The Old Year

ne timeas, tempus fugitHa ha! to the old yearGood-bye to the cold fearGonna cry when I need it, smile when I need itI'm gonna live like a living soulGonna write it on my wretched bonesAnd stop waiting for happily ever aftereric peters
While I am not much a one for celebrating New Year's day, I did click on the link posted by Andrew Peterson for his friend's song "The Old Year" - and in the course of the song, the line "and stop waiting for happily ever after" jumped out at me.

I see this every day. I see it in people around me, I see it in myself: that frantic desire to reach a better-than-right-now.  Contentment is truly a rare jewel in wisdom's crown, and while I do not fool myself into believing for a moment that I possess it, perhaps in Peters' song I caught a glimpse of it.  What is wrong with Now?  Perhaps Now is full of regret, or sorrow, or guilt.  Who wants to bear that burden?  Who would not want to slough that off as quickly as possible?  Thanks to God, we all have the liberty to take the regret, the sorrow, and the guilt of 2013 to his feet and leave it there.  For us, a new year is opening up ahead, a gift from our Father, in which to further emulate his son.

But then there is that "happily ever after."  How many of us subconsciously entertained the thought that perhaps this year I would get it right - perhaps this year I would accomplish all my goals, I would not fail, I would be holy, and everything would be happy.  How many of us realized how wrong that is?  I didn't, not until I listened to Peters' song.  In Christ, we all have a "happily ever after" ahead of us: we have the blessed assurance of it.  But nowhere are we promised that happily ever after now.  It has its time, and its time is not now.  So why are we stressing about getting it now when it isn't scheduled?  God knows - we don't - when it will happen, and no amount of worrying about it will bring it any closer.  All things happen in their appointed season, including happily ever after.  We are assured peace, joy, long-suffering natures (which, by the way, we don't need in happily ever after) - you are acquainted with the fruits of the Spirit.  We are promised equipment to face a life full of disappointment, heart-ache, the daily killing of our own selfish wills, but we are not promised a premature advent of happily ever after.

Every good and perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights.  I am not saying that shouldering the pain of our lives is easy, but I am saying what the Scriptures have always said, that God is one who delights in mercy, that he is just, and that he knows what he is doing.  Don't worry about happily ever after: happily ever after will come.

You follow Christ.