Finished Things Become Usable ThingsSample

Hope Comes in the Beginning

We read, “In the Beginning” and the sentence continues: “God created.”

This line sweeps everything into the voice of our Creator, inviting us to bring everything we have received into his epic story. Our voice, our choices, our decision, and our lives contribute to the saga of a glorious God through his glorious creation.

When God initiated all of creation, forming everything that surrounds us, he did not simply get the ball rolling and then wait to see where it went. Even at the beginning, we were part of what he started, and he wanted us in the story with him. “In the beginning” isn’t an invitation to watch from the sidelines. It’s a call to participate, to join in, to live the story.

Every choice we make contributes to our character development and to the arc of our story, and because we know the Author, we can trust that every stroke of the story is infused with hope.

Hope is the thing that compels us to risk the unknown and to endure on the path, even when we cannot see the way forward. Beginnings draw hope into the light, long middles cause hope to fade, and uncertain endings make hope seem dark; but in God’s story, hope is always there. When God launches beginnings, he has the end in mind, both for the sake of what comes after and for the hope in every moment in between.

A beginning must have a conclusion, and even a short story must have an ending that's what makes it a story. In this story God is writing, we live between the epic beginning and the epic end. God pours forth his speech one day at a time, and our story unfolds the same way, under the same promise of hope.

We are invited to participate with Him. What choices can you make to faithfully steward what God has entrusted to you?