There’s a little newspaper vending machine at my bus stop with a copy of USA Today that can be seen through the transparent front. The headline declares “This Is Not Over. ” I haven’t read any of the visible print to get the context.
The paper is fading and the date on it shows that it’s three years old. I don’t know, it kind of seems like it really might be over, little unbought paper.
As my 214 takes to the main lanes (the HOV bridge is still out) I’m pondering that defiant cry, “This Is Not Over!” One can almost see a little raised newsprint fist.
This is not over. I think I love that. I’ve got my own set of (almost all good) stresses and mini-battles to fight, wrestling with contumacious hardware and software at work, labarynthine paperwork and process at a local college ministry I shepherd (a little-known aspect of these kinds of things), side projects and schoolwork (aced my final last night
, whoohoo) and the heavier burdens of spiritual battles, hopes, dreams and regrets.
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?* Heck no!
“This is not over” can be discouraging. Often we want things to be over and done, so we can rest. Some battles in life are quick, others are the Battle of Stalingrad, and some go on for years or even a lifetime.
But there is a whole lot of encouragement in “This is not over!” I see that thought woven throughout the Scriptures as a matter of fact. In a fruit, a fall, and unforeseen grace and covering. In a forty year wilderness trek. In the dust of a shattered temple, by the waters of exile in Babylon, in a furnace, in a lions den. In the broken and torn body of our Lord.
It looked over. But it wasn’t!
This is not over!
* if you don’t get this reference, good for you.