The animated Marvel series, “What If…?”, aspires to do something very rarely attempted in any other form of media… tell us what would have happened if the characters and stories we are so familiar with walked down the OTHER side of the fork in the road. For as long as there have been stories, fans have speculated on how the narrative would have turned out if just ONE choice had turned out differently… and now, through the lens of Marvel’s multiverse, some of those questions can finally be answered. Throughout the years there have been entire comic book runs that have explored “non-canon” timelines that resolve burning questions such as “What if Peter Parker never got bit by a radioactive spider?”, but these spin-offs are typically taken about as seriously as fan fiction and are rarely considered required reading. Marvel’s “What If…” series gives us the ACTUAL answers to these questions by the studio authorized to make them, ending all of our speculation once and for all and finally giving us the resolution we were looking for. Or, does it?

From seeing the mantle of Captain America land on the shoulders of Peggy Carter instead of Steven Rogers, to watching T’Challa serve as a wiser and more competent Star Lord, we get answers to some of the questions we may not have ever even considered asking… in some of these cases, the events play out similarly and the timeline remains essentially the same, showing the inevitability of certain events regardless of who wields the shield. In others, observing a heroic character make a selfish decision instead of an altruistic one results in a complete meltdown of their universe… the only path to victory required sacrifices that could not be avoided or accomplished in any other way than how they happened. And one of the most compelling examples of this is in the story of Nebula, a tortured soul in every sense of the word who became a heroic champion for the weak and oppressed… but her journey was a long and seemingly never-ending path of trauma and pain that shaped her into the Guardian that she became.

The “What If…?” series portrays a few examples of the different paths her life could have taken if simply ONE variable was altered in her story, but in Marvel’s magnum opus “Endgame” we saw a very clear difference between the hero who became more than the sum of her experiences and the broken version of Nebula who never found a purpose beyond her pain. The version of Nebula who survived “the Snap” was still a fearsome warrior, but she also became a leader both during the aftermath of that traumatic event and as a core member of the Guardians of the Galaxy in the future. But the past version of Nebula joined the festivities in “Endgame” as well, traveling through time with Thanos and skipping over the critical aspects of her painful journey that shaped her into something better. This “past version” of Nebula lacked all of wisdom and growth that she gained as she endured those years of seemingly unnecessary suffering, and as a result she remained fully aligned with her villainous adopted-father Thanos’s plans for decimating half of the galaxy. She betrayed not only her sister Gamora but also the future version of her own self… all because she lacked the trials and tribulations that her future self had experienced and overcome.

In my own life, there are many times I have asked myself the question, “What If?”, and pondered how my story would have played out differently if just ONE thing went differently. Perhaps you have similar questions in your own life experiences… what if that accident had been prevented? What if that marriage/divorce never happened? What if this individual never passed away? What if these miscarriages never occurred? What if, what if, what if… all unknowable timelines that can seem to carry the promise of a road less traveled and a brighter future than the one we are currently walking towards. But during those sleepless nights of wondering “What If?” and envisioning a life that didn’t contain many of my deepest pains and sorrows, I have found the answer to the questions I have been asking. It wasn’t the answer I was hoping or looking for, but it IS an answer nonetheless.

Acts 6:2-6 Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them.

In a part of Scripture that most of us probably skip over as yet another list of seemingly endless genealogies, a path was set in motion that would change the future of the entire human race forever. But it sure didn’t seem that way at the time. In what seemed to be just a little, obscure footnote to a larger story being told, a group of seven men were chosen to handle the administrative duties of the early church so the twelve apostles could devote themselves to full-time ministry. Of these seven men, a man named Stephen was selected… and in this seemingly small moment the world was changed. But first… something incredibly traumatic had to happen.

Acts 6:8-12 And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. Then there arose some from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia), disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke. Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council.

Acts 7:57-60 Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Stephen has a grand total of one recorded sermon in the Bible… his final one. For reasons that were only known to the Lord at the time, Stephen was selected by the opposition to the early church as the first recorded martyr in the New Testament… he was falsely accused of crimes, brutally executed by a self-righteous mob, and his story appeared to have ended shortly after it had begun. But nestled within this tragic ending is a single line that created a “sacred timeline event”… “the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul”. Observing the death of Stephen galvanized young Saul to action… granted, at first it was a TERRIBLE direction. Saul began persecuting the church in a manner never seen before (Acts 8:1-3), unwittingly causing a dispersion of believers that pressed the Gospel of Christ to areas that had not yet been reached (Acts 8:4).

Acts 8:1-4 Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.

If that alone had been the outcome, we could make a case that Stephen’s suffering at least had some positive impact. But Stephen’s courageous stance and brave sacrifice resulted in the complete transformation of the villainous Saul into the apostle who would write the majority of the New Testament and advance the cause of Christ more than any other recorded individual in history… of course, not without enduring a painful setback and rebirth of his own (Acts 9:1-31). Saul, better known by his Roman name of Paul, literally changed the world… but “What If” Stephen had never been martyred? What if Stephen had chosen to stay quiet? What if Stephen had never even been selected for the opportunity that unknowingly led to his death sentence? We will never know those answers for certain, but if we simply removed Stephen’s impact from the equation there are really only two potential outcomes… a lesson I learned from Marvel’s “What If?”:

1. Someone else takes Stephen’s place as the first Christian martyr, the timeline remains intact, and Saul’s journey from prosecutor to evangelizer continues unharmed.
2. Stephen goes on to live a normal and uneventful life, Saul never persecutes the church or becomes an apostle, and millions of souls across two thousand years have their only opportunity for receiving salvation erased from history in an unthinkable tragedy that far outweighs Stephen’s sacrifice.

I’m sure that when Stephen got up that morning it was a pretty normal day… even if he felt the rustling of something momentous happening, there is no way he could have known that his suffering that day would be the catalyst for saving souls in a way that he could have never accomplished through simply serving as one of seven stewards at his local church. It is incredibly unlikely that he could have even fully comprehended the ripple effect that this one painful moment in time would result in… and if given the option, I can’t imagine that he would make a different choice since he did the right thing not even knowing the impact he would have. And now, with my “What If” questions answered, it is time to bring this entire thought process to it’s logical conclusion.

As Nebula’s story allowed us to see her from multiple different variations in the timeline, we learned one undeniable truth… the same person experiencing different setbacks and battles turns out to be an entirely different character at best, and a back-stabbing villain at worst. And as Nebula’s story arc to becoming an essential hero has reached its’ zenith, we find that her brokenness no longer defines her… it REFINED her into the best version of herself. Was it painful? Clearly. Avoidable? Possibly. Fair? Not even remotely. But as I ponder the painful events that cause me to wonder “What If?” in my own life, I now realize that the version of me that never endured that pain and survived those challenges would have resulted in an entirely different “Nebula” in my current timeline… one that wasn’t softened by those adversities or shaped by those traumatic events. We will never know or understand the reason behind many of the struggles that we have faced in our lives, and at times we may struggle to see “the love of God that is beyond our comprehension” (Ephesians 3:18-19) or feel the “peace of God that passes all understanding” (Philippians 4:7) through the hardship and pain of the moment we are currently occupying. But when we ask the question “What If?”, what we are really asking is “Why Me?”… because SOMEONE has to pick up Captain America’s shield. SOMEONE has to get bit by that radioactive spider… SOMEONE will have to be abducted from the earth and become Star Lord. These are canon events in the timeline that cannot be altered because countless lives are on the line… and the reason why WE are the ones who are enduring them is because they are shaping US just as much as we are shaping the world around us by our actions in response to them.

The truth is that the best and most complete version of Nebula is the one that we got… the one that endured years of seemingly unnecessary suffering at the hands of Thanos. The one that bitterly battles her own internal struggles as well as fought brutal external wars… the one that was transformed by these challenges into the most unselfish and heroic variation of this beloved character. And the same goes for us… I don’t know why I have faced many of the sorrows I have endured in life, but I can safely say that in the answer to my “What If”” questions I have reached a point of peace. Whether it was a singular instant that inalterably changed our life, or simply the accumulated lifetime of seemingly avoidable twists of fate that left our minds, souls, and bodies scarred… the Lord did NOT cause these pains. We live in a fallen world, under attack by dark and sinister spiritual forces, populated by humans just like us who make selfish decisions that have a detrimental impact on ourselves and others. But it is only through fully surrendering these events into sovereign hands of the Almighty that they can serve a purpose beyond what our enemy had in mind… for our good as well as the good of others. We may not always get to see these events make sense in our lifetime… Stephen certainly didn’t. But in the Lord’s grace He uses each of these situations as the threads that weave together the tapestry of a “Nebula” that would have never existed in this manner otherwise.

SO now, I no longer ask the question, “What If?”… not because those wounds are all completely healed or my scars have been erased, but because I know that the person the Lord is growing me into becoming would NOT be the same if I hadn’t walked through those fires… and found that He was faithfully right beside me through each and every one of them. Let’s look at the past sufferings we have endured as well as the current trials we are facing with a renewed sense of purpose… there is often far more at stake than what we realize at the time, and even the most devastating of circumstances are often a fixed point in time that was necessary to our journey in ways we may not ever understand on this plane of existence. Let’s put those “What If?” questions to bed once and for all… and trust that the “I AM” knows exactly what He is doing. 🙂

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