The Plot of Every Story

I often find myself wondering about life.  And the story of life. Most of the story seems to be a whole lot of waffling, pages filled with dull accounts of chores and worries and small annoyances and silly thoughts.  Not much seems lofty or noble or even particularly interesting.  I look at all the days of my life like pages filled with nonsense scribbled on them and it makes me sad.  It feels so pointless.  It is so disappointing.  Is life not meant to be glorious, a journey toward some great goal, every moment filled with meaning and passion?  Why does it seem so ordinary and painfully mundane? What on earth is this story all about?

I used to think that I wrote my own story.  That I could decide what happened and it was up to me whether the story was what I wanted it to be.

But life, although our decisions are totally our own, often situates you in places and with people that you never chose or wanted.  Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is bad.  The truth is that we do not get to write our story, God does.  And He has some weird ideas about the plot, the characters and the setting. Crazy weird. Lewis Carrol has got nothing on Him.

I have folded a lot of laundry this year and stacked a lot of dishes.  And I often stare at the heaps of clothing and think, “Is this what my life has come to? Is this what life is about?” They are questions that have broken my heart.  Everything seems so futile, so mundane and soul-killing.  Where is the adventure? What is the purpose? Is all of life just about duty and mind-numbing routine?

I have waited for God to break through and save me from the pain of this everyday drudgery.  Because surely this is not the story He is writing for me.  Surely the plot turns into a climax of magic and dreams coming true.

The truth is that this is life.  It is duty and drudgery and people who hurt you and it is being disappointed and misunderstanding and hurting others and making wrong choices and wasting time and forgetting what is important and blaming others and living with guilt.

That is the reality of life.  That is how the story goes. 

But it does not mean that the story is a bad one or a pointless one.  It does not mean that the story is not glorious.  The seeming banality of the story is in fact what makes it divine.  The weird thing is that God writes our stories but ‘our’ stories are not about us.  They are about Him.  And that is the glory of them. That is the glory IN them.

When we read our stories and all we see is ourselves, of course it is going to seem pathetic and ridiculous. This is because we are pathetic and ridiculous.  However, when we read our stories, and live our stories with eyes open to Who it is that they are about, then all is illuminated with the magic of the fairytale we hoped for.

The glorious plot of His story is found in the mundanity and the loneliness and the boredom.  But it is not where I am or what I do, or who I am that is the plot.  It is the God who loves me in all the chores, the serving, the hours of work, the relationships, the misunderstandings, the budgets, the admin, the weather, the meals or the daily decisions.  God is the Story Writer who calls me to be His bride and daughter despite my seemingly pathetic existence.

My generation has always been told that we are special, that we can do anything we want and be anyone we want. But when we grow up and life hits us, we realize that in fact, we are no one special, we are just the same as every other ‘special’ person.  Some of us become cynical and pessimistic at this point, others, delusional and egoistic, seeking only our own comfort and satisfaction.

 

This year, reality slapped me in the face and it has been incredibly humbling. However it happened in the best way possible as I had nothing or no one else to rely on except Christ.

I have not just woken up to reality of my own insignificance but also to the Significant One. He gives me a place in His Story and takes the scribbling and tear-blotted pages and uses it in His divine narrative.

God’s magic is that He uses our boring and everyday in His story.  He doesn’t change our circumstances or situations. Life is what it is.  But He is with us through it all. He has ordained it all.  And when we awaken to Him in it, give thanks to Him for every grace and acknowledge His will at every turn, even us stupid, half-blind mortals get a glimpse of the glorious narrative He is writing in His book of life.

Let’s not carry on just paging through the scribblings of our story mindlessly, just trying to find out what happens in the end.  Neither let us carry on in our pride trying to write our own marvelous story.  Let us accept that we are rubbish writers and that the stories we write will not be published.  Let’s accept what the Author of Life wrote for us before the beginning of the world and live it out with Him by our side as He awakens us to His eternal Word and glorious plot of redemption and grace.