishes and teaching the kids. Day after day, just being in the moment, not in the planning or the evaluating but in the doing, the serving. When I get the doing part down then things will really start cooking. I will enjoy something I have tasted too little of. Finishing is where it’s at.