Here Comes the Son (Do Do Do Do)

Most stories are really the same if you think about it. Nearly every movie, book, or TV show follows a simple formula similar to this: a character has a conflict and takes an action which creates another conflict. This cycle repeats over the course of a story until the final conflict, typically the most daunting challenge for the character, results in one final action which resolves the story. This resolution is not always happy, but it is very rare for a story to not have some sort of final action which wraps up the narrative. The reason for this is that most audiences want a conclusion, even if it’s an unhappy one. Can you imagine if “Back to the Future” ended with Doc just struggling to reconnect the cables? What if “Jurassic Park” ended right before the T. rex burst into the lobby to fight off the velociraptors? The vast majority of people would hate those movies if that was the case.

As I read Psalm 30 this week, I was reminded of how important resolutions are. Shortly before graduating from high school, I began to struggle heavily with anxiety. I dreaded the fact that I was coming to a resolution of my own and would now have to figure out what was expected of me in adulthood. Do I go to college? Do I move off to school? How am I going to make friends? What if I make a mistake? What am I supposed to be doing? Did I not prepare myself for this? Am I already too far behind? Questions like this raced around my head and for my entire first year of college I tried to bury the stress with food and weekends shut inside my dorm room. I felt like a boat in the middle of a hurricane. It was miserable and it didn’t work. A few weeks into my second semester I decided my pattern of living was not healthy so I moved back home. I met my conflict with an action. When I returned home I began to think about the root of my anxieties and I began to address them. I got into the gym and started to think about what sort of foods I was eating. I started to pursue my hobbies. My quality of life improved exponentially. The hurricane was still there, but I could see a way out.

In Psalm 30:3 David says: “O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.” Most of us have been in “the pit” before. Hardships seem to pile up and it gets nearly impossible to tread water, let alone swim. It’s easy to be discouraged; to give in to despair, but it’s important to realize that we have God to pull us from that low place. Only he can turn our “mourning into dancing” as verse 11 says. So, especially as we remember Jesus’s resurrection this Sunday, give thanks to God that your story doesn’t have to end without a resolution because “joy comes with the morning” and morning always begins with the Son.

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