It's A Wonderful Life

While Job was enduring his time of suffering, he questioned God...

“Why is light given to him who is in misery,

And life to the bitter of soul,

Who long for death, but it does not come,

And search for it more than hidden treasures;

Who rejoice exceedingly,

And are glad when they can find the grave?

Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,

And whom God has hedged in?

For my sighing comes before I eat,

And my groanings pour out like water.

For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me,

And what I dreaded has happened to me.

I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;

I have no rest, for trouble comes.”

In the movie, It's A Wonderful Life, George Bailey hit a wall when his life in Bedford Falls culminated into a successful unravelling and he wanted to jump off a bridge and end it all. In the beginning of the movie, he talked about traveling the world and getting out of the sorry town of Bedford Falls which he thought had nothing going for it. But one thing after another kept him from achieving his laufty dreams and he ended up spending his whole life there in that sorry town having never done any of the things he had planned before graduating from high school. Through Divine intervention, George was visited by Clarence, the angel second class seeking to earn his wings. George told Clarence that he wished he had never been born and the angel grants George's wish. Clarence then shows George what a world looks like where he does not exist. When George discovers how valuable his life has been, despite the fact that he had not fulfilled his life long dreams, George no longer wants to kill himself. Clarence convinces George that he had led a wonderful life and it would be a terrible mistake to throw it away. George runs back to that same bridge and prays to God that he wants to live again. And George is given a second chance at life with renewed zest and joy that he had never known.

Jesus said, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last." The source of life is God so the meaning of life must be derived in Him as well. I wonder if we were all given a chance to see what life would be like without us in it, if we would find significance in our place on this earth like George Bailey did.

Without George Bailey's intervening, Bedford Falls would have become a sleazy and violent town run by the evil Henry Potter.

None of us accidentally appeared on earth. We each have a part to play, some more significantly than others but nevertheless... we are here with a purpose... even the wicked.

For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth."

So, life begins with God and any continuance of life finds its place in Him as well. When Satan requested to try Job's faith, the Lord permitted the trouble but prohibited Satan from taking Job's life. God is the giver of life and no one can end it without His consent. Not even a bird falls to the ground apart from the Father's will.

I once heard a story about a young lady that laid on a train track to end her life. When the train ran over her, it severed her legs but she remained alive. That's why Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live." He laid down His life, and after three days, He picked it back up.

Satan couldn't take Job's life and neither could that young lady take her own life without God's consent. He is the beginning and the end of life. Even the evil Egyptian Pharaoh was born with a purpose, that God may through him show His power, that He alone is God and there is no other with power like His.

Living our lives without Jesus is like looking at a jigsaw puzzle of a lighthouse with the light as it's only missing piece. The picture is not complete and the most important piece is missing. Jesus is the light of the world and without Him, we continue to drift in the dark floating aimlessly with no guidance and significance. Jesus said He came that we may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance to the full, till it overflows. He does not get His kicks making life hard for mankind or looking at the enemy thrash us around... or seeing children starve to death... or a sick person writhing in pain. These things have a purpose though we can't see it right now because we walk by faith and not by sight.

Jesus and His disciples passed a man who had been blind from birth and His disciples asked who had sinned that this man would be born blind. His blindness was not a result of sin but it was so that the works of God might be displayed and illustrated through him.

People wonder how a God who is supposed to be so good, could allow evil and suffering to continue. We believe if we behave like good little Christians, God should show up right away and answer all our prayers. When He does not, we feel slighted. How can He allow the prayers of the righteous to go unanswered?

What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He said to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion." So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory.

Truth is, whatever we may think about the fairness of God, we are better off with Him than without Him. He is the bread of life that feeds our hungry souls and the river of life that quenches our thirsty souls. Without God our lives would be drifting like a ship, without a sail.

God's thoughts are nothing like our thoughts and neither His ways like our ways. As far as heaven is from the earth is how far His thoughts are from ours. When we try to figure God out based on our thinking, we are way off base, and cannot reach the truth based on human perspective.

God is love... the very essence of love. Anything we think we know about loving others, we get from God. He's the beginning and the end. Therefore, in love, He does not get His kicks watching His creation suffer.

In the book of Ecclesiastes, king Solomon exclaims that everything is completely meaningless apart from God. Solomon asks a series of rhetorical questions such as:

What good does it do to seek pleasure?

What do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety?

What will happen on this earth after we are gone?

Solomon was very cynical about life, stating that it was meaningless and wearisome beyond description. History merely repeating itself and there is nothing new under the sun. He had devoted himself to searching it out for understanding, but soon discovered that God had dealt a tragic existence to the human race. His observances of everything going on here on earth was as vain as chasing the wind.

But God tells a different story than Solomon's about man's existence, that it is not merely a circular motion of one life after another existing till our time on earth is done.

For thus says the Lord,

Who created the heavens,

Who is God,

Who formed the earth and made it,

Who has established it,

Who did not create it in vain,

Who formed it to be inhabited:

“I am the Lord, and there is no other.

True, it is tragic that Adam and Eve disobeyed God, by eating the forbidden fruit. But even in light of that, God's plan and purpose will still go forth for mankind, with a slight detour through the cross of Christ.

Life is not meaningless and futile and depressing. Life lived in conjunction with the cross of Christ can be quite rewarding. Life takes on new meaning when we open the door of our hearts and begin a life of fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. When Solomon finally figures that out he said, "Here now is my final conclusion: fear God and obey His commands, for this is the whole duty of man." When Adam and Eve failed to do this, they were evicted from Paradise and life became hard for them and for their descendents. When they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, their eyes were opened to evil and it shall thoroughly run its course.

I sometimes wonder why the Lord saved Noah and his family, instead of just wiping us all out. Apparently, it was important to Him to create a family and redeem mankind from a life of tragedies.

We have been promised a time when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. He says that no eye has seen nor ear heard of the things that He has prepared for those that love Him. We may experience some seasons of sorrow and suffering during our journey through this life, but Scripture say that God has promised the crown of life to those that love Him.

My husband said that you cannot see the legacy of a president while he is still in office. It is after he has left the oval office that his legacy begins to unfold. Maybe it is the same with us, that the usefulness and meaningfulness of our lives does not yet appear while we are still on the earth, but after we have passed on. In the same way that George Bailey had been given the unique opportunity to see how many lives he had touched and the significance of his life. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Life is a journey, not a destination." We are only passing through it to our eternity.

The Holy Spirit said to me, "If you're thinking that your destiny ends once you leave earth, then you are thinking too small."

My relationship with the Lord is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I believe when we begin to live our lives in light of GOD and ETERNITY, then life begins to take on a whole new meaning. A life truly surrendered to God finds great significance. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Christ's sake will surely find it.

It's a wonderful life! Live yours to the fullest. :)

Go in peace.