God isn’t finished with you yet

Do you ever feel you are not quite who you need to be?

This summer we transplanted raspberries from a friend’s garden. Two of the plants looked dead after a week. I have learned that you can’t always tell what is going on under the dirt with the roots—and roots are very important—so I have watered my dead-looking plants and hoped.

A month later, the tall, dry raspberry sticks did something miraculous—they each produced some small green leaves. They are alive! They were working and growing all along—under the soil where we couldn’t see it. Now, with leaves working in conjunction with the roots, the plants are going to be better than fine—they will thrive. I’m so glad we were patient gardeners.

God is a patient gardener, and we are his fortunate plants. Rather than give up on us when we don’t look like we’re doing well, God patiently nurtures and nourishes us. Our divine potential is never far from His vision of us. Regardless of how we look or feel today, God isn’t finished with us yet.

Consider the Apostle Paul, who was known as Saul before his miraculous conversion. Saul went about harming Christians and seeking to destroy the church Jesus had only recently established. Saul was a vicious man, but God wasn’t finished with him yet. The resurrected Jesus stopped Saul on the road one day, corrected him, and invited him to help in Jesus’s work of salvation for the whole human family: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (See Acts 22:4-9). Paul went on to be a powerful apostle and witness of Jesus Christ.

While Jesus advises us to try to be perfect as he is (see Matthew 5:48), He also knows we can never quite accomplish that as mortals. And we certainly can’t do it on our own. His infinite sacrifice and atonement allows us to change from our worst selves to our increasingly better selves. His is the power that keeps us afloat with hope and improvement.

When my kids were little, my one-year-old nephew kept sitting on the face of my six-month-old daughter when we visited. We were worried about our baby being suffocated so we kept a close eye on them, but we also considered this behavior to be without guile and temporary. Sure enough, the next year when we visited that behavior was gone and this nephew is now a delightful, responsible, accomplished man. Just as his persistent parents continued to teach and guide him throughout his childhood, God continues to teach and guide us throughout our lives. At any given moment when we assess our strengths and our shortcomings, we should never give up hope, no matter how far we believe we have to go. We have to know that God is our persistent parent, and he isn’t finished with us yet.

Twenty years ago, I taught the teenage girls in our church congregation. They were remarkable kids with many talents and interests. Their parents worked hard to guide them and sometimes it went well and sometimes it didn’t. As these girls have become adults, it has been a joy to watch them pattern their lives after their own parents. This experience suggests that our children are most likely to become what we are, rather than what we tell them to be.

Blogger Al Fox Carraway recounts a tough week she had, but then remembers that God is “a God of commas, not periods.” What does that mean? It means no dream of improving is beyond our reach, and no mistake is too great to overcome. It means God is never finished with us.

God’s infinite sacrifice is a magic carpet of sorts, taking us soaring far beyond any horizon we could reach for ourselves. His Word is a lamp, giving us light through our darkest nights and is a “light into our feet” (Psalms 199:105). His commandments show us the path to happiness and peace.

We are sometimes like my raspberry plants that appeared dormant or even dead, but God is our patient gardener and persistent parent who will continue to nurture our roots, even when we are at our worst.

Don’t ever lose hope. Don’t ever give in, and don’t ever, ever, give up, because God isn’t finished with you yet.

Beth Wright and her family are enjoying the grandeur of the Alaskan summer, and she hopes you are too. She believes in Jesus Christ and loves being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.