I first saw the classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life my freshman year of college.
I remember watching the black and white movie late one night at Christmas time.
In those long ago years, we only saw a movie when a television station manager could program it onto his station.
Movies were rationed. They’d air on television then disappear for years. When enough time passed, someone released them from movie vaults and program managers scheduled them on TV.
It’s a Wonderful Life had not played in my lifetime before that night.
How wonderful, really, to watch it for the first time.
It’s always fun to get sucked into a story and see something about life.
It changed me.
How to define a wonderful life.
As usual, we start with a definition for wonderful:
- Admirable or very good; excellent or splendid.
- Capable of eliciting wonder; astonishing.
- Adapted to excite wonder or admiration; surprising; strange; astonishing.
Wouldn’t you love to have a life like that?
Does any of it depend on us or how we feel?
Gratitude is the key. Doesn’t choosing to be thankful make a difference?
So, when I greet the day with expectation (after putting on the armor of God), my eyes are opened to what may be, not just what is supposed to happen.
Holding my calendar lightly is helpful–because I never know when my day will get upended.
That happened to George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, didn’t it?
Life was hard, but filled with simple blessings.
The night they potentially were taken away, an angel enabled George to look at the past–through different eyes–and recognized the glory, wonder, and joy.
How can a movie help you assess your life circumstances?
In It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey lives a normal life–full of disappointments, work, but also busy with love and laughter.
Small town America in the 1930s was both a safe place, but also a potentially dangerous place to live.
People tended to be simpler, poorer, and needed to depend on each other.
George Bailey had to work at a young age.
He also had to take an important step into maturity–when he corrected the pharmacist for making a mistake.
George got his ears boxed that day–felt pain–but it was the right thing to do.
How often does that happen to us in “real life?”
George’s dreams got dashed by reality.
He “settled” for marrying the girl he’d known from childhood.
Instead of becoming an engineer and touring the world as he’d dreamed, his life narrowed.
George took over his father’s failing savings and loan company instead of going on his honeymoon. (How many women would be as charitable as Mary Bailey?)
From there he invested in the people around him–whether they deserved it or not.
And when push came to shove–Mr. Potter pulled a shady scheme–George Bailey found out the truth about his life.
How to recognize you have a wonderful life
Ponder the idea.
Turn the prism and examine your life and circumstances from a different angle.
He was the pharoah of Egypt–how could my life be better than a potentate?
Those who’ve visited museum exhibits of his tomb know the truth.
He had terrible teeth.
Mine are much better–and they don’t even hurt. (The dental hygenists laugh every time I point that out!)
I also can drink out of a glass. He only had clay or golden goblets.
(I wouldn’t want to drink out of a golden goblet. Who has time to polish water spots out of a gold goblet?)
Taking George Bailey’s wonderful life philosophy home
If you haven’t seen the movie, you can watch it here.
Know that by the end, the yearning for a glorified future George desired required him to possibly lose it.
Then he could count his blessings and recognize how God had led him through difficulties upon difficulties.
From a distance, where he thought he’d lost it all, he recognized what really makes a life wonderful: the love of people who cared about him.
Nature helped with a snowflake on his tongue.
When he could look up from the pain (with the help of an angel), he saw with joy that he truly had a wonderful life.
Many people in this time and place don’t seem to have the same opportunities for love that George Bailey had.
It’s important to remember he received love from so many others because he chose to love them first.
Even when it required a sacrifice from him.
Just like it says in 1 John 4: 19: “We love Him because He first loved us.”
Look around you. Turn the prism of today’s circumstances. Count your blessings. Try to see things with gratitude instead of judgement.
You may be surprised. You could have a wonderful life.
It just depends on how you look at things, doesn’t it?
Tweetables
The secret to having a wonderful life. Click to Tweet
It’s a Wonderful Life: fiction or can you make it a fact? Click to Tweet
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