Happy Waiting.
[Psalm 115:3]
The best stories take time to tell. Setting. Conflict. Rising action. Climax. Dénouement .– a rich word with a French derivation, meaning “resolution”.
It’s just the way that stories were meant to be told.
We cheat ourselves by skipping the darker plot points as they each serve a necessary purpose in advancing the narrative. We must let the story unfold, even when the plot twists are confusing and the pace seems glacial. In a good story, it all matters. I could give you a fairly complete plot summary of Les Miserables on a half-sheet of paper, but it wouldn’t be much of a story. We need the treachery of Jean Valjean and the kindness of Bishop Myriel if we are to appreciate the eventual nobility that surfaces later. Cosette’s redemption story would be less were she not left with the cruel innkeeper, or if Fantine doesn’t sell her teeth and hair. These are dark and vital elements of a long story. The best stories take time to tell and we, friends, are part of one — a very long and very good story.
The story was underway long before you and I ever appeared, and it will extend well beyond our lifetimes. In fact, the story was unfolding (to an infinite degree) before quill was ever put to parchment and the words, “in the beginning” were ever spoken.
Every story ever told – even the most imaginative fiction — is folded into this greater story, for it is written by the author-maker — the Author of authors. All the storytellers – E.B. White and Leo Tolstoy and John Steinbeck and JK Rowling and Harper Lee and John Grisham and A.A. Milne and George Lucas and Beatrix Potter – are each contributors to this larger story. Every place (explored and unexplored) is part of this story — actual places like Yemen and Sacramento and Amsterdam and Andromeda and Dixie Lee Junction and fictional places like Gotham and Narnia and Nottingham and Middle Earth and Tatooine. This story includes not just music, but all the music, not just language, but all the language — even the formation of language. Every word appears. The idle comment and the sage counsel. The life-giving affirmation and the funny story. The culture-shaping rhetoric of the Prime Minister and the casual exchange with the Aldi clerk. The unkind comment and the unarticulated thought. Every word. It’s all there. This story is unfolding, but it is not evolving. It is fixed and sure. Every turn in the narrative was in the mind of the author before the first word was even spoken. You can be sure that your presence in this story was not an afterthought but planned precisely. The author “knit you together in [your] mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13-14). And though you appear in the story (as do I), we are not the thematic focus. It is about one who is far more glorious than you and me (Isaiah 43:5-7). This central figure of the story was active from the very first page, present at and participating in the creation event. He’d continue to dominate the narrative as generations of failure and confusion and sorrow and bloodshed occur before he appears in earnest to slay the dragon and win his bride. It’s a long story, but it’s a good one. The best stories take time to tell. It’s just the way that they were meant to be told. We can be sure, however, that the patient author is positioned high above the field, and what he’s writing pleases him.
We recently took a trip to Albuquerque where we got plenty of time on the couch reading to our granddaughter, Jane. Currently, her favorite book is Little Pilgrim’s Big Journey, a brilliant adaptation of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress for younger children. There are two parts of the book that Jane really likes: when Christian encounters Apollyon, and when he faces the Giant of Despair. Anytime we’d pick up the book to read, she would ask that we skip to those two scenes.
“Giant ‘spare?”
You may ask, “So, Papa. Did you do as she asked and read what she wanted, or did you insist on picking up in the story where you left off?” That’s a dumb question.
What Jane will come to learn in time is that the slough of despond is more navigable, the journey is more tolerable, and the Celestial City will be more delightful when these adversarial encounters are seen in the setting of a really great story. We don’t write it. We read it. It can be difficult to understand how pain or chronic illness or betrayal or delay or isolation or seasons of depression or profound loss can advance a hopeful narrative, but it does. It must — for the author says it does. The language he uses is “good” (Romans 8:28). Jane’s mom and dad are teaching her patience, and their teaching has taken the form of catechesis. Leah or Caleb will ask her, “Jane, what is patience?” She responds, “Happy waiting”.
Happy waiting.
Let’s just be honest. When we are deep in the dark chapter of a long story, it takes grace to make our waiting happy, but our confidence in the author and our certainty of eventual good provides us hope. Our place is to trust.
Bridget just finished a novel this week. From what she told me, it started out sad, it stayed sad, and it ended sad. Our story is better than that. It ends well. Really well. So, we don’t lose heart. Even though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. Here’s why. Because this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory that is way, way, way beyond comparison because we are not fixated on what is “seeable” now — the dark plot twist that is large and immediate today. No. We anticipate the last page – the glorious last page – that page that, for now at least, remains unseen (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). This is where we fix our eyes. And it is coming, Christian. Believe that. I can’t tell you everything that’s on the last page, but I can tell you some and it is good. There will be no tears there. None. There will be no sorrow or crying. There will be no pain (Revelation 21:1-5). I can also tell you that the inexplicable turns of providence – those dark plot twists – will make sense on that day, for the story is good. And I can tell that you that on that day, you will see your hero – the one who loved and pursued you and died to win you. And, as Matt Papa says, “the calm will be the better for the storms that we endure.”
So, happy waiting, friends. Stories take time. Les Miserables is not improved by abbreviation, and your story doesn’t get better by eliminating hardship. It is unfolding right on time. Our confidence in the author demands that we release the story to him; his way is right and to change it would be to make it worse. There will be a day when we will apprehend more fully the beauty of this story, and when that day comes, any thought of changing the plot will just seem preposterous. It’s just how stories work. The best ones take time to tell.