“Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10, NKJV).

With his liver tests slightly off, I asked him about his alcohol history. “I haven’t had any for 40 years,” he said and continued his story, “I used to drink way too much. My first wife left me because of it. I remember starting to enjoy the life of alcohol and freedom when I first went out with my present wife of 40 years. It wasn’t long before she told me, ‘I’m going to marry you. God told me I was going to marry a Christian man, and I think that’s you.’ I wasn’t even a Christian at the time. Three months later I came to Christ. No more alcohol. We got married. Six years after that I had finished Bible college and we were missionaries in the Philippines.”

God does that.

He changes things.

He redeems people like you and me.

Sometimes His changing us is soft and gentle, like a mom teaching her daughter to tie her shoes.

Other times it is harsh and almost brutal, like the storm that changed the slaver John Newton into the man who wrote “Amazing Grace.”

Some years ago, a talented friend in our Bible study class presented me with a multimedia work he had fashioned. Its base is a partially carved block of wood. From that block a hammer extends out on a thin copper pipe hovering over a chisel imbedded in the wood. A brass plate describes the work’s significance: “Hope: God is not through with me.”

The change we need in our lives is never completed on this side of glory. God is continually teaching us to tie our shoes, or He is sending storms to wake us up to the sin within or He is chiseling away our imperfections.

I am not the man I was a year ago; I am a bit more like Jesus with a long way to go.

Jesus promised He will not let me go, and God promised He will continue to shape me. Sometimes the chisel hurts as He removes an imperfect piece of wood, and sometimes I am gloriously changed by a gentle touch at midnight.

Nevertheless, I am confident “…that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6, ESV).

Dear Father,

Keep touching, keep chiseling, keep changing.

Amen