The Road to Happily Ever After

Just so you know, I am aware of the many times I include the words "Happily Ever After" in my titles. Three, to date. What can I say? It's more proof positive that, as I have admitted previously, I am an incorrigible Cinderella junkie. Anyway, back to the way to get to Happily Ever After ...

Several spiritual mentors have told me what I am about to share and every single time I have kicked against the pricks with resounding "No!!!!"s. Having cut my spiritual teeth on the teachings of faith and positive confession, that one must always say only what Scripture says, regardless of what our eyes tell us, I have an ingrained aversion to speaking anything that even faintly reeks of a negative nature. After all, doesn't the Lord say "I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love" (Hosea 11:14)? Would saying that hardship draws us to the Lord call it into being, like it did Job, who said,"The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me" (Job 3:25-26)? After all, Isaiah 57:19 says that God creates the fruit of the lips. Is it wrong to say that hardship births spiritual epiphanies? Perhaps the question should be: is it wrong to say that which is true? That is what we need to determine, if it is indeed truth that God uses adversity to draw us to Him, that recognizing it is not calling it into being, but merely recognizing a spiritual truth.

I have known beautiful Christians who have served the Lord since their childhood. Though few in number, they have the wonderful testimony that they didn't come to the Lord through some life-altering tragedy. They epitomize the truth that God is good, that He draws us with cords of love. So do we really need something bad to shake us awake spiritually? Sigh ... After decades of fighting against this truth, I am finally, finally, facing up to the fact that it does indeed have merit.

As counterintuitive as it seems, there are times when God's love is manifested through adversity. Sometimes we actually need trials to shake the blindfolds off of us in order to see the light, like Paul and his Damascus road experience. It was life altering, life giving, but if you stop to think about it, it was not a pleasant experience, at least not initially.

Dennis doesn't like to dwell on his own salvation experience. Not that it wasn't wonderful to come to the Lord, but the road to get there ... it still cuts him to the quick that it was his best friend's death, drowning right before him and he almost losing his own life trying to rescue him, that drew him to the Lord like nothing else had done. It's a bittersweet memory--it was so good to come to a vibrant relationship with Jesus, but the cost? His best friend going to his death without having acknowledged the Lord? The pain of it still haunts him.

I could relate other similar life stories, but the one that tipped the scales for me was Dr. Oscar Brook's sermon "The Lily of the Valley."

Jesus calls Himself "the Lily of the Valleys" in Song of Solomon 2:1. It's easy to see that the white color of the flower we call Lily of the Valley represents purity, reflecting Jesus's sinless nature (1 Peter 2:22). Some posit that the presentation of the pretty little flowers, all hanging down in a row like little bells, represent humility, another of our Lord's defining characteristics (Philippians 2:6-8). Those are beautiful thoughts, but if you look up the habitat of the Lily of the Valley, it is not to be found in the Middle East, which has led Bible scholars to believe that the reference to the lily of the valley is a reference to what we know as a hyacinth. These perennials (that means they live year, after year, after year--does that remind you of Someone?) are known for their beauty and strong fragrance, and grow in the full sun. In the heat of life, in the battle of life, in the tragedies of life, that is where you will find the middle eastern version of the lily of the valley.

In his sermon, Dr. Brooks makes reference to a life changing experience during the time when he had been kidnapped (unbelievably, at a tender eleven years of age) to fight with the Sandanistas. The only time that he was shot during his two year stint in that war, he was over 200 miles from safety. It was then, at that time, that the Lord spoke to him and he experienced the presence of the Lord in a life altering way. It was then that the Lord spoke to him and told him that he would yet live and live to carry His gospel around the world. In that horrible, horrible place, in one of the scariest, loneliest times of his life, the Lily of the Valley reached down to suffuse this child of God with His sweet fragrance, His comfort, His encouragement.

It is usually not in the happy times of life that we have our greatest spiritual epiphanies. It is in the battle of life, the tragedies of life, the trials of life. Sometimes, it is precisely these hard things that turn us to the Lord, that are in fact the mercy of God, the love of God, the kindness of God. Why are they good? Because they turn us to Him. Why does He allow them? Because He knows that our hard heads can't hear Him unless He speaks loudly.

We were listening to a report about North Korean Christians this morning, and guess what. Many, many lost their lives to Covid in that country. No food, no medicine ... In desperation, people started calling on the name of Jesus. And when they did, their fever went down. The saying got around: the name of Kim John Un does not bring down your fever, it is the name of Jesus. In that horrible, horrible place, where Christians comprise 70 percent of the interment camps, in a horrible, horrible time, the beautiful, life-giving fragrance of the Lily of the Valley made itself known. Prosperity did not promulgate the truth of Jesus in that country. Death did.

My spiritual mentors were right. It is not calling tragedy down on us to admit that God uses the hard things of life to draw us to Him, to reveal Himself to us. Yes, there are some who will come to great revelations of the Lord without having to experience great tragedy. But many are the times when the horrible, horrible things turn out to be in reality the most wonderful things--because they bring us face to face with the greatness of Jesus.

The road to Happily Ever After is not an easy one. But it is one worth traveling.

"To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified" (Isaiah 61:3).

"But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are" (1 Corinthians 1:27-28).

"That the trial of your faith, being much ore precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jess Christ" (1 Peter 1:7).