I love happy endings. I really can’t stand it when I watch a movie or read a book, and the ending just leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. In fact, I actually rewrote several book endings when I was a kid because I didn’t like the original version. (Because, you know, they’re only timeless classics celebrated for their incredible stories but I thought I could do better!) Even with my love for happy endings, though, I realize how often God is at work in the middle—the times when we are still waiting, or hoping, or praying for something to happen that has shown no sign of happening yet.
I tend towards reading the stories of when the mission is accomplished, or the challenge is beaten. So often, though, it is those in the middle who can bring hope to others also in the waiting.Not everyone has the story tied up in a neat little bow yet. Some of us still struggle through how it will end. And I am slowly coming to terms with God’s love for the meantime. He is all about the journey, and not just the destination. I want the happy ending, and God speaks to knowing Him in the midst of hard things. He talks of standing firm, of not giving up, of wanting but not receiving yet.
I have my own story which is not yet finished. It isn’t an easy road. I want to stand in comparison, to somehow save through my own immaculate witness, or to will people into knowing Jesus. But instead, my Father takes my hand and reminds me that comparison is a poisonous infection, that He is the Savior and not me, and that no one gets to choose for another person.
Instead, I get to know Jesus in the middle. I have the incredible privilege of going deeper in relationship with Him while seeing the future as uncertain. I have to trust Him, even when it’s the last thing I want to do.But really, don’t we all? Perhaps in my situation the uncertainty is just more obvious. We all get to trust Him with our spouses, our children, our jobs, our families. We think we have this control over things which is simply an illusion.
The middle times are not all rosy. There are days which feel suffocating in the discouragement. There are nights when I lay awake begging God bring answers. I wonder how long the waiting will last, and if I can do another day of it.
Thankfully, I don’t have to be enough on my own. I have a God who is the strength of my life, who is my hope and salvation, and who is the encourager to the end. When I still don’t have the answer I want and I’m stuck in the middle, Jesus meets me there and walks with me. He doesn’t abandon me until the goal is reached. I get to know Him in the waiting. And He provides enough for today.
I still love the stories of the happy endings, the redemptions, the recoveries and the prodigals returned. But I also am learning to love the stories of those who are persevering when they don’t yet have their desired outcome. I am one of those in the waiting, as are many of you. Together, we get to know Jesus as we come back to Him again and again for what we need to walk the road ahead today. And that, my sisters and brothers, makes the dark days spent in the middle worthwhile.
So no wonder we don’t give up. For even though our outer person gradually wears out, our inner being is renewed every single day. We view our slight, short-lived troubles in the light of eternity. We see our difficulties as the substance that produces for us an eternal, weighty glory far beyond all comparison, because we don’t focus our attention on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but the unseen realm is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 TPT