You may or may not have heard about it, but a little known movie called “Avengers: End Game” came out recently. I don’t know that I ever remember a movie generating so many “DON’T SPOIL IT FOR ME” messages on social media and in every day conversation. Yes, I said it myself…threatening to physically harm anyone who ruined it for me. Thankfully, I was able to see it before hearing or seeing any spoilers. And don’t worry, I’m not going to give away anything if you’re one of the two or three people on the planet who haven’t seen it yet.

It did make me think, though, about how different my way of thinking was in this instance. I honestly did not want to know ahead of time what was going to happen in the movie – which is so unlike me.  Go ahead and yell at me and tell me how awful I am, but I’m usually the kind of person who, after reading only the first few pages, would go to the back of the book and read the last few pages to find out how the story was going to end.  Somewhat to my wife Kathy’s chagrin, I HAD to know if we were having a boy or girl before our children came along. I don’t know if deep down I just don’t like surprises, or if I just want to know the end so I can plan the best course to get there.

If you think about it, that’s how so many of us are in our spiritual lives. We may not want spoilers for our movies and TV shows, but by golly, we sure would like to know what God has in store for our lives! How much easier would it be if we only knew what the future holds? Then we could plan accordingly and really have control over our lives. But fortunately for us, that’s not how God works.  He knows each one of us intimately, and he knows that if we could see everything – as He is able to – our finite minds would literally be blown because His ways are so much higher than our ways.

Think of the disciples. If they had been able to see a glimpse of their future and see that most all of them would be martyred for their faith…would the early church have spread the way it did? If Saul had seen that he would become Paul and go from persecuting Christians to being one of the biggest proliferators of the church – do you think he EVER would have believed it? No, God gives us a lamp to light our path, not stadium lights to illuminate everything. That lamp is just enough to see a step or two in front of us, and if we have the faith to take that step and follow where He leads, He knows it will lead us to His glory. THAT’S His goal for each of us is to glorify Him. He may have different paths for each of us to get to that destination – whether that’s being a preacher, a business person, rich, poor, married, single – if you knew the whole path ahead of time, you’d probably never believe it and you wouldn’t need faith to take those steps. Just know that no matter how unclear your journey may be, you can trust in Him to lead you on the right path. And the “end game,” is His glory. Oops, I may have just spoiled it for you…sorry about that.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6