Shortly after my
first child was born, my wife and I started binge watching the television show
House.  I knew that we would be spending
a lot of time at home with our new born daughter, so on the day that she was
born I ordered the first 3 season of the show off of Amazon for our hospital
room.  

And over the next
several weeks, my wife, newborn daughter and I watched episode upon episode of
House M.D.  For those of you not familiar
with the show, House is a medical drama about Dr. Gregory House, a surly yet
genius doctor.  Its a lot like Sherlock
Holmes, only if Sherlock Holmes had been a doctor solving medical mysteries.

There’s one episode
of House that I’ve been thinking about a lot this week.  During the episode, Doctor House is shot by a
deranged patient and yet he keeps working on the medical cases assigned to
him.  It becomes clear during the course
of the episode that the gunshot wound is not only affecting House’s livelihood
but also his ability to properly care for patients.  

And then…. the
episode ends and the viewer is left wondering if Dr. House and his patient are
going to survive!  

Usually, when
you’re binge watching a television show, cliffhangers like this aren’t that big
a deal.   All you have to do is press the
play button to find out what happens next.
However, when I originally watched this episode, it must have been the
third or fourth episode my wife and I had watched that night because I know
that we turned the show off and went to bed, despite the cliffhanger.  And so that night, every time I woke up to
take care of my infant daughter; I had these weird questions running through my
head bout whether Dr. Gregory House was going to survive.

At some point the
next morning, when I was thinking a bit more clearly, I remembered that the
cliffhanger episode I had just watched was from season 2….and then I remembered
that I had just seen a commercial advertising the premiere episode of House
season 9.

It was at this
precise moment that I realized, Dr. Gregory House was going to be fine.

I’m embarrassed to
admit how comforted I was when I realized that everything would be ok, but I
bet many of you can understand that sense of relief that I had when I figured
out how the story was going to end.  

I’ve been thinking
about this phenomenon a lot this week—this strange sense of comfort and
security that we get when the end of the story comes into focus because I think
it’s a feeling that our faith should cultivate in us again and again. When
we’re met with the tension and uncertainty of the moment, we can take a deep
breath and remember that God has already told us the end of the story.  

There’s a lot of uncertainty in our world these
days.  Questions about the ongoing
pandemic.  Questions about the
Presidential election.  Questions about
schools and businesses and family gatherings and how any of that can work
during a pandemic.  Questions about how
long this will all last.  

If you watch the news or read the headlines its
all enough to leave you feeling really uneasy and even downright scared.  

But our faith tells us that we know how the story
is going to end.  No matter what might
happen, we know that God is in control and that God will not rest until all of
creation is put back together.  

Fear not, because we know how the story is going
to end!   Whatever uncertainty you feel today, whatever
fear and struggle you are currently encountering know that God is with you and
that the story will not end until all the world rests in the arms of our loving
God.