The Zoo Cage Prophet

"Look Mike," I said in my semi-serious voice, "the question should be 'What if Prince Charming had given up on Snow White – after all, she was in a deep dead-like sleep – and just simply moved on to the next available Princess?'"

Mike's look was priceless. I think he even pinched himself to make sure he wasn't sleeping. "What?" he finally said.

"What? What, what?" I answered, smiling of course.

"What are you talking about?"

"God's love. The topic we've been speaking about for the last twenty minutes."

Using his index finger to point to his head, he said, "Look brother, you are loco in the cabeza."

I smirked.

"How did you go from God's love to Snow White?" he almost demanded, but in a kind way.

I was hoping he would ask. I now had his full attention.

The story of Snow White has been told in many ways. But all the tales of Snow follow the same pattern. A beautiful princess girl with a life of privilege has it all. The older she gets the more her beauty shines through. But soon her beauty begins to shadow that of the queen's.

So the queen-evil in all her ways-puts Snow on the "royal hit list." Snow is forced to flee into the forest after she was given mercy by her would-be assassin. Eventually Snow finds herself living with seven very height-challenged men who need lots of her attention.

Through a series of events, the queen, in the form of an old sweet lady, convinces Snow to eat an apple-which of course was poisoned. Snow goes into a deep dead-like sleep. And only true love's kiss can wake her.

Prince Charming finds out and runs to find her. But it was too late. Snow now lay, lifeless, in a beautiful case, with hope all but gone.

Charming's love for her takes over and selflessly gives her one last kiss. But because the kiss was given with true love it gave life back to Snow, waking her up to a life of "happily ever after."

I find this story to be a great picture of God's love for us.

Long ago, in a garden named Eden, God's perfect and sinless creation lived in harmony within itself and with God. But the prince of the world soon realized that God's new creation was so much more beautiful than he. The beauty was more than just skin deep. It came from a deep spiritual image that resembled God Himself.

So the prince transformed himself into a harmless-um, talking-serpent. By twisting words here and there, the prince convinced Eve (the better half of the Adam-and-Eve duo) to eat from the forbidden fruit. Once Eve ate, Adam followed. Death entered, and from that point forward humanity lived a dead life.

But Love could not just sit around and let dead lives live dead forever. (Wow, that was a mouthful). So Love sent His Love into the world-a dark and sin-filled place-to receive the kiss of death. A kiss that only He, Love, could survive-after dying.

Selflessly, Love gave all of Himself to pay for humanity's choice of disobedience, all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

That's great news. But the better news is that Love did not stay dead. He beat death-and resurrected! And because of this, all who choose to believe in True Love, and what He did, and receive Love into their dead hearts, will be made alive. No longer living dead lives, but living ones. Alive inside! A new creation! With a "happily ever after" ending!

That is true love. God is True Love.

I'm so glad-and give Him glory-that Love did not choose to give up on us and simply start from scratch, moving on to an improved 2.0 creation.

Prince Charming chose to seek and save Snow because he loved her. God chose to seek and save humanity because He loved us.

True love for sure.

I explained all this to Mike as we walked a few more laps around the track. He was listening the whole time-not a single word was missed.

"Yeah." He finally broke his silence. "I like the way you think, but I still think you are loco in the cabeza."

I agreed.

In awe that Love chose me...

© 2014 Friends of Adrian