By Logan Earles
In music, when a musical phrase is incomplete, it’s called unresolved. This feeling of an unresolved phrase is awful. Most times we hear this it is done on purpose to leave you with a sense of anticipation, and, let me tell you, I really, really don’t like it. There is something about having a complete musical thought played out that is satisfying.
This dislike for the incomplete is not unique for music. Half-baked thoughts are infuriating. Half-baked pies are disgusting. When a cookie is half baked on purpose for it to be “gooey,” I might as well give up on it.
There are some things that are left undone that only seem like a waste. Paintings or sculptures that are begging for the artist to complete them are the perfect example. It’s not infuriating, it’s invigorating. Imagining the potential of a piece is a beautiful part of art.
The Bible paints a picture of us that is missing something. From the fall of humanity, we have been changed by sin. Our Creator and artist didn’t make us this way, and we as people are living a life that is incomplete, unresolved, half baked. Thankfully, we are not left on the shelf to cool in our gooey mess. Let’s discover the rest of the plans that God has for us.
Alright, I admit I may have leaned into the baking analogy a bit much there. But I do think it’s true that the average human experience is one that is lacking something—there is a hole in our lives.
The biblical authors described this missing piece as separation from God. In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were separated from God and all of humanity began to feel the consequences of separation from the life-giving force. So, God sent Jesus down to bring us together. This was no easy task. Jesus faced the ultimate separation from God on the cross when He cried out why have you forsaken me (Matthew 27:46). He experienced a death we do not have to experience if we choose to believe in Him.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full (John 10:10 NIV).
Jesus told his followers that He is offering a life that is full. Like a masterpiece waiting to be restored, the Father is looking to fulfill your potential through His power. Notice the verse in John 10 doesn’t say “life in part,” or a “different but equal life” to the one before. Jesus is offering us a life that is full. This is an Eden-like experience, an existence that is with the source of all life: the Father.
In order to give us access to this life, Jesus tells us that He came down.
And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again (2 Corinthians 5:15 NIV).
Jesus came down and died and rose again for us—this is the central idea of the Bible, this is the reality of our God. He did not want us to be separated from Him forever, so He paved the way forward. He did everything in his power to reconcile us to Him.
When God created this world, He worked for days and then He took a day off to enjoy what He made with his creation—humanity. This was the first Sabbath. God is looking for that experience again, but, this time, it will last forever. So how can we respond to God seeking us?
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life Romans 6:3-4 NIV.
God has given us a gift in the form of baptism. Paul describes this baptism as a baptism into death, burial, and resurrection that brings us new life. That life is one that Jesus has suffered in order for us to choose. He will not force you into it, He invites you into it.
Are you seeking to be fulfilled?
You don’t have to keep searching in vain. Jesus is offering you a life in Him that will complete you. It will require your old life to die. But the new life that comes when Jesus is the reason we live, will outshine anything from the old. Give Jesus a chance, you were made to be with the Creator and to experience completeness that even the sweetest melody cannot compare to.
—Logan Earles is the associate pastor at the Littleton Seventh-day Adventist Church. Photo by Elijah Crouch of Unsplash.
