"Once Upon a Time"
Ralph L. Myers

As children, we were enthralled at the beginning of every story, fable or fairytale our parents read to us, and nearly they all began with the phrase “Once upon a time.” This opening created a mental picture of times, places, and characters of times long past. Usually, those images that phrase conjured up into our very vivid, youthful imagination were those of kings, queens, knights in shining armor, prince or princesses and even some non-human beings like frogs, cows jumping over the moon and a dish running away with the spoon, and many others. In each story there usually was a benevolent, loving character as well as an evil one that sought to do harm, even kill the kindly characters of the stories.

Then, we grew up, we tucked those stories deep within our memories, recalling them and fondly looking back on the moments our parents read or told them to us, or perhaps reading them to our grandchildren. Now as adults, often times what we are confronted with, parallels to those stories, or at least we realize that this life, this world, is fraught with examples of good and evil, God, Jesus Christ, Christians, versus Satan who walks about as a roaring lion, seeking to devour our souls. Now, to me, the term “Once upon a time,” has been replaced by the biblical phrase, “In the beginning.” (See Genesis 1:1-31, Genesis 2:1-2 and John 1:1-5)

God, though His divine power, “In the beginning,” created the heavens and earth. He created man and then woman to be man’s helpmate. Just as in the stories we were told as children, where magnificent kingdom’s existed, something good and beautiful was created by Him. But Satan, in the form of a serpent entered into the picture and caused the earth’s first human inhabitants, Adam and Eve to sin against, or disobey God, and they were punished for their sin. From that time on until the world comes to an end, mankind has been forced to live under the consequences of that very first sin.

However, God, through His son Jesus Christ has given us a road, a pathway to escape the consequences of sin. He came into the world as prophesied in the Old Testament, and manifested in the New Testament, and made possible by the shedding of Christ’s blood, and his death upon the cross, that established a new covenant. All that is required of us is to believe and confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, repent of our sins and be buried in baptism. (Acts 2:37-38) If we don’t do this, our souls will be held captive and lost to the “evil one.”

Now, as in the stories that were read or told to us by our parents when we were children, “we will live happily ever after,” if we obey the gospel and live according to God’s word and Jesus Christ’s instructions.” Only the “happily ever after,” will be a heavenly home that Jesus has gone before us to prepare, (John 14:1-3) and this “happily ever after will truly never end.