I Want Out Of This Story

We were not making up clever stories when we told you about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and his coming again. We have seen his majestic splendor with our own eyes. 2 Peter 1:16

Fables and fairy tales can lure and lull us into false thinking. After all, we women are almost trained to look for significance in the wrong places.

Let’s look at some of the common storybook characters many of us grew up with. There is sweet, naive Sleeping Beauty, who has to wait for a prince to come and kiss her to wake up and be free to live.

Little Red Riding Hood, the poor thing, just couldn’t follow directions about not going through the forest, and a woodchopper has to kill the wolf and free Red Riding Hood and Granny.

Rapunzel at least took her destiny into her own hands and decided she wasn’t going to be locked in a tower anymore, but she had to use her gorgeous good looks (her hair) as the means to gain a new life.

And then there’s Goldilocks, a picture of women today, flitting from one thing to another, looking for something that will make her life “just right.” Like Goldilocks, we are looking for significance in all the wrong places.^a

The Bible warns us that we’ll be tempted to turn to myths, fables, and men’s wisdom rather than God’s (2 Timothy 4:4).

Keep moving out of fiction and into real life. Examine the fables you have been told in college, in the home you grew up in, through your cultural network, or by friends. Most things passed on from woman to woman are helpful, but at times, some fiction is thrown in.

Beware of the fairy tales.