I never once doubted the man who wore his underwear on the outside of his clothes, but he did have me a little nervous.
I mean who could have seen it coming? We all knew Lex Luther was a criminal mastermind but launching a missile into the San Andreas Fault line to dismantle the continents as we know them and thus create his own super continent was just brilliant. To top it off, Lois Lane just happened to be there when the missile hit, sending her car into the growing ravine and burying her alive. Oh but wait! [Insert heroic music here].
Lois Lane can’t die, Superman is on his way. No need to worry; everybody knows the hero has to rescue his damsel in distress at the absolute last second- the story is always more exciting that way. Hurry up Superman, the dirt is piling into her car really fast. Lois isn’t going to make it much longer; the dirt is already at her neck. The car is falling further and further into the ravine and Lois is being crushed, Superman why aren’t you here yet? Wait! The car just got completely crushed by the rocks falling everywhere and Lois is still inside! There is no way she could survive that. Superman how could you let her die?
I never doubted that Superman could save the day, and I knew there was still time left in the movie but at that moment all seemed lost. Even a child of the planet Krypton couldn’t fix this one.
And this is where my nerd-o-meter goes off the charts and explodes with excitement.
Why are you going to space Superman? You are flying really fast; is that just because you are really angry at losing your sweetheart? Are you really flying so fast that you are making the Earth spin backwards? Wait are you really going back in time so that you can stop everything before it happens? That’s incredible!
Never for a moment did I think that there would be a chance of this movie ending with Superman being a failure. I never doubt that good will always triumph over evil when it comes to super hero movies but somehow I have found myself doubting that God works all things for the good of those who love Him.*
Did I just compare Superman to God?
No.
Well maybe a little bit.
The point is that when we watch movies we always know how it is going to end; we just don’t know how it is going to get there. We know without a shadow of a doubt that the good guy will always get the girl, the bad guy will always pay the penalty for his crimes and Good always wins. I wish we had that kind of faith in the God who actually exists.
Faith isn’t hard, we show it every day. A lot of people put all their faith in the angry British lady who yells at us from our GPS and tells us where to go. “We have no idea where we are but it’s all OK- we have a Global Positioning System that can guide us anywhere we like. Yeah it is taking me through some dark alleys that I would never go through all by myself but all is well, thanks to the angry British lady.”
The ironic thing is that most of the people I know who own a GPS have at one time or another gotten lost because of their GPS giving them wrong directions. It never stops us from turning it on and trusting it yet we have a hard time believing that the God who has never failed us and is far more reliable than our TomTom will come through for us in the end. We expect God to give us the whole picture all at once when we only want our GPS to give us one direction at a time. It doesn’t really make sense to me.
Faith is having a vague idea of where you are going but being really excited to see how God gets you there. Faith is knowing that He will always save the day and that the end credits won’t roll while you still need to be rescued. Faith is knowing that God will handle the in between details, you just have to hold on to the end result.
I have an idea of the way that I want to end my life, but no idea what God is going to do to get me there. If Superman could blow my mind by flying really fast and going back in time, how much more could God? I am just a spectator anyway; God is the one who does everything worthwhile. I am just really excited to see how it will all play out. The darker the circumstances are, the more exciting the triumph will be.
* Romans 8:28
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