it's not over till the happily every after...

I've heard the term "resurrection power" thrown around alot in church, but I don't think I understood it until today. When it comes to God's people, the Bible has recurring themes of God's love and faithfulness but today I noticed another theme, God is a God of happy endings. I guess that's what people mean by God is a God of deliverance (I love how simple meanings get lost in heavy jargon). The Bible, while it is God's story about rescuing mankind, it is also punctuated with stories of God's people going through tough circumstances and how God completely turns those situations around. God isn't about simply helping His people to pull through life's storm, He's about making sure they come out victorious and triumphant!

Consider Job. Rich faithful man back in the day, who received God's favour and blessing. But Satan decides to test Job and God lets Satan strip Job of his property and children and even his health, as part of a test! Job suffers long and hard before God finally steps in and reminds Job that He is greater than any other being and has total say when it comes to earthly and heavenly (universal) matters. But the other thing that God reminds Job of, is that He is about restoration and happy endings: He gives Job back double of what He first had.
And then there's Jesus. He lived on earth as a man and suffered an excruciating death on the cross as well as a painful separation from God. The story doesn't end at Jesus' death, because He rose again on the third day. In fact, not only did He assume His heavenly position (receiving the at least the same kind of recognition that He had before He became Man), He also redeemed all of mankind.
The same is true of Joseph's life, Nineveh's repentance and restoration of favour, Noah's deliverance from the flood and the rainbow the followed, King David's fall to lust and redemption as he understood God's grace and forgiveness, Peter's denial of Christ but subsequent restoration as the rock of the church...

Knowing that God is as much about happy endings as He is about being present in the storms, or loving us in spite of those same storms really helps me cope with the tempest that life sometimes is. We can "consider it pure joy, whenever [we] face trials of many kinds" (James 1:2) because we know that when it is over, something awaits us that leaves us better than before the trial. Know this, especially if you are going through a tough time, because God has a say in it, we will rise again!

The pain often scars more than the happy ending soothes. Is it a wonder that my freshest memories are of the pain and disappointments rather their respective resolutions. Yet as I recount, I know that things turn out fine, often more than fine. Disappointments are merely stories not concluded yet, so perhaps we shouldn't conclude our stories with these disappointments. It gives me something to look forward to, gives me something to hope for. That's what they mean when they say that the person who hopes in God won't be disappointed!
If it's not good, it's not over yet.