Unfinished Business

A poster was once widely circulated in which the following acronym appeared:

P-B-P G-I-N-T-W-M-Y

The letters stand for …

Please be patient. God is not through with me yet.

How true! God doesn’t just put us on Earth and forget about us. God doesn’t just give us life as a finished work of creative art. We are works in progress, all of us. Each of us is a piece of God’s unfinished business.

On the ground level of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., there is a monument in upright stone, twelve feet high, sculpted by a famous Japanese artist.1 It suggests a natural form emerging from the earth. It is pocketed with rough gouges and uneven surfaces blending into areas that are sometimes smooth and sometimes highly polished. The work of art is entitled, “The Great Rock of Inner-Seeking,” reminding us that at the very center of all our human endeavors there is a constant yearning to fill out the rough gouges — a…