Happily Ever After
Proverbs 20:4 Those who do not plow in the right season will have no food at the harvest.
“And they all lived happily ever after” is the perfect ending isn’t it. I remember reading all about people who lived happily ever after as a child – Snow White, Jack who climbed the Beanstalk, Aladdin and many others courtesy of Walt Disney and alike. We all want to live happily ever after - right?
What does happily ever after look like in our lives at the moment? I mean – and I don’t want to shatter any dreams here - but the chances of us being rescued by a prince who has climbed his way up an ivory tower, slain a dragon and fought his way through a forest is pretty slim. Perhaps happily ever after is being able to see friends again, simply being able to hug family members or jet away somewhere on holiday.
But you can’t have happily ever after without being intentional in the season before. For the Prince and Princess to ride off in the sunset together, the tower has to be climbed, the dragon must be killed and the forest must be cut down. If we want friendships and relationships to grow as we come out of lockdown and into a new season we have to be intentional in the season before. If you want to jet away you have to save up.
The same is true of our relationship with God. If we want happily ever after in the next season of our spiritual walk with him then we have to be intentional in our prayer life, we have to be intentional when we read his word or when we offer private praise and worship to him and we need to be doing it NOW!
In the first half of the book of Joshua we read of all of the battles, conquests and victories that the Israelites experienced on their journey to the promised land, but so often the victory had already been won before the fighting had even started. How and why? Joshua and the Israelites didn’t wait until five minutes before the fighting began to pray. They were intentional about bringing God into their preparation for the battles ahead.
It’s easy to sit back, and as so many other things pause around us let’s take this opportunity to be intentional about our relationship with God. Don’t wait until lockdown is over to go deeper, because by then it will be too late.
I know that God has something amazing planned for your life, so be intentional about positioning (just as Joshua and the Israelites did) to fight the battles ahead. Let’s be a church that takes advantage of this season, using it to lay the foundations for spiritual growth and fruit in the next season of our lives.