A Storybook Ending

It may be that I'm crazy, but sometimes when I look up at the sky, particularly in the evening, I have the overwhelming feeling that I'm living out my life within a painting. The only thing is, of course, that the painting is alive and the Artist is constantly at work, directing everything as He wills.

Which somehow brings me to this: I love books. I love a story well told. Give me O. Henry, Tolstoy, Louis L'Amour, C.S. Lewis or Charles Dickens and I'm a happy guy. And lately I've been realizing that the reason I love life so much is that it's so much like a good book.

When I look at the sky and I'm filled with awe, it's because I sense the movement of the storyline going on around me. The things that make a book so good are the very things that I enjoy about life: there are the despicable and difficult characters, the heroes and heroines with their human weaknesses, the twists and turns that add depth and develop the plot, and of course the hope of a really good ending. God is such a good writer.

For a true Christian, their life story holds a lot of hope and promise. The certain doom that faces the main players in A Tale of Two Cities seems inescapable until the last bit when you realize something wonderful is about to happen. It's a fabulous story of redemption, and no matter how many times I read it, the ending thrills me every time. The story is long and sinuous, but it ends up just the way you hoped it would and thought it should.

I have a list of obstacles and difficulties and trials as long as my arm, but you know, I just don't feel too badly about them. I have every reason to hope that, because of Christ the Author and Finisher of my faith, I'm heading toward a storybook ending.