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The Place of Undone!

It’s both the worst place to be and the best place to have in your rear view mirror!

It’s a terrifying place and yet it can be a place of transformation.

It’s the place of undone!

A standard dictionary definition of the word “undone” is to not finish.

A figurative use of the word would mean that something has either not gone as planned, or has failed in some way.

Isaiah the prophet, when he was confronted with the holiness of God, said:  “Woe is me! For I am undone…”  When he said this, he was using the word in a most extreme way, that of being ruined or destroyed.   

While we may not be as dramatically confronted with God’s holiness as Isaiah was, our being undone can occur when we realize our failures and mistakes and foolishness.  It could occur when all the things that we’ve used to prop ourselves up catastrophically collapse.  In could also occur when we finally realize we are at the end of ourselves and maybe even have hit rock bottom.  On top of all that, it could occur when we finally realize we are up against someone who is much greater than we are.

The fifth chapter of Romans uses just three words to encapsulate all that:

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless…” (v. 6)

“While we were still sinners…” (v. 8)

“For if, while we were God’s enemies…” (v. 10)

Those words are directional beacons indicating that we are smack dab in the place of undone.  Yet, it could also be a place where we can come to grips with the solution.  And the same fifth chapter of Romans tells us that there is just one solution to fix all three:

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” (v. 6)

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (v. 8)

“For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son…” (v. 10)

When we avail ourselves, by faith, to the solution that God has provided, we can then be who we should be.  And that involves a transformation of incredible magnitude:  “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”  (v. 10)

And the most delicious irony of ironies then when the place of undone is undone!    

 

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