A Work in Progress

In 1857 the London Philological Society embarked upon the task of developing a comprehensive error-free dictionary containing all the words of the English language and their meaning since 1150 A.D. Later to be known as the Oxford English Dictionary the first installment was issued on February 1^st in 1884. It was thought the dictionary would take four volumes and 10 years to complete. However, after five years the compilers were only down to the word “ant”. It would be another 44 years and a full ten volumes before the work 400,000 words and phrases would be completed. The work became the standard for knowledge of English meanings since it included the history of the words and all uses. The word “set” is the longest entry with over 60,000 words and 430 uses describing it.

By 1933 it was revised and the dictionary increased to twelve volumes. Again between 1972 and 1986 another four volume supplement was introduced. Today the dictionary is updated quarterly with over 1000 entries and revisions.

The Oxford English Dictionary is a growing document of over 60 million words and nearly a half-million main entries. It will never be finished. The memories of archaic words will still be in its pages. New words will be added and old words will be revised to reflect new meanings. It will continue to be a work in progress.

It’s much like us. When someone gives their life to Christ and decides to follow His ways it is the beginning of a work in progress. It is a work that will be revised, rewritten and renewed over and over as long as we live. The bad things, the mistakes, the faults, the things that are no longer useful will still be in our memories. But these will be replaced with the new, the fresh and the new rules on the right way to live.

Our work in progress will never be finished. We are required to look at it every day and make the changes needed. We add the good and make the bad obsolete. We’ll do this for as long as we live. We will never be finished.

We’ll that’s not really true. One day, when we have reviewed, revised and rewritten our lives over and over trying our best to make it right the Master will come, take the pen from our hand, close the book and say “Well done, my good and faithful servant”.

Then at the end He will make the final entry. At that point there will be only one word in the dictionary that has any meaning of any significance at all.

Grace.