Enduring to the End Means Hope
"For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" (Psalm 30:5). I have always thought that in some ways enduring to the end was about grim determination, holding onto the iron rod with white knuckles, trudging forward step after step out of a sense of duty, putting up with hard, terrible things until we die. It seems like enduring to the end would be like trying to hold onto our sanity and our sanctity in the midst of a war of attrition between the forces of Heaven and the forces of Hell. But enduring to the end is supposed to be hopeful. We don't really have a choice in the enduring part. We can choose to remain faithful or rebel against God, but pain and misery and injustice and tragedy and heartbreak are going to endure whether we face it or try to run from it. As much as we might like to, we can't ignore suffering. We can definitely make it worse, but we can't get rid of it as soon or as completely as we might like. That's why enduring to the end is really about hope. We are stuck with the enduring part. Whether we are as wicked as Cain or as righteous as Job, we all have to face the fact that many, many times in our life weeping will endure for the night. But we can trust in the Lord that the night will end, and joy cometh in the morning. The end has always been scary to me. I've got to endure until I die? That's too long. I'm not strong enough. But this end is not that End. We don't have to endure to the end of our lives. We just have to allow the weeping to endure to the end of the night. We can make it to the end because we know that joy cometh in the morning. Some nights are longer and darker and more terrifying than others. Sometimes the weeping endures so long we run out of tears and start shedding great drops of blood. But there is One who kneels beside us in the dead of night, weeping alongside us, bleeding alongside us. Because of Him there is an End. There is an End to all pain and heartache and loss and fear and sorrow and tears. Because of Him, joy cometh in the morning. With or without Christ and His enabling grace, His unfailing friendship, His unwavering support, His unshakeable peace, His unfathomable love, we must endure the occasional or perhaps frequent night of weeping, but with Christ, there is hope in the End, an End that often comes much more quickly than we had dared to imagine, and with more light and joy than even seems possible. Enduring to the end has never been about making an irrevocable commitment to never make a mistake for the rest of your life, to never doubt or fear or stumble, to always plaster a smile on your face and pretend that everything is always A-OK. Enduring to the end means believing and trusting and hoping that the end will come. Out of all of the aspects of the gospel, enduring to the end should be the part we are most excited about. God promises an end to the darkness, an end to the sorrow and misery, an end to the terror and the depression and the pain and the heartache. We may yet face many nights of weeping ahead, but we can take solace in the fact that we only have to endure them until they end, and then Christ shall wipe away our tears and fill our hearts to bursting with pure, unadulterated, unconquerable, indescribable joy.
