Surprise Endings

“Your daughter is dead.”

That's the news the group received as they traveled along the road to make it to the girl in time.

It was too late

The father had left his daughter’s sick bed to go and find a man he had heard was healing the sick. It was their only hope.

But now? It was too late, they were too late, Jesus was too late.

Then Jesus says it, to the father suddenly stricken with grief; “don’t be afraid.”

In the middle of his world suddenly crashing down around him, in the pain of hearing his only daughter had just died, the man is told to not be afraid. To top that off, Jesus says something even more startling;

Just believe, and she will be healed.

If that had been me, I would’ve been like; “didn’t you just hear the news? She’s d.e.a.d. it’s too late to heal her!”

But I wonder if God doesn’t tell us the same things.

In the middle of our deepest pains, our darkest days, facing the most impossible looking circumstances, He whispers to our hearts,

Don’t be afraid.

Don’t worry.

Just trust me and you will see miracles happen.

You will see the impossible become possible.

You will see the dead rise.

I wonder if most of us would be like the crowd gathered to mourn at the house. When Jesus arrived there, they were making so much noise – wailing even. And Jesus tells them “Stop wailing. She is not dead but asleep.”

They laughed at him. They mocked him.

They knew she was dead, they had seen it with their own eyes. This guy didn’t know what he was talking about, he was crazy, delusional.

They trusted in what they could see in their limited view of the whole story, instead of having faith in the one who knows the ending. 

In our own lives, too, we do this. I know I do. I focus on the present, impossible looking circumstances, then I look at my own already waning strength, and I despair, thinking

How am I ever going to survive this?

But that wasn’t the end of the story. Jesus went to where the little girl lay, took her by the hand and told her to wake up.

“Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up.” Luke 8:55

Life was breathed into the dead, in a surprise ending that no one could’ve foreseen.

The dead was raised and the impossible became possible because the God and Creator of the universe is writing this story and. He. Is. Working. All. Things. For. Good!

And He is writing the story of our lives as well. Things might look hard from where we’re standing – even impossible at times – but God knows what’s coming. He knows the ending. And He asks us to trust Him. To not put our faith on what we can only see, but to trust that some way, somehow, God will work ALL things – including This thing, whatever it may be – for our good. 

Just trust Him.