I read a thought-provoking article this morning. Andrée Seu writes for World Magazine. She wrote about how it’s often messy in the middle, but the end of the story can change everything.
Some thoughts I’m still chewing on:
- “This is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory” (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce)
- Satan wants you to believe the middle will last forever.
- Job, stuck in a brutal middle, cried, “I know that my Redeemer lives” (19:25). And that is the key to everything, to surviving brutal middles.
One of the pithiest sentences in the Bible continually provokes me:
“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” [1 Thessalonians 5:16-18]
Yes, it’s sometimes messy in the middle of difficult circumstances. But the most powerful way to cry “I know that my Redeemer lives” is to give thanks, in the messies, in the middle.