The end times hold a special place of interest in the hearts of many Christians. I've even addressed it to some degree here. But in all the discussion about details and timelines and symbols, the one thing that stood out to me in today's reading was the promise of full completion. I don't mean simply that salvation will be fully manifested, that we will be glorified as Christ promises. The final restoration God has planned includes a completion of everything we find ourselves longing after.

​How great is this promise of God! Not only will our spiritual need for restoration be met, but our desire for true knowledge and understanding will find completion as well! God's promise is not just to fulfill our needs, but to bring fulfillment even to our wants, in the most glorious and holy way. We have in this age prophesies and parables, but in the age to come we will have truth, tangible truth, readily available and so perfect that we will have no need of partial visions into God's great nature. We may know in part now, but then we will know fully. The love that endures is one that includes revelation, honesty, a clear delivery of truth. God has designed us to know Him, really know Him, and in the end those who seek Him will be satisfied in knowing Him fully and intimately. God leaves no desire unfulfilled in the end.

One thing the Bible is very big on reminding its readers is that more of the story is happening behind the scenes than on the worldly stage. Today's reading included parts of Daniel 11, where King Darius is informed by Daniel that God has a great deal of the future planned in detail and knows who will be doing what; as well as the encounter between Zacharias and Gabriel, where the former is told about the coming birth of John the Baptist. Both of these sections highlight that God has a plan, and that what we see of this life relies on actions taken where we cannot see. But few books can match Job, a chapter of which was also in today's reading, for making our physical reality seem like a very small part of a much larger story.

Job spends the first couple chapters flipping back and forth between the spiritual conversations that govern what will happen in Job's life and Job's actual experiences. Then the book zooms in on just Job and his friends and briefly his wife, which seems very important and the focus of the whole story until God shows up at the end and reminds everyone involved that they have only a small fraction of the information about what is going on. And we, the readers, can get very comfortable with the idea that we really do know what was going on, because we got some glimpses at the scenes in Heaven. But we really have little more than Job did, if we're honest. We never get any more of an answer to Job's suffering than Job himself received, and even the brief glimpses at causes are only brief glimpses and we get nothing of that sort for most of the book.

Do we think this was only true back then? We so often look at our lives as if the answers will be apparent some time soon or that we have basically all the information about what is happening. We see something successful at a church and break down all the details on their programming and their personalities and the spiritual gifts and think we have a pretty decent idea on what made it work. We read book after book on how God is moving in our age on the assumption that anyone except God really knows much about it. We have no idea what God is up to, and how much of it will become visible in our lifetimes. How much do we rest in the knowledge that God knows far more than we do, and has a much larger plan than we can see? How often do we recognize His authority and control over circumstances without expecting an explanation?

Today is Michaelmas, apparently, so all of the readings I got for the day had to do with angels, especially Michael. I find it interesting that, in finding verses about Michael, neither source included Jude 9, but I'll be using it anyway. ​While the goal behind the reading for the day was to make the reader ponder Michael, I found myself noticing a different thread running through all of them, due to the nature of how Michael is generally mentioned: the great victory of God.

It is one thing to recognize that God is mighty to save, that He is our rock and our shelter, but we can go beyond that. Our faith in God is not simply that He can do mighty things, or that He can protect us from the trials we face. Our faith in Him ultimately is in the claim that He will be victorious--in fact, that He has already claimed the victory. There is a difference between believing that God is capable of claiming victory, and believing that He will and has claimed victory.

We do not worship an indifferent God, who watches but has no investment in our affairs. We do not worship a fickle God who has power but only occasionally bothers to use it. We do not worship a God who requires that we prove ourselves before He will act on our behalf. His victory is assured, and we are promised to share in it. Nothing we can do will make Him leave or exclude us.

This also frees us from thinking that God needs us to fulfill His victory. He has won, that part is not in dispute, and His victory will be made complete. It is not our strength, or faith, or guile, or service that will determine if God's purposes are fulfilled. Just like "Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, 'The Lord rebuke you!'" we operate in His victory, under His power, and need not rely on our own (Jude 1:9, NASB).