Fairy Tale Faith

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This post was written by a friend and brother in Christ, Scott Breiding.

What you were never told about your life that I am not afraid to tell you:

At some point in our lives, many of us trade romance for responsibility. I’ll be the first to confess my old building blocks are covered in dust and have been for years. Every imaginative creation on my old etch-a-sketch has long since been intentionally or unintentionally swallowed by that agonizing layer of whatever made up that unforgiving silver dust. It’s amazing how a few shakes was enough erase an entire dream and hours of effort. For most of us, there came a point when we set it down and never picked it back up.

Why?

Why is it that where stories of Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty were dreams that inspired our young hearts only until something of this life buried them? I mean, there is a search and a hope for joy in every single one of our hearts, so is it really true that every single one of us must realize that the metaphorical silver dust is eventually going to win every time?

Let’s be real. Bills need paid. Countless things demand your attention and energy every single day. Heavy, heavy pain at some point takes its toll on all of us. So what’s left in life now is that joy, comes intermittently as a great song on the radio, in affection, or food. The happiness we long for is experienced only in bits and pieces until we die – and that’s the powerful experience of life that drowns dreams into floating stillness. Hope? Well… It’s a nice thought.

What if I told you, however, that pain is not meant to bury, but is in fact a PART of our story? That the difficult things in this life are only the beginning of a fairy tale that starts that way because we are born as sinful people living in a sinful world. That hope is not just a ‘nice thought”.

After all, what is Cinderella’s story without her former life in slavery? What is Rapunzel’s story without imprisonment? What is Aurora’s story without an eternal sleep in which only true love could wake her?

In our true ‘fairy tale’, it is sin that imprisoned and enslaved us, that kept us sleeping, with the truth that we were meant for something more. It is Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross that is our rescuer that breaks our chains, the Prince that frees us from slavery and imprisonment, the kiss that brings the dead to life.

Don’t you see? It is the despondency these brides were brought out of and raised up to that captivates our hearts, that gives us a hope that maybe we can truly find joy because it’s the story of the Gospel over and over again; it’s what we were created for, what our hearts never stop aching for.

You experience this every day. Every radio hit, every blockbuster, every kiss or climax that catches your heart can be exhilarating because it’s just the smallest taste of Heaven, but when it’s over it only leaves you wanting more. Why else do we have a repeat button as an option? Because it’s not enough. And why after time does the thrill it once gave you fade? Because it’s not enough.

What this world has to offer may satisfy us temporarily, but there will be a time when the clock strikes midnight, when what is carrying us fails us, when it turns back into a pumpkin and mice because it was never meant nor sufficient to carry us in the first place.

Why must I get all religious about it? This is anything but a religion. Our story in Christ is a breathtaking marriage, not a worrisome path of earning a way to God or following a condemning list of do’s and don’ts.

Religion is a philosophy that places all of its hope on a mirror. I’ll explain… A mirror is extremely useful if you have something like dirt on your face so that you can know that the dirt is there. But do you then rub the mirror on your face to remove the dirt? Of course not, but that is exactly what religion does. We, however, know you need something ELSE (Christ’s taking our punishment upon Himself) to remove the dirt (sin) because the very thing that showed you the imperfection (mirror) is not sufficient to remove it.

Religious works (the law/being “good”) will never get us to Heaven. Knowing right from wrong is only sufficient enough to show us that we aren’t perfect and need something to wash us clean.

There is a reason fairy tales resonate with us. Our desire for “happily ever after” is inescapably our very need for Christ. Without Christ, joy is intermittent and bite sized and is the path to death. With Christ is a true story of happily ever after, when we are finally called Home to be with God forever.

Today, right now, come Home. God is calling your heart. Be rescued. Be washed. Run to Christ. Don’t confuse Christ with religion, but “Taste and see that the LORD is good.”

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” – John 3:16-18

“Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” – Romans 10:9-10