Yes!!! I AM A ROYAL!

 

Just prior to the 1996 Olympics I sat in a Wednesday night class and learned that – I AM A ROYAL! When I read: a “royal priesthood” my eyes widened and my heart soared. I had not been acting very royal so this stopped me in my tracks. Yes, this striking realization started changing my heart and now shapes my inner voice (even the junk my superhero battles). It also impacts how I tell my story. But I am not the only one who is royal:

The pregnant teen who has been kicked out of the house is royal, but she does not know it.

The homeless mother of two who suffers domestic violence is royal, but she does not know it.

The angry widow who then marries an angry, addicted man is royal, but she does not know it. By the way, he is royal but is also unaware.

 

We are royal because our Father is King. Why do we grow up not embracing this life-changing and life-giving fact? I would say that we have the entitled persona of royalty down pat. (My niece demanded a cell phone for her birthday at age five.) Yet, the deep realization that we do not have to (fill in the blank) to purchase our worth or access our future by being less than royal-is sorely lacking.

 

Perhaps it is the back-stories of motherlessness/fatherlessness (actual or emotional) , illiteracy (functional and social), addiction, abuse, and the resulting voicelessless that lead us to narrower, less-than-royal choices. Choices that put us in a cycle of not knowing that we deserve better. So we make one choice in the wrong perspective and get pretty far from where we are meant to be. Yes, those stories that we all have can be debilitating. However, when we tell them from a royal point-of-view they can be a light for others.

 

Last week we sat to eat with a woman who is a newlywed in her mid-thirties. She recently found out that she and her husband are expecting their first child. We congratulated her and then she told us her story. Sitting in a room of two hundred happily feasting folks, I struggled not to weep. I wanted to weep not just because of all the sad junk that happened but also because of the beauty of her faith. She knows that things shall be well because she is a royal and knows it.

We, royals, are guided by the bigger picture and in the telling our stories give voice to redemptive power.

 

Passage to Ponder:

1 Peter 2:9

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.