It's Only Part of the Story - Grit & Grace
What do you do when you don’t have the full story? I know what I do. I’m quick to fill in the blanks with assumptions and best guesses based on what I do know. My perspectives, opinions, and experiences become the glue I use to try and bind the story together in a way that makes sense. No matter how sticky that glue is, though, it’s still incomplete. It’s only part of the story.
I don’t know what I don’t know.
“For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.”
1 Corinthians 13:9-10 CSB
When the perfect comes. When completion comes. Completion is the goal. It’s the finish line we’re racing towards. When you get the full story – like, the real full story, not the one you pieced together with all your half-ass guesses and assumptions – a part of it simply won’t do. The partial will come to an end.
The right now of things is the start, and the start is just a part. A beginning. Completion is the end, and the goal being reached. From beginning to end, and part to whole.
When the perfect comes, completion comes, and the gifts won’t be needed anymore. That’s why the gifts are only part of the story.
Because the sun rises all lights are extinguished.
Karl Barth
Fun fact: every time I see the moon I try to capture it in a photo. And no matter how many times I try, the glimpse is never as beautiful as what I’m seeing with my own eyes. I mean, I’ll never stop trying to catch that glimpse. But I know going into it that the image I’m trying to capture will never fully be what it actually is.
A glimpse simply isn’t the real thing.
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things. For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known.”
1 Corinthians 13:11-12
Another fun fact: Corinth was home to some of the finest bronze mirrors in antiquity when Paul wrote this. I love how he uses his words to meet the Corinthians where they’re at. (There’s a lesson in there somewhere for this writer.) Knowing they’d make the connection, references to reflections in a mirror are used to make a point.
Just like those glimpses of the moon I take pictures of, or catching reflections in a mirror, the glimpses of Jesus I get now through the Spirit will always be incomplete.
A reflection will never be complete. A glimpse will never match face-to-face.
What I know now is just a glimpse. God’s knowledge of me is immediate, full and direct, and face-to-face. When I get to the end of all things – when completeness comes – my final knowing will be as I am fully known: in an instant.
The gifts are just glimpses. Love’s the full story.
Becky is a Miami native, and has lived here all of her life. Married to her husband for over 20 years, they lead a very active lifestyle along with their three teenagers and Riley, their rescue dog. Becky loves to teach, and has had the awesome privilege of home educating her children for over twelve years. When not teaching academics, Becky loves to equip, encourage, and empower women through the teaching of her group fitness classes. Becky and her husband lead various ministries, and their family loves to serve the community through the countless opportunities provided over the past twenty years+ in their local church. She enjoys filling her "free" time with reading, writing, watching movies, and just spending time with the family. Becky has a passion for living her life with grit and grace, and encouraging others to do the same.
