Reading Ahead

I love to read—books, magazines, website articles, whatever. I come from a long line of readers; I like to think that my love of reading is in my genetic makeup.

I was talking recently with another book lover, and I confessed to the habit of reading ahead at times. My friend laughed and said he couldn’t believed I would do that. But when the story’s action gets intense or the leading character looks like he might not make it or even if I get a little bored with the story, I turn to the last few pages of the book. By knowing the end of the story, I can relax and read the rest of the book at a slower pace. That way, I don’t miss important details, and I’m not skimming because I’m anxious to know what’s going to happen.

Also, by knowing the end of the story, I can decide if it’s worth the time to keep reading.

Isn’t it that way in our lives, too? Sometimes when our story looks scary, we want to close the book out of fear or dread. We want to skim over the slow-going parts of our story, like working at a job we don’t enjoy or being in the weeds with the mundane parts of life. We want to skip painful, devastating life chapters, like going through a divorce or facing a layoff or even the death of a dream. And sometimes we want to read ahead to discover how everything works out for those we love, for those around us, like who our children will grow up to be or did we get that promotion or did I get to have that dream retirement.

Right now, we are living in the middle of God’s Story, between the two trees—the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil  (Genesis 2:17) and the replanted Tree of Life (Revelation 22:1-2, 14, 19). When the action in our story is intense—your husband has been laid off and you don’t know how you’ll pay the bills; when the plot is heartbreaking—your beloved dad has been diagnosed with a devastating, terminal illness; when the story line is exciting—God has given you a child or called you to another place, another job, another mission; in all of these things, we as Jesus followers know how the story ends. We’ve read ahead. We know the Author’s good, good plan. And we can know that we, the characters in His story, are going to make it through to that happiest of all endings.

Jesus wins! He is coming again to restore all things, and we are on His winning team.  And we can rest assured in His promises.

“And the one sitting on the throne said, ‘Look, I am making everything new!'”

Rest Assured:
“Father, as we live in the middle of Your story, we’ve read ahead. We know that You have already won the victory, and we praise You.

*****
What about you? Do you read ahead? Have you read ahead in God’s Word about His restoration of all things? As followers of Jesus, let’s “read ahead” in His Word to know the end of His Story. And we can rest assured in His good plan.

From Rest: 40 Days of Refreshment. Find out more HERE.