Through and Through

(Isa. 43:2)

T

hings will get better. As a believer, I am sure of it. No matter how bad things are, or how bad thing may become, I have God’s word on it that things are going to get better. Jesus said “I go to prepare a place for you.” I believe Him. Jesus spoke of the “Father’s house.” Yes, things are going to get better. Even if in this world I become homeless, I know that I am just not home yet. One day I will step up on the front porch of eternal proportions and then at last I will be home. No matter how difficult things become here, I am encouraged by the word “through.”

There is through and then there is through. They sound the same, but they are very different. The first word reminds me that life here is a journey. God said “when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.” Isaiah did not say “If thou passest through,” but “when.” This means that on my way home, I am going to have to go through some things. It means that even when I am going through what I must go through, I am not there yet. Then there is the second word and it means finished. The Lord Jesus understood what that meant and He used it at the end of His ordeal. “It is finished,” He said while on the cross. Every true Christian can expect a cross. There is no other way to conquer a river except to cross it.

One time the Lord Jesus said “I must needs go through Samaria.” Going “to” Samaria is not the same as going “through” Samaria. It is in the going through that we do some of our greatest work and “well doing.” Paul said, “Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not” (Gal. 6:9). Never was there a better example of “Well doing” than there was on that day at Jacob’s Well; and never was there a better day for Sychar than the day that Jesus was there. The Samaritans would have never tasted that living water if Jesus had not gone “through” Samaria.

Some of us are going “through” some stuff right now that will be an important part of our testimony. There cannot be a “testimony” without a “test.” David said “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” There is no other way to get from one mountain top to another without descending into some valley. But even at the lowest point, we realize that we are not “through,” and God is not through with us yet. We also know that, no matter how dark the shadows in the valley, when we are through, things will be brighter and better because “through” is not the destination. It’s just the way home.