Unfinished Business

Courtesy wikipedia.com

There is nothing wrong with leaving a task unfinished.

This post continues along a similar theme as my last one in which I paused to consider accomplishing small tasks in favor of large ones.  Today I'm taking it one step further in asking you to consider accomplishing no task.  That's right, I'm talking about giving up.

A long time ago, I came across a book about Michelangelo.  My favorite sculpture has to be the one picture above in which Mary cradles a recently crucified Jesus on her lap.  I marveled at how the folds and wrinkles in the fabric looked like actual folds and wrinkles in fabric and not in marble.  Then further along in the book I discovered something else altogether.  A collection of photographs of his many unfinished sculptures.  Yes, even someone as talented as Michelangelo gave up on a project once in awhile.

Michelangelo could have thought about all the time that he put into those sculptures, and finished them in order not to let that time go to waste, but he did not think that way.  The sculptures didn't go the way he wanted so he gave up on them and moved on to something else.  We can get a lot more accomplished if we follow a similar route.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about giving up every time a project gets challenging.  However, I'm sure if we took a long, honest look at the projects we currently have on our "Unfinished Business" list, some of them could be erased with no real loss to our quality of life.

Let's face facts.  We only have a finite amount of time and ability to accomplish what we want/need to accomplish.  By giving up on some of the unfinished business in our lives it makes space to focus on other tasks and relationships.  The most important of these of course being our relationship with God.  We can rest from our unfinished business knowing that He always finishes what He starts, and what He finishes are always masterpieces.