I couldn’t resist getting my picture with the old, red outhouse (complete with moon door!) in spite of the potential copperheads. That picture currently sits on my dresser to remind me of a fun day. During a recent visit from my granddaughter she stopped to look at it and I asked, “Do you know what that is?” A look of excited wonder lit up her face as she exclaimed, “A magic door!”
That definitely wasn’t the response I was expecting but it has delighted my heart ever since. When I see this picture through her eyes it does look like a lone door, standing in the woods with no building attached.
What do you see when you look at life—do you see drudgery and discouragement or can you see the Kingdom of magic, of gold dust, of fairy tales? I don’t mean Disneyland either, I’m talking about how God has created magic (the supernatural), gold dust (treasures of the kingdom) and fairy tales—after all, he’s our Prince on a white horse and he loves us and yes, we’ll live happily-ever-after!
Nicole Johnson wrote the paragraph below in her book Keeping A Princess Heart In A Not-So-Fairy-Tale World:
She was in the middle of a day that was just like the previous five days, that fell in the middle of a month exactly like the month before that lined up in a year exactly like the last three years. She walked by the TV that had been on since 1989. She had a dull headache and a load of whites in one arm. She opened the door to the laundry room for exactly the one thousandth time, but instead of the familiar gaping mouths of the washer and dryer in front of her, there was a tiny open door revealing the first few steps leading to a winding staircase. She stared at the opening for a minute.
Would she drop all the socks and underwear on the floor and investigate the stairway? Or would she slam the laundry door closed and swallow a couple of Advil?
Which would you do?
As we grow up and life happens to us our perspective changes, so that instead of seeing magic doors we see outhouses full of … you know, what outhouses are full of, so we pack away our tarnished magic wands and put them in the bottom of the box in the closet.
Don’t do that! Jesus came to bring back the fairy tale, the supernatural, the romance with our Prince. Our spiritual senses allow us to experience Jesus and it’s not limited to reading the Bible and praying, he wants us to walk the Kingdom realm with him! And while the Kingdom has physical God-encounters and ways to help others, it’s also about you growing deeper in a relationship with Jesus.
Yes, God loves to orchestrate physical encounters where we get to give his love away. This week I dashed into a store to price a one-cup coffee maker and ran into a woman I used to work with. Her husband had just died and I had a choice—choose the adventure or say “Hey” and move on (I was on my way to write at Starbucks and my time was limited). Last week with a friend at Starbucks there was a man who had come in for a few minutes to get out of the bitter cold. It was another Kingdom adventure, and in the end he had coffee and breakfast.
However, the Kingdom is also about adventures in the spiritual realm because God wants to enjoy you, teach you, and build a relationship. Because I see the “magic door” (though I missed seeing it this time) I’ve also seen the room of babies in the castle, I’ve played the game with Jesus that led to one of my favorite times with him, and I got the revelation of exactly what was happening that time when, after complaining to our landlord, Holy Spirit told me exactly what was going on and warned me to leave it alone.
By only seeing an outhouse I would have missed the vision of Jesus in the crown, and I wouldn’t have been to the Great Wall with him or the beautiful Song of Songs garden. The Kingdom is all around you—when you watch movies can you see spiritual correlations and learn secrets of the kingdom? When you’re in a store do you ignore the music or hear Jesus singing love songs to you? As you see Jesus daily involved in your life—speaking, listening, holding, walking, hanging out—that’s when you see the magic, when you realize that you’re really living the fairy tale.
I have a magic wand on my bookshelf to remind me that I’m part of a real fairy tale, that I AM living a beautiful romance with my handsome Prince, and I WILL live happily-ever-after.
The Message Bible says in Psalm 144:
Blessed be God, my mountain,
who trains me to fight fair and well.
He’s the bedrock on which I stand,
the castle in which I live,
my rescuing knight,
The high crag where I run for dear life,
while he lays my enemies low.
God loves to come and fulfill your expectations, so what are they? It’s time to broaden them. If you don’t look with spiritual eyes then you’ll never see the magic, the wonder, the beautiful world of fairy tale in God’s Kingdom.
What outhouse? And is that gold dust I see in your hair?
What a great reminder that Jesus is everywhere we go, always wanting to spend time with us. Because we live in a less-than-ideal world, I think we often hold the “happily-ever-after” in reserve for the “ever-after.” We know it’s coming and are thrilled about it. When life gets unbearable, we can hardly wait for it. But we forget that the relationship that will last forever has already started—NOW! We can have so much more with Jesus right now if we open our minds and hearts to Him. If we look for Him, we will see Him everywhere and experience this life with a true soulmate.
Love your outhouse photo . . . I mean your magic door photo!
Oh Bonni, you’re SO right! Eternity is now, and Jesus isn’t saving the “good stuff” for later, it’s ours NOW!
As I read that your granddaughter thought the outhouse door was actually a magic door, I realized how innocent and full of wonder a little child can be. I realized that as an adult, l have seen that door before and I know what is behind it and what it really leads to. She has never been exposed to that in her lifetime. No wonder we must become like little children to enter the kingdom of God. Innocent, trusting, believing the almost unbelievable. This life can get so “real” . After you have spent time in the smelly outhouse you thought was a fairytale place, it is hard to imagine it any other way. You are exactly right that without eyes of faith, this world is nothing but an outhouse!
You’re so right Marilyn! As adults we get locked into seeing the outhouse because our experience tells us that’s what it is. We no longer expect to see anything different. And we need to change our expectations!