It's A Wonderful Life... in Christ!

Poor George! At times I can relate to how George Bailey must have felt when he was contemplating ending his life by jumping into that cold river one dark snowy night in the dead of winter. This is probably why the film, It's a Wonderful Life, has become so popular. The theme of this film hits close to home. We have all experienced broken dreams and the frustration of living a life that somehow just didn't quite turn out the way we had hoped. I know that in my own life I have had a sense of frustration with the ways things are. Often I find myself entertaining the thought, "What if I hadn't... or maybe if I had... things would be different today!" The problem is, as I start thinking this way, I find myself gradually slipping into a state of self-pity in which, like George, I almost wish I hadn't been born.

The core of this mind set of self-pity is that life's not fair. "Why me? I don't deserve this kind of life, I deserve better!" In order to ease the pain of reality I start to dwell in a fantasy world of how things could have been. Yet, this fantasy world is an illusion, a lie. The truth is reality; that is where our God who proclaims "I AM" is, and it is only here, in the real world, that God works, not in some fantasy world that I have created in my own mind. George had the tremendous blessing of seeing for himself what incredible fruits the God of reality had created through what he perceived as a failure of a life. I think that in the end, he even came to realize that the life God had given him in boring old Bedford Falls was far better than that of his fantasy of being a world traveler.

Unlike George, we may never be able to see how the world would be different if we had never existed, but we do know that our God loves us and has promised to cause all things to work together for good in our lives (Romans 8:28). Yet, we are not fatalists; our responsibility is to stand in the knowledge that our heavenly Father is ultimately in control and submit to His authority and ability to work through us in reality. Only then can we resist the lies of self-pity. Remember, we are to submit to God and then resist the the Devil's falsehoods to be empowered with the awesome power of God rather than resist Satan first and then submit to God which is done in our own failing strength (James 4:7).

Oh what a joy it is, to work with the God of reality! He has called us to a life of glory, and our triumph through Him is shown as we face the world's obstacles with faith in our God who has promised to always be with us through thick and thin (Hebrews 13:5-6). Yes George, life is not fair, but who wants a fair life when he can have a glorious life through Christ Jesus who is the ultimate life (John 14:6) and far better than any fantasy life we could ever imagine!