Longing for a ‘Happily Ever After’ Kind of World

Do you remember reading or hearing fairy tales growing up? There are so many of them, but they all seem to share two things in common: the first four words and the last six words.

Those words are, of course, “Once upon a time” and “they all lived happily ever after.” Just thinking of those simple but important phrases stirs up warm, happy feelings for many of us. Because in spite of the challenges and hardships the heroes and heroines experience during their respective tales, things end up well. And that’s how it should be, right?

 

This is probably one reason the Hallmark movies and other romantic comedies have enjoyed such popularity over the years, even spawning an upstart competitor, the Great American Family network. In the midst of all the bad news of each day – chaos, calamities and crises beyond number – they have provided brief respites from the turmoil, safe havens where we can retreat from a world seemingly spinning out of control.

 

Maybe that’s also a good reason (among many) why spending time reading the Bible can be so comforting and reassuring. In a sense like in the rom-coms, the biblical characters we encounter must deal with their share of conflict – sometimes more than their share – along with misfortune, tragedy and near-hopelessness. They are flawed individuals without doubt; but they have one important trait in common: an unflappable faith in God, the Creator of happily ever after.

 

Starting with Adam and Eve, proceeding to Abraham and Sarah, David and Bathsheba and others, culminating with Mary and Joseph, we find ordinary human beings doing what human beings do: proving themselves to be sinful, imperfect folks whose only saving grace – literally – is their faith in a holy and perfect God who’s particularly adept at making wrong things right.

 

We see them stumbling through life, sometimes stabbing themselves in the foot (you couldn’t shoot yourself in the foot in those days). In most cases, we could say they did experience happily ever after. Moses didn’t get to enter the Promised Land, but at least he was able to see if from afar. The Old Testament Joseph was thrown into a hole and sold into slavery by his brothers, then wrongly accused and convicted of a crime against a scorned woman. But then God gave Him a special gift of dream interpretation and prophecy that propelled him to No. 2 status in ancient Egypt.

 

Strongman Samson, who definitely had questionable taste in women, lost his life in his final act of divine empowerment. However, you’ve got to hand it to him – he brought the house down.

 

Because of their steadfast, uncompromising faith, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into a fiery furnace. They didn’t just survive the experience – they exited the furnace without even smelling like smoke. Their fellow Hebrew, Daniel, was tossed into a lion’s den for defying a royal edict. But God either sealed the lions’ mouths shut or took away their appetite, and Daniel was freed without a scratch and restored to his former place of honor in Babylon.

 

Many of the Old Testament prophets, most notably Isaiah and Jeremiah, spoke God’s words calling for repentance that largely fell on deaf ears. Nevertheless, as it says in Hebrews 11:39-40, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”

 

So, what about us? Where’s the “happily ever after” in this world where hostility to biblical truth and faith in Jesus Christ is on the increase, when the Judeo-Christian values that once undergirded our society are being cast aside, even mocked and destroyed?

 

The next verses in Hebrews give us the answer: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

 

Jesus Christ could willingly submit to a horrendous death on a cross because He was able to see the happily-ever-after ending – not only for Himself but also for everyone who would trust in Him.

 

What is this “ending,” one that in fact will be never ending? Hebrews 12:28 tells us: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.”

 

Even as He knew the day of His crucifixion was nearing, Jesus offered this assurance to His followers, which include you and me today: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me. In My Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1-3).

And exactly what will this happily-ever-after place be like? We can guess, conjecture and imagine all we want, but there’s no way our finite, temporal minds can grasp what infinite, eternal wonder must be like. “…‘What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived’ – the things God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). But we do know this: Without a doubt, it will top even the happiest of fairy tales and the happy-teariest of romantic comedies.