Happily Ever After Is Coming

And they all lived happily ever after. So deeply imbedded in my psyche were these words, when I took high school literature classes, I struggled --greatly. Reading was my escape, my safe place. When everything around me was uncomfortable and unstructured, the order found in the stories I read was a panacea for my insecurity. The protagonist, the antagonist, the climax, and the euphoric resolution. It was all so neat and tidy. But Death of a Salesman? The Great Gatsby? What was I supposed to do with such pathos? What were themes and literary tools to me? I was simply rushing through all of the drama to get to the happy ending. Until there was none. Sometimes there isn't a happy ending --at least not one that meets our expectations or abides by our schedules. 

We love formulas; easy --or manageable, at least --solutions to the things we encounter. Our stomachs growl and we provide it with food. We go to work each day and collect our pay at the end of the week. Problem, solution, problem, solution, again and again. One happy ending after another. Creation itself testifies to the orderly God who created it. The sun rises, the sun sets, day gives way to night year after year. Spring follows Winter without fail; bitter, barren cold is always overcome by warmth and new life. The Bible is one intense saga of good broken by evil; the Hero enters, and evil is ultimately defeated, allowing good to reign eternally. Every word of it is true. But right now, we are living somewhere between the past eternity and the perfect eternity. Good has come, the Hero has arrived. It is Jesus, the Savior. He died that we and all of those before us and after us might be absolved of our responsibility to pay the price for our sins. He died that we might live free, that we might have an eternal quality of life even as our bodies exist in the bonds of mortality, even as we await that perfect eternity. There is still an evil ruler in this world. The physical has not yet been brought into agreement with the spiritual, and we are, as yet, unable to experience that ultimate happy ending --no matter how hard we race toward it, no matter how vehemently we demand it or expect it. But God, we pray, my plan is good. We need healing, we need a new place to live, our sons and daughters need to know Jesus. We hear the clock ticking and see the pages turning on the calendar. Time is running out and this hasn't yet been resolved. We're counting down the pages of this story, waiting for the Hero to once again make an entrance and save the day. Willy is still wallowing in his own delusions; Gatsby is dead. How can any of this be good?!

The perfect eternity has not yet come. We know the truth of the past, we know what God can do, and we must allow the wings of Hope to carry us through these days and into the perfect eternity. Prayer is answered, bodies are healed, obedience is rewarded, but not always in agreement with our timetable, and not always in the way we anticipate. It is by the blessed assurance of the past eternity we are able to proceed toward the perfect eternity. We can't always see it, we don't always like it, we may not even understand it, but we trust. We trust our Hero and we endure by the truth of His unchangeable character. We may not yet see our happily ever after, but we are promised it is there. In the meantime, we are tasked with being still and knowing. We are tasked with worship and prayer. We are tasked with going forth into all the world and sharing the Good News. We are tasked with loving others and seeking justice and caring for those in need. We are tasked with surrendering our selves that we might be transformed as we do these things. We've not been asked to rewrite one chapter. God's timing is perfect, and He is the ultimate designer, author, artist, and creator. No matter what we think or wish for outcomes, we have to know His are best; the perfect eternity, the happily ever after is yet to come!