Prayers For The People You Love

Marveling at His Magnificence: Becoming Real

The Velveteen Rabbit relates the story of a toy rabbit. His one friend is the oldest toy in the nursery, the Skin Horse. One of their conversations is not without parallels to what God is doing in us:

“What is real?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time…Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

We, too, are becoming “real”: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into that same image from glory to glory, just as by the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18 NASB). Like the Rabbit, our becoming real often includes pain, but for a glorious end: “Therefore we do not lose heart, for though our outer man is wasting away, our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:16-17 NASB).
Eventually, the Rabbit is discarded. However, a kind fairy makes him into a real rabbit:

“Wasn’t I Real before?” asked the little Rabbit.
“You were Real to the Boy,” the Fairy said, “because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to everyone.”

The day is coming when we, too, shall be “Real” in the eyes of all: “For the anxious longing of the creation eagerly awaits the revealing of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19 NASB). “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him” (1 John 3:2 NASB).
I thank God that, in His grace, he allows us to become Real together, Smyrna Christian. I wait eagerly, with you, when we, too, “shall be Real to everyone.”

Z. Shaffer
Atlanta, GA

Prayer: Make us real, Lord. We want to see truth and have it revealed in us. Amen.

Prayer Tip: Always be honest with God about your feelings. If you do not know what to pray just begin to tell Him how you feel. It is honest communion He wants from you.

Cited from Williams, Margery. The Velveteen Rabbit. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc., 1922.

April 6 , 2009