Better

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

-C.S. Lewis

I’m about to leave for college, and it’s more than a little chaotic. I’m trying to spend as much time as I can with friends and family at home before I leave for an indefinite amount of time, all the while trying to find and purchase dorm stuff and textbooks, and pack everything before this weekend. To top it off and crush everything on the bottom, last Friday in a freak accident some guy flew through my front yard in a Ford Escape at about 70 mph and plowed into my Ford Escape which sat unoccupied in my driveway. So I have less than a week to find a new car before I go to school so that I can actually get there at all.

I don’t know you, but I can guess that you probably don’t care much about my life. You’ve got troubles enough of your own that devour your own time creating your own realm of chaos. My point is that I’m beginning the most uncertain period of my life with utter chaos before it even starts. The good life, the easy life of adolescence is gone, leaving only terror inducing ambivalence in sight. Maybe you can relate. Stress. Doubt. Loneliness. A little fear.

Sounds like I need some help right?  Maybe someone who is greater than my circumstances. Some sort of all powerful being who for some reason cares about me and my trivial discomfort. Someone who has put me right where I am, has me there for a reason, and no matter how alone I may feel, knows exactly where I am when it’s time for me to get out. Maybe someone like a Savior.

I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, or what you’ve done; it doesn’t matter. None of it. God is not against you! He declares that knows the plans He has for your life and that they are for your prosperity, not your harm (Jer. 29:11). He works for your good because you have professed to love Him (Romans 8:28). He is fighting for you not against you. So what do we say to that? “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). If the Creator of the universe is on your side, the one who spoke the stars into motion and keeps them there, the one who designed the chromosomes that form your own genetic structure, the God of the macro and of the micro who, of angel armies in the heavenly realms and of the resurrection of the dead is fighting for you, what do have to be afraid of?

God isn’t holding out on you. He’s pulled out all the stops, not holding anything back that will do you any good. Just think about it. He’s already offered up to you His only son. Sacrificed for you was the man who was fully God, perfect in every way, holy, righteous, and pure by his own accord, worth more than anything there is to imagine and anything that there isn’t. That’s what God has already given you for your good. Why would he withhold from you anything of benefit that is worth so much less than what he’s already given you?

God wants what is best for us, and in His wisdom He knows that what is best for us is himself. So it comes down to this: do you trust God? If you do, then know that there is a light at then end of the tunnel. God is working for your good, because like a photograph, it takes time in the dark, where all you have is God, to be developed. God is trying to make something out of you for a reason. Broken creatures like you and me aren’t fit for heaven. We’re not ready for it yet. We still need some work, but that’s where He wants to take us. It takes some work, but the better that is ahead in heaven is far, far better than anything we’ll be leaving behind.

There is better ahead. God hasn’t left me hanging out to dry, and He hasn’t left you either. It may not seem easy, but He’s working for your good, and He’s given you everything you need in Himself.