After my brother saw “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” he asked me, “Do you think you’ll watch it? I don’t want to ruin the ending if you’re going to see it.”
I did want to see the movie. I like Marvel movies (loved “Black Panther”!) and there were some great scenes in the first “Ant-Man.”
But I convinced him to go ahead and tell me how it ended — because I wanted to know if things would be OK in the end.
4 Promises You Can Count On
Sometimes the suspense is just too much for me. Instead of enjoying the movie, I stress through the climactic points of the story until I know the end result will be good for the characters.
Marvel has no promises for the futures of some of our heroes after “Avengers: Infinity War” (Spiderman, anyone?). But God has given us countless promises for our futures that we can bank on in any difficult season of our lives — even if it looks like our own Thanos could snap his fingers any minute.
- “For those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
Yes, this verse is quoted a lot. For good reason. Ponder this line again: “all things work together for good.” All things. Work together. For good. Whatever happens — even if it is the worst thing we could think of — God makes sure it will be for our good.
How? We don’t have to answer that question right now. We may not know the answer for years. But one day, whether on earth or in heaven, we will be able to see the good that God has brought from something awful.
In Joseph’s life, even slavery, family abandonment, deception, an unjust prison sentence, and years of famine were part of God’s good plan. Joseph was thinking of all these things when he told his brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20).
- “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).
No matter what is happening or what we fear might happen one day, God has promised to always, always be with us.
One of the sweetest names of Jesus is Emmanuel: “God with us.” In everything, He will always be with us. God doesn’t stop at knowing about our hard things or having the power to change them, but He is also right beside us in every painful or scary or suspenseful moment.
- “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” (Genesis 18:14).
Three mysterious visitors were eating lunch with Abraham at his tent, while Sarah listened nearby. The visitors promised Abraham that Sarah would have a son the following year. Elderly Sarah laughed. She knew this was impossible. She wasn’t about to let some unusual visitor raise her hopes after all those decades of no children.
But the visitors heard her. “‘Why,’” they asked Abraham, “‘did Sarah laugh …? Is anything too hard for the LORD?’” (vv. 13-14).
It was a rhetorical question, of course. A year later, Sarah held her infant son in her arms.
- “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
God finishes what He starts. Unlike us, when we get into that 1000-piece puzzle of the sunrise over the ocean. Or when we jump in over our heads with that big project for the church fundraiser. Or when we decided to adopt a fitness goal or two on New Year’s Eve.
Once God has started a work in your life, He won’t walk away even when our growth in godliness seems to be going in reverse. He is “able to guard … what has been entrusted to me” (2 Timothy 1:12), and He is “able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory” (Jude 24).
Nothing can stop His work in us.
So Many Questions
When God called Abram (he wasn’t Abraham yet) to leave everything he had ever known and travel to a place where he had never been, the writer of Hebrews tells us that Abram went out, “not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).
Really, none of us know where we’re going. Oh, we know our final destination, but the paths and trails we take to get there are just unknowns to us. There are so many things we don’t know. So many questions that just can’t be answered right now.
- How long will we live?
- How long will our parents live?
- Will Jesus come back before we die?
- Will we move overseas?
- Will we ever get married? Have children?
I have no idea. But I do know that God’s plans for me are good. That He will never leave me. That nothing can shake His plans. And that He will safely bring me into eternity with Him.
In the meantime, we will wait. We will grow. We will experience new ways of God’s faithfulness to us.
And I’m going to go watch “Ant-Man and the Wasp.” Does it have a good ending? I won’t spoil it for you.
Copyright Lauren Dunn 2023. All rights reserved.
