I'm not done.

In last year’s Thanksgiving post, I shared a bit nervously how I’d heard God speak about 2024 being a year of His favor. During this past year, I often spent time reflecting on the holy wonder and indescribable blessing of 2024. It was a year like no other. That is, until I sensed another nudge from the Lord.

“I’m not done.”

Now, I don’t hear audibly from God. In rare moments, I do receive a vivid, soul-deep whisper from outside of myself. In those isolated and surprising instances, I run through a theological filter:

• Is this something I just want God to say to me?

• Is this supported by scripture?

• Is it holy?

• Would it distract me from being obedient?

• Is what I think I’m hearing consistent with God’s character?

• Does what I hear require faith?

• Am I supposed to share what I hear?¹

Reflective questions like these are important. They help guard against the temptation to claim “a word from the Lord” when it’s not Him speaking at all.

And I’ll be honest. After the extraordinary abundance of blessing in 2024, I had a hard time with thinking God was saying, “I’m not done.” My first response was humility and a deep sense of unworthiness.

<Father, why in the world would you seek to bless me more? I know me, Lord. I’m kind of a mess. I know there are so many people - even those I’m close to - people in my family and church - who need Your provision, touch, help, etc. So why would you offer more with this “I’m not done” message?>

And then I realize that God’s blessing is not like a piece of pie (which is a good analogy at Thanksgiving). It’s not as if by blessing one family, that the “blessing pie” is diminished. I can faultily think that God’s supply of blessing is limited.

In Psalm 50, God speaks and rebukes the Israelites for thinking He is needy. Their sacrifices did not offer Him what He did not have. He is fully sufficient in and of Himself. He is inexhaustibly supplied.

“I will not take a bull from your household or male goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.” (Psalm 50:9-10)

And so, if God wanted to tell me that He’s not done and has more in store, I wanted to humbly praise Him and offer my open hands and heart to see what He would do this past year.

At this time last year, we were spending Thanksgiving in Little Rock with my family. It is not lost on me that it was the last time that we all got see my dad relatively healthy and mobile. He met Shepherd, his great-grandson, in person for the first time. We all gathered at my sister’s for an amazing Thanksgiving feast.

This year, we’re staying in Blacksburg for Thanksgiving. I’m so grateful we went to Arkansas last year. Dad’s health precipitously declined since last November, and God called him home in September.²

His passing weighs sweetly on my mind this Thanksgiving. Last night, we ate at Red Robin, and as I glanced over a the liquor list chalk board, I smiled and nudged Carolyn. The last beer on the list was Stella Artois. It had been Dad’s favorite in the past few years.

And the nudge I received from the Lord last year about Him not being done. I wonder if Dad’s passing was what God was up to? There were so many grace moments in the way that Dad was called home, and yet, dementia is still unbearably hard for everyone.

• I began the year with the exultation of completing a book on the life of Peter that I’d been writing since 2020!³

• My daughter and her husband moved to our neck of the woods last December. Braeden began working at our church as our Young Adult Minister.

• Braeden and I traveled to Istanbul and Cyprus this past summer to visit friends there, make connections, and build relationships for future trips.

• Carolyn and I attended our second Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Dallas.

• Adelyn and Braeden announced that they were expecting. We later learned that it’s a little girl - Ryla - due next month!

• Then we learned God was just showing off. My son Sam and Sidney shared with us that they too were pregnant and due in January! We rejoiced and were bewildered at the blessing of babies. A few months later, they received the hard news that they’d lost the baby.

• And then there was Dad’s decline. The decision to put him in a nursing facility was so hard. Three months later, he was gone.

• I got to speak at a pastor friend’s first staff chapel service and encourage them.

• Our church has continued to experience unprecedented growth, and our staff team has grown/changed in hard-to-believe ways. Out of 17 staff (including interns), only six of us were on staff at this time last year! The amount of turnover/replacement was insane, and yet it all was healthy transition. No one left upset or angry. It was all life transitions and need-based.

• This past year, Sam’s guidance of YoungLife in Lynchburg has not only grown the ministry, with his own student recruits and staff, but he has also demonstrated an aptitude as an amazing, growing leader.

And so, here I am, reviewing 2025 with a stunned sense of understanding that God meant it. He wasn’t done. I’ve experienced His activity and work around me. More importantly, I’m experiencing God Himself. I’m growing personally and though sometimes by fits and spurts, I am aware of His steady hand on my heart.

This song hit deep this morning:

How about you?

I’m confident that God is not done with you either. That He loves you and has inexhaustible blessings ready to pour into your life. He blesses us so that we can turn and bless others. Are you ready?

I’m reminded of the prophecy from Isaiah about the Messiah Jesus:

He says, “It is not enough for you to be my servant raising up the tribes of Jacob and restoring the protected ones of Israel. I will also make you a light for the nations, to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6)

In other words, the blessing is not just to be enjoyed and hoarded by the tribes of Israel. God’s blessings would be magnified beyond the immediate to encompass the immeasurable. The NIV translation says it this way:

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept.”

Don’t think this is all that God is up to. He has far more in mind. He promised blessing to Israel in Isaiah the prophet’s days, but years later through Jesus, He would also bless the nations.

Easter is the defining moment of God’s declaration of “not done.” When Jesus declared on the cross, “It is finished,” He only referred to the battle with sin. His sacrifice was complete, but there was more life - eternal life - to come.

Just as then, so now. He’s not done.

Prior Thanksgiving posts

• 2005: Juanita’s, hot tea, and thee… aaaaah

• 2006: Better late than never… thanksgiving

• 2008: Giving thanks

• 2009: What a difference a year makes

• 2010: The Thanksgiving Chair

• 2011: Very Thankful

• 2013: Thanksgiving 2013

• 2014: Thanksgiving past

• 2015: Another thankful year

• 2016: Choosing Thanksgiving

• 2017: The humility of Thanksgiving

• 2018: Thankful for pardon

• 2019: Ye olde traditional Thanksgiving post

• 2020: A pandemic thanksgiving

• 2021: Thanksgiving smokers

• 2022: Discovering a distate for turkey

• 2023: Call me captain: a Thanksgiving post

• 2024: The year of the Lord’s favor

1. By the way, there’s an excellent article at Proverbs 31 Ministries: 5 Questions To Know if You’re Hearing From God (May 22, 2025) that helps you ask more questions when you think God is speaking to you.

2.

3.