I Am His Heir

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.

—Luke 12:32

She gasped when she saw it sitting on the kitchen counter.

A tiara.

Not a real one. A cheap imitation from a craft store. I’d bought it as a prop for a speaking engagement. Knowing I’d likely never use it again, I’d searched for the cheapest one I could find.

My five-year-old couldn’t have cared less, enamored as she was by its presence in her home. The prize of a princess. On our kitchen counter. For the love of all things Cinderella, she couldn’t move.

“Mommy, what is that?” She pointed as she whispered.

Unpacking groceries and beginning dinner preparations, I explained my upcoming speaking engagement and told her how I planned to use it.

Unsatisfied, she said, “I think you should put it on.”

Put it on? Why would I?

That’s when I stopped my ever-frantic kitchen activity to see the wonder in my daughter’s eyes. A tiara sat on our kitchen counter. A silver, sparkling, bejeweled tiara. The kind reserved for Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and other princesses of uncommon loveliness. Who wouldn’t want to wear it?

It didn’t matter that the cheap material would tarnish in a month. To a five-year-old girl, royalty sat within reach. Have mercy, would a prince soon come riding through our door? Anything seemed possible.

This glimpse of her innocence softened my grown-up heart, just a bit. I’d long ago given up notions of fairytales and romance. Real life had weathered me beyond happily-ever-afters. But my girl’s response interrupted my indifference.

She too knew about real life and the weathering that comes with it. She’d been born into a hard story, a fractured family mired in the chaos of addiction. In the first four years of her life, before she joined our family, she knew uncertainty, fear, and unpredictability. Enough to make any girl give up on fairytales.

Yet a spark of hope remained, in spite of life’s best attempt to snuff it out.

And so I grabbed the tiara and put it on. You should’ve seen my girl smile. Me too. She knew something I’ d forgotten: A tiara doesn’t belong on a kitchen counter. It belongs on princess girl’s head.

Just as a tiara is meant to be worn, we’ve been given a royal heritage that is ours for the taking. Paul says it this way: “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Rom. 8:16–17).

We are co-heirs of a kingdom! Jesus is God’s firstborn, and we are His brothers and sisters. That means we’ve been promised royal position and given a crown.

For some of us, this promise of family is too farfetched. Real family proves far more dysfunctional than a dream. Broken marriages, betrayed relationships, abuse, and neglect galore. Like a bad movie that won’t end, the family we never wanted manages to follow us in the brokenness we can’t seem to shed. It’s tough to be excited about an eternal family when we’re up to our necks in an ugly earthly one. Thus we leave our crown on the kitchen counter or we carry it around like a cheap craft-store prop. We forget what it means, what it’s worth. We can’t believe something so good could be reserved for us.

But our immediate family is the prop, not the eternal one. Even those with a picture-perfect family enjoy only the barest hint of the glory that is yet to come. We have a real King with a real kingdom. And He’s chosen you and me as sons and daughters. Heirs. With a secured place in the perfect family. No dysfunction or drama. Ever again.

You and I are passive recipients of powerful positions. Simply because of the will of a Father, the unfathomable grace of a compassionate King. Our inheritance is a matter of grace. We should receive it with the humility and gratitude warranted an undeserved gift. Even so, you and I can stand tall and proud in our unmerited position. It is knowing our unshakeable place in God’s kingdom that gives us security in our earthly one.

That means you and I could learn a thing or two from my daughter. Although she has lost all hope of the restoration of her birth family, she hasn’t lost hope for the wholeness of her eternal one. She’s holding out for a happily-ever-after bigger than any fairytale she could imagine. Including a magnificent King and an impressive kingdom.

And one silver, sparkling, bejeweled tiara.

One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are.

—HENRI J. M. NOUWEN, HERE AND NOW