The Promise of a Happy Ending

09/05/15

Ezekiel 28.26 And they shall dwell securely in it, and they shall build houses and plant vineyards. They shall dwell securely, when I execute judgments upon all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God. – God

In the movie, The Shawshank Redemption (one of my personal fav’s), one of the main characters, Andy Dufresne, shares this thought with the other main character, Red: “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” Andy has escaped the horrors of Shawshank prison, where he and Red had been incarcerated, and encourages his friend Red to come and find him in Mexico where they’d be free…

As I read in Ezekiel this morning I thought about hope as I read the last verse in Ezekiel 28. Hope is a tremendous motivator. Hope is the promise that there is, indeed, a happy ending. We all long for a happy ending. On earth we’ll have our fair share of what earth has to offer, but one day, all of earth’s offerings will be consumed by Heaven’s hope.

I can wax cynical thinking, like Ford, saying, no one ever built a good reputation by what he was going to do; but I can hope in what God had promised to do; there’s a huge difference. The difference between hope and good intentions is hope is real; good intentions are often the pavement to hell.

God spoke to His people through Ezekiel telling them, “Then they will know that I am the Lord their God.” That’s hope. That’s what we all need: a promise to believe in no matter the situations and circumstances that scream otherwise. Hope is a grace of God beckoning to us all: Believe in Me.

Israel’s history might cause one to think, perhaps God forgot about them. Hope dispels such thinking. Hope is the healing of a heart that wants to doubt because of what it hears, sees, and feels. The gift of God is hope.

In my day and at my age hope is an ever present reminder that all of the mistakes I have made and all of the doubts I have, have no real bearing in life; the only thing that matters is hope: the promise of a happy ending. God has promised that there will be a happy ending for the one whose hope is in Him.

For me today, that is a motivator to keep on keeping on…