Why is it that the fairy tale always ends immediately after the picture-perfect wedding?
Why does the curtain close on the adventure right after the bad guys are defeated… before they can recuperate and strike again?
How come the narrative ends after the race is won?
What is the truth about happily ever after?
One of the “happily ever after” dreams I cherished from grade-school days until earlier this year was graduating from high school. I could hardly wait until the day I was freed from the not-altogether-unpleasant-but-still-incredibly-binding chains of schoolwork to do whatever it was I felt called to do. Freedom. Aaahhhh…
Ha.
The challenges that came with my schoolwork were suddenly removed… and twice as suddenly replaced with the challenges that come with… this season. What is it called? There must be some fun and creative term for it. Hmm…
Why is it that our “happily ever after” dreams rarely meet the standards we set for them?
We live in a world warped by sin.
God designed this world to be one great “happily every after”. He wanted to live in fellowship with us, the people He created in His image. He wanted us to live beautiful lives in perfect fellowship with one another. But we chose to ignore Him and go our own direction.
Our foolish choice resulted in twisted, sinful lives… with precious few “happily ever afters”. The truth is, sin destroys our dreams of a perfect life on this earth.
If we seek to find our joy in anything in this world, we will, inevitably, be disappointed.
We could let this fact make us gloomy pessimists. But really, we need to let it point us to the even greater fact that this mangled world is not all there is. God loved us so much that He took action to give us the greatest “happily ever after” there could possibly be.
He became a perfect man, and took the entire disgusting weight of our sin on His shoulders.
He gave everything for us.
He crushed death and removed its power.
Look at the beautiful sneak peek He’s given us of what is soon to take place.
Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people.
God Himself will be with them and be their God.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” – Revelation 21:2-4 (emphasis mine)
This, friends, is the ultimate happily ever after. All of our other hopes of perfection will be dashed; this one will not.
Let’s live our lives in anticipation of this incredible event… it’s coming soon!
Photo by Foto Pettine on Unsplash
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Laurel Luehmann 