Does it look finished?

I measure whether or not a job or task is completed by how it looks in the end. If there was a mess to clean up, is that mess now gone? If there were clothes to be folded, are they now folded and put away? If the dishwasher needed to be unloaded, is it empty now?

Those are the measurable things.

But what about those things that aren't so measurable? How do I determine when those things are done? And how do I tell how well things are going? When God asks me to pick up a responsibility and then tells me it's finished, what am I looking for to tell me whether or not I've done a good job, completed my task?

Am I looking with natural eyes or the eyes of faith? That's really the question.

I've been pondering lately how as Jesus hung on the cross - His disciples scattered and disillusioned, his family weeping and grieving at His feet, the utter darkness and depravity of every sin and disease laid upon His back - He was able to hear His Father's voice above the din of unbelief and hopelessness that raged about Him, able to see past what His human eyes saw and hold on by faith to what He knew His purpose to be, and able to cry out in a loud voice:

"It is finished!"

We, of course, have the privilege of hindsight. We know, because we are looking back, that those words were indeed true. That Jesus' work was finished here on earth.

But to the eyes of those around Him, and, perhaps, even to His own human eyes, it looked anything BUT finished. Jesus had to hold onto the truth of what His Father had told Him and walk in faith and trust, not trusting what His eyes and emotions told Him.

What I'm learning in this pondering process is that a completed job, a task well-done, does not necessarily mean that all loose ends are tied up nice and neat. Sometimes it looks super messy and hopelessness and despair could set in if I choose to not hold onto truth instead.

So today I choose to see with eyes of faith. To look at the tasks around me and to not judge how well I am doing them by how well things are turning out. To look to the Father, instead, and to be ok with loose ends, messy finishes, and unconventional outcomes.