When We Can't Yet See the Ending

Scripture Passage that caught my attention today: Deuteronomy 4:23-28 At that time, too, I [Moses] entreated the LORD, saying: 24 “O Lord GOD, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your might; what god in heaven or on earth can perform deeds and mighty acts like yours! 25 Let me cross over to see the good land beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and the Lebanon.” 26 But the LORD was angry with me on your account and would not heed me. The LORD said to me, “Enough from you! Never speak to me of this matter again! 27 Go up to the top of Pisgah and look around you to the west, to the north, to the south, and to the east. Look well, for you shall not cross over this Jordan. 28 But charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, because it is he who shall cross over at the head of this people and who shall secure their possession of the land that you will see.”

Observation: Moses acts kind of like a kid asking once again for the candy bar that the parent has already said he can’t have. He will have to be content to look at it, to know it exists, and to trust that someone else will in fact get to enjoy it.

Application: It’s natural to want to see the whole picture, to learn how a given story ends. But that is often not the case. Moses had to be satisfied to leave such things to his imagination and to rest in God’s promise.

Yesterday I shared with a couple different people that, Biblically speaking, it’s often hard to know if we’ve really won (so to speak) or lost, succeeded or failed. In Acts (chapters 6 and 7) we learn that Stephen had a face like that of an angel and that the people could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke. Nevertheless they killed him. We know he “won,” but in earthly terms he lost.

Same goes for the Apostle Paul. We see him as the greatest missionary that ever lived, but he was martyred in prison. Jesus himself, one would think, should have had a pretty good crack at ‘success.’ We worship him today, but at the time it certainly appeared that he was pretty much all washed up. Many of what we consider spiritual giants from the Bible never got to see how their story actually ended. And what some of them did see and experience was sometimes pretty ominous.

Even more haunting, those who actually thought that they were doing the right thing in Biblical times are now understood to have missed the boat. Hmmm…go figure.

On the bright side, maybe that’s okay. It’s enough, I think, to know/trust that the promise of God exists, that it has in many ways already been fulfilled, that there is a proven track record. Whether we experience it personally or must be content to in some way view it from afar, just knowing God’s promise stands sure is a comfort in and of itself. How is it that Job puts it in 19:25-26?

“For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
26 and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in my flesh I shall see God,

Prayer: Lord, whether or not we see the ‘endings’ of our stories, let us be thankful that we are in your story to begin with. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

(Readings today included: Deuteronomy 3-4, Psalm 36, and Mark 13)