Spoiler Alert: Your Future

You should know what is going to happen in this story so that any element of suspense in it will be transferred from its surface to its interior. — Flannery O’Connor

Flannery O’Connor wrote this as part of an analysis of her own short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” then promptly followed this statement with a three-sentence summary of her own story (spoiler alert: a family is murdered by an escaped convict). Her point was this: until you understand where a person will end up, you can’t fully appreciate the journey that takes them there.

To us, this seems absurd, and an author spoiling her own story would be unthinkable. Spoiler tags are everywhere online. Every review I saw for Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, for example, warned the reader to avoid spoilers. Heck, we get mad when someone spoils the end of a decades-old movie for us (spoiler alert: Luke and Leia are twins, and Darth Vader is the father).

Personally, though, O’Connor’s line rang true. When I’m reading, I almost invariably flip to the end and read the last few pages before going back to the beginning. Knowing the character’s physical and emotional state at the end of a story gives me a deeper appreciation of the journey.

As I was going through some personal challenges, I found myself wishing I had spoilers for my own life. It would reduce the temptation to worry, if nothing else. And then it occurred to me: really, we all have spoilers. The Bible is absolutely full of spoilers. The biggest one is that Jesus wins, of course. But we can all know how our own lives are going to turn out. It’s in the Bible. We just have to read it.

So what are those spoilers? There’s no time to go through them all, of course—you’ll have to go read your Bible for that. (Even at a chapter a day, which in most cases is a page or less, it should only take you three years to read it front-to-back.) Here’s just a sampling:

Spoilers for those who do not follow Christ:

• You have sinned, and no matter how hard you work for it, no matter how lofty your goals, you will fall short and miss the mark of God’s glory (Romans 3:23).
• Your sins have been earning you a paycheck, and your salary is death (Romans 6:23).
• When Jesus returns in glory to judge everyone, He will cast those whose names were not written in the Book of Life into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11-15). That includes murderers, but it also includes people who have done no worse than tell a lie (Revelation 21:8).

But! There is hope:

…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. — Romans 5:8-9

That’s not just a statement of belief. That’s a spoiler for the Christ-follower. If you “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). That means, during that final judgement, you don’t have to worry about where you’ll end up. You already know one spoiler in the Book of Life: your name is written in it.

That’s all well and good, of course. It’s good to know where we’ll end up after we die. But the amazing thing is, the Bible gives us spoilers for life while still on this Earth. There are spoilers for the life and growth of every Christ follower.

Spoilers for those who follow Christ:

• Our faith will be tested, but this testing will produce endurance, which produces character, which produces hope (James 1:3).
• He who began a good work us will be faithful to complete it (Philippians 1:6).
• Nothing we do and nothing that is done to us can separate us from God’s amazing love (Romans 8:35-39).
• Everything—every car accident, every illness, every successful sale, every achieved goal, whether pleasant or painful—everything works together for the good of those who love God (Romans 8:28).
• God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our abilities, but He will always provide a way to escape it (1 Corinthians 10:13).

In practical terms, what does this mean for us? It means that, as followers of Christ, we are followers of a faithful God, one who will never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8). We may not know what next week will look like, whether we’ll get a promotion or lose our job, but we do know this: God is faithful, and his future is secure. And while that doesn’t give us license to sin (Romans 6:1-14), it does mean we do not have to worry about our future (Matthew 6:25-34). In a very real sense, we can sit back and enjoy the spiritual journey.

 

Not sure where you’ll end up? Learn more about how to become a Christ-follower.

Image Credit: Thomas Hawk