Once upon a time there was a girl who thought she wanted to marry a prince, have four children, and live happily ever after.
Sounds like the opening line of a fairy tale, doesn’t it? Well it is. This thought was one I clung to for many years of my life leading up to the time I believed in Jesus Christ. But you know, the more I think about it how wrong I was, the more it seems there was some truth to it after all.
While I originally thought my prince would be my husband, I have learned the real prince is Jesus. Don’t get me wrong, my husband is a good man. He’s kind, considerate, loving, and generous. However, Jesus Christ meets the need of my heart, no human can.
I thought I would have four children. However, I ended up with 2 biological children. My husband and I sponsor another child, and we host foreign exchange students during the summer time. In a sense I have more than four children!
Sometimes life on earth is good and sometimes it’s not. To live happily ever after requires the right mindset. This is something I have learned from knowing Jesus Christ. Learning to be content in whatever situation I am is a skill that is empowered by the Holy Spirit. But it is an essential skill if you are to achieve the happily ever after.
For me, my happily ever after will come on the day I see my Savior face to face in heaven. Paul teaches us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ and on the unseen things which are eternal. The eternal things are forever and ever.
So you see the fairy tale has some roots in truth if you are bold enough to see it. I reached my once upon a time, have you?
St. Paul powerfully portrays your point in Romans 12:1-2. God’s mercies are endless, constantly present around us even in the mundane we can’t possibly consider moment-to-moment. (what if we had to consciously think about breathing or making our heart beat).
The fairy tales that represented coming to Christ and left off with “…and they lived happily ever after” missed sharing more of the fantastic glory of our God that comes in the walk with him after the point of salvation. Beyond that moment where Christ becomes our life and our groom, St. Paul points out that the battlefield is in the mind. What transforms us and helps us to know and live in the purposes God has for us is the ongoing revelation of Christ in our hearts and mind; reckoning it to be so, renewing our minds with the mind of Christ, learning to live with this wild lover of our souls and trust him to be our King – understanding what is is for us commoners to now be part of his great nobility.
I like this quote by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
I long to get past consumption and self-absorption and see and appreciate God’s mercies more, regardless of the ups and downs, because he is there in it all and we are his in it all. That to me is how to get to happily ever after.
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