The Rest of the Story

On Monday I posted the stories of three individuals whose choices led to a tragic end. They might not have chosen the final results of their choices, but those results possibly revealed the choices they were actually making each day. No one wants to end up in prison, even though our actions merit a prisoner’s end.

More to the Story

Yet there’s a factor left unmentioned in my post: GRACE. Although what we sow, we will reap, our Father knows we are but dust. And while I am not free from the consequences of my wrong choices, it doesn’t mean that I am void of God, too. Many times I have made foolish choices and wound up in a sinful muddy pit of consequences, but God is still there. King David said in the Psalms, “If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there” (Psalm 139:8b KJV). Our God is more faithful than our unfaithfulness.

The thing that was not stated in the account of these three people is God’s interaction with them: His pleading, beckoning, loving each of them to the end. I don’t know how He addressed them, what He said to them, or how He touched them. All I saw was the evidence of their bad choices and the repercussions of those choices. But I know our loving God! Even on the sick beds of our results and consequences, He can gain our attention and woo us to Himself. This might not make everything as it could’ve been, but it can make the end His.

Because of the gift of our free-will, He’ll allow us to choose hell if this is what we desire. But this doesn’t mean He will not give us every opportunity, up to the very end, to choose Him. His Grace is bigger and more real than my willfulness. He does lovingly come to us and pursue us all the way to the end.

These three lives reveal a mountain of selfishness, but there’s a Greater Mountain, that is higher than I. Christ is the rest of the story. He is the end of my story. And He has the last and final word to each and every story in this world. Though I might not have seen the interaction, it doesn’t mean an encounter didn’t transpire. And though He will let us choose paths away from Him, He also hears the prayers of His children for those blind and wayward ones.