"Happily Ever After"

This last weekend my granddaughter jumped up in my lap at the house and said, "Grandpa, let's write us a story...you start!" I began making of some type of 'fairy tale' that stretched out there and my granddaughter would add her part. We sat there for while just adding more and more until we got to the end. I asked her if she would end it and she said, "Sure...and they lived happily ever after!" After we were finished, she looked at me with her beautiful blue eyes and asked, "Grandpa, do people really live happily ever after?" At first I immediately wanted to say 'no' but then it made me think. Is that really 'fairy tale' stuff?

My mind shifted to Job and all the difficulties he went through, remaining faithful to the Lord. Listen to how his situation ended, "The Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends, and the Lord increased all that Job had twofold...The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning..." (Job 42:10,12) Does that sound like 'happily ever after' to you? I think Job made it to heaven after his death, don't you? Does that sound like 'happily ever after' to you? Paul was an old man when he wrote these inspired words, "In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord , the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing." (II Tim. 4:8) Does that sound like 'happily ever after' to you? The promise from Jesus says, "He who overcome, I will grant him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne." (Rev. 3:21)

This life offers sickness, distress and troubles. We all have to go through them. But they are temporary. The promises of God are eternal and we are told the outcome of our lives in every situation if will hold to the Lord by faith. The evil that touches us will be overcome. Trials come but they too are temporary. Even the passing of a loved who died in the Lord is just temporary.

Maybe we need to rethink our attitude toward this 'happily ever after' idea and see, it is true! Just as many of the children's stories we read end with 'and they lived happily ever after', Jesus says about us in being faithful to the end, 'and we will live happily ever after'! Now that's food for thought.