The Woodpecker Outside my Window
It’s Sunday morning and I’m in Prescott, AZ. I’m more of a morning person than a night owl. I love the mornings and this morning was different than most because I usually don’t wake up in Prescott, Arizona for the simple reason that I don’t live here. As I sat in my hotel room sipping coffee, reading scripture, checking email and catching up with the latest chatter on Twitter and Facebook, I noticed a woodpecker on the tree right outside my window. So I stopped everything else that I was doing and watched him for a while. He had no idea I was there, so he kept pecking away. This is kind of a big deal because you don’t see a lot of woodpeckers where I live in the Phoenix area. As I watched him working so hard pecking away at that big tree, a couple of things came to mind. The first was how undisciplined and inconsistent I can be in my walk with the Lord, and the second was how consistent and persistent the Lord is in the work he is doing in our lives. It gave me a renewed appreciation of his grace and I think it caused me to lean harder against it. That woodpecker is like the Holy Spirit’s work in my life. He never tires or becomes exhausted like I do. He never gets frustrated with my performance like I sometimes do. I have his promise that he will never stop changing me to be more like Jesus, in spite of myself.
While I was watching that woodpecker do his thing on that big tree, he never faltered or seemed to get discouraged and he had one goal in mind and everything he did, played to that one goal. He was determined to finish what he started and that is what jumped out at me the most. What God started in my life, he is going to finish and in the end, it will be by grace alone that it gets done.
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)
Just saying…
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