Get the Full Story

“See beyond this moment, look beyond right here
The story isn’t over, there’s hope, yes hope that’s near.”
Loren Thornburg

I love Easter because beyond all the eggs and candy there is a story that reminds us that things aren’t always as they seem and what you think will be is not always what is to come. Jesus was killed on a cross, but that wasn’t the end of the story. Hope still remained for He rose from the dead and thus our hope still remains. So often I base things on what I see and what I’ve been told forgetting the story isn’t over yet. I have to get the full story before I lose all hope. This is true in life and lives, including our own. So often I see the trials in my life and that’s all I can see. I get frustrated wishing I was farther along in one area or another. I know where I’ve been and I am unable to see where I could go. But, there is more to my story; there is more to your story. Lets get the full story before we resort to losing hope.

“So we don’t look at the troubles we can see right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever.”
2 Corinthians 4:18 NLT

Jesus is all about hope. Hope means that in all things we believe in the full story. It means that we “look beyond the tombstone, see the living God”(Paul Baloche, Glorious). Corinthians says it so well in the encouragement not to look at the troubles we see right now, in front of us, but instead to look beyond them, even though we look to things we haven’t yet seen. We can do this because we trust in the hope of our living God. We trust that as the Message version says, “There's far more here than meets the eye.” With Jesus there is always more than we can see going on. There is always more to the story than where we find ourselves in this moment. That means we can hope. Yes, even now, we can hope, even here, we can hope. Jesus is near and so hope is near. In the face of today see the living God. He is at work in a really big story calling you to be a part of it. It’s a story that has shown us we can hope in things we haven’t seen.