A BETTER END

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning of it.

Ecclesiastes 7:8a

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Today’s devotion involves testimony and confession, and how it reveals the truths found in the word of God.

I got married when I was very young, perhaps too young. We lived close to where I grew up for the first few years we were together but then a poor job market and lack of future opportunity led me to enlist in the Navy and embark on a journey that was very much unknown when I started.

My enlistment led to moves, first to Illinois, then to Georgia, then California, and finally Virginia. It wasn’t easy on us as moving rarely is but we toughed it out, even with our children in tow. I was finding success in the service and doing well. Unfortunately, I was not doing as well on the home front. For I thought being a faithful husband who provided for his family was enough but as I would discover, not paying credence to spiritual health, both personally and within my family, would bring a heavy toll.  

Just two years after arriving in Virginia, I found out my wife was in relations with someone else. I was devastated and angry at how I was deceived by someone who I had trusted, someone I had worked hard for, someone who I had invested so much of my life in. This violation of trust led to our divorce. I blamed her of course, a big mistake on my part as you will see.

And so life moved on much different than before. I was single for three years after the divorce and only saw my children during the times I had visitation. Those were the best times I would have during this period and my resent over what my now ex-wife had done continued to smolder and fester.

But look at the word of God for today:

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning of it. Ecclesiastes 7:8a

My situation had to get better because it sure couldn’t be much worse than it was in the beginning.

1992 brought great change. I was working as a volunteer at a local elementary school, helping teachers with children in two third grade classes. I loved that work and looked forward to each week I was able to go there and make a difference. Little did I know that the Lord had much more in mind for me.

You see, one day while I was working at the school, I ran into the assistant principal and we started a conversation. She was a beautiful woman and we had spoken before but it always was just professional in nature. This time was different and we started to chat about the weekend and our plans. She shared that she was going to see a movie but when I asked whether she was going alone, she mentioned she had a date but added words that led me to believe she wasn’t really in a relationship. With this, I sent her flowers and asked her to go to dinner with me, an invitation she accepted.

We started to see each other regularly but not before she put down one important rule for our relationship:

If we were going to be together, the Lord had to be first in our relationship.

Well, I agreed to this but I truly had no idea what I was getting into. I had went to church regularly before I joined the Navy but had strayed from my Christian walk for so long that I actually encountered a lot of anxiety over what I was agreeing to. I mean, how was the Lord going to feel about me coming back now, when I had been away for so long. Frankly, I had abandoned Him every bit as much as my ex-wife had abandoned me. I was the classic prodigal son, I guess you could say, coming home after a time away chasing after my own desires (Luke 15:11-31).

The outcome in Jesus’ parable in Luke was the same for me. For the Father didn’t condemn me for being away but rather embraced me. He brought me back in joy because I had been lost and was now found. And He set my feet on His path of righteousness again, a path that I have traveled faithfully for more than 21 years now.

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning of it.

As I grew stronger and stronger in my new found faith, a new creation in the fullest sense (2 Corinthians 5:17), something special was happening in my heart and mind and soul. Love and forgiveness took the place of resentment and condemn, pardon took the place of accusation, peace took the place of anguish. I was literally changing from the inside out and being convicted for the mistakes I had made in my past, mistakes that contributed to the demise of my first marriage. With this, I vowed to never repeat the mistakes of the past and to ensure that this time around, I was living for the Lord, both in my life and in my marriage.

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning of it.

Of course, this testimony could end here and it would have been a blessed story of redemption and restoration. But there was one more act in this glorious play the Lord was writing. That act came in 1997.

I was coming home from deployment and we had stopped in Eilat, Israel, for a port visit. It was a blessing enough that I was standing on holy ground, the land the Lord had given His chosen people more than 2,000 years earlier, but He had much more in store.

I took the time to call my children as I would always do anytime we were able to go ashore but this call would bring nothing but bliss for my ex-wife asked me during that call if I would take custody of the girls once I returned home. It was something I had prayed for over and over and over again, and now God was answering that prayer as I stood in His holy land. Simply storybook.

I’m sure you could guess that I excitedly accepted the offer and after returning, we made the move and my daughters and I were reunited. I’m convinced that none of that would have ever happened had I not returned to the Lord and renewed my covenant with Him. He knew I was now ready to make good on my past mistakes and lead my children spiritually. That was why He entrusted them back into my care.

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning of it.

Friends, we often don’t see how God has worked in a matter until we reach the end and look back in retrospect. That’s when we often see His glory revealed most. At the onset of challenge, hardship, and adversity, we cannot see what is ahead, we don’t know what changes might come as matters progress, and we have no idea how things will turn out in the end. But the Lord does and we simply need to trust Him and believe His word that tells us that He is always working things out for the good of those who love Him.

There were dire consequences for when I chose to live apart from the Lord. We often don’t come out of our mistakes without some form of penalty. But through the journey the Lord took me on after my failing and falling, He was trying all along to lead me back to Him and to this day I give thanks that he did. I’m never going back to the man I once was, and through Jesus, I now have a future that is more secure than anything I could have created on my own, a future that is eternal.

For through Jesus Christ, there is no doubt that the end is better than the beginning.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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