The other day my daughter and I were talking about an essay she was writing and I reminded her it wasn’t a research paper so she could make anything she wished happen. People could be where she wanted them to be and say the things she wanted them to say. She was the author.
The author is the one who gets to decide what happens in the story. Underneath the dialogue and the action, there’s a theme, a message that’s being conveyed. Everything in the story is moving towards a goal, the final resolution of the conflict. Nothing is meaningless or wasted.
If this is true in fiction, how much more is it true in reality? The Author has written a theme into each of our lives that’s moving us steadily and with purpose towards a final conclusion. He wastes nothing – no time, no words, no experiences. Everything ties together in the end.
If I were the author and decider of my own story, I think it wouldn’t have been a very good story. I’m pretty sure that when you got to the end, what I would have written into my life wouldn’t have been all that interesting or compelling. There wouldn’t have been any high drama, no plot twists, nothing to make you want to read it again. In the end, I would have written a boring story about how great I am. How well I kept the rules, played fairly, was nice to people and animals. It would have been a story about what a good Christian I was.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a good person and be successful and be liked by others. The problem is that even if the story recognized my flaws, failures, and shortcomings, it still would have been about my ability to rise above those things, about how I overcame an obstacle or a challenge. It would have been an ok story, but nothing more than a story, a fabrication, a fiction. Because what I can do on my own is pretty good, but nothing to write home about.
Our stories will always be lackluster until we recognize we aren’t the main character. There’s an Author who is writing something entirely different and unimaginably better than we could come up with on our own and we get to be part of it.
The story God is writing in my life isn’t a story of how great I am by any means. There are plenty of challenges and obstacles that have been overcome, but what makes it a really good story is that it’s really about how great God is. What He has done and can do. My story is both much different, and much better, than the one I would have written.
It’s also a much truer story. And a more compelling one because what’s true for me can also be true for you. It doesn’t matter one bit if you’re completely different from me if what’s good in my life has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God. I can’t give you my talents or skills or abilities or blessings, but God has already given you everything you need to fulfill your role in this grand masterpiece He has written. Because it’s God doing the doing, whatever power and action and goodness I’ve experienced are also extended to you.
Because I’m part of a story about God, that dark valley, that narrow place, that overwhelming flood – they’re challenging, but not insurmountable. Because it’s God’s power in me, I can do things that would otherwise be impossible. He can make what He wants to happen happen. He’s the Author.
I am sure that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished. Philippians 1:6