OUR LIFE IN GOD'S STORY
We all have that friend who’s terrible at telling stories. “Wait,” they’ll say, “I forgot to tell you…” and proceed to explain that vital bit of information that they should have mentioned at the beginning. Or perhaps you have that friend who gives innumerable details, unable to filter out the unimportant bits.
But the reality is, all of us, every person is really bad about telling the most important story, our own. Most of us fail to recognize the story that we’re actually in and instead, futilely try to navigate in the false narrative of the world.
The world tells us that happiness can be had for a price, either with possessions, ‘experiences’, or even programs. The world tells us that who we are is how we’re perceived by the world. It may claim that we can determine who we are, that we create our own identity, but by insisting that others must endorse our self-conception, the reality is that the world is the ultimate arbiter of our identity because it is the world’s affirmation that determines our reality. The world tells us that fulfillment is something it can provide, that fulfillment comes from the things of this world. The world tells us that either we are worthless or worth more than other people. It tells us that we are to blame for everything that happens to other people and at the same time, everything that happens to us is someone or something else’s fault.
But that is not our story. In fact, it’s not even a story at all, or at least not a very good one. A good story features a protagonist who is proactive. The world’s story is one in which things happen to us, for good or ill. But in a good story, the hero makes things happen. Sure, they might make mistakes, but they learn from them. They may fall, in fact in a good story the hero will always fall, but they get up again.
That’s the type of story we should be trying to live.
In classical storytelling, the protagonist follows the Hero’s Journey. The hero is going about their regular life when they are presented with a challenge. Typically, the hero refuses at first but eventually, with some prodding from a mentor, they set out on their quest and leaving their old world behind.
Our Christian lives follow this same pattern. We have left our old lives of sin behind and enter into New Life in Christ, helped by wiser heads, facing setbacks and trials, but always working towards our own happily ever after.
The key to a good story is drama. Conflict drives the story forward. Beginning storytellers as well as Christians make the same errors, their protagonists are passive, and they avoid conflict. They have things happen to them, are never challenged, but instead are merely subject to luck and happenstance.
Just as a story worth telling will feature trials that the hero must overcome, a life worth living will feature hardships to overcome. There is no growth without pain and one’s reaction to change determines its results. In other words, good and bad things happen, regardless of who we are but the effect of those things is largely determined by ourselves.
In the Christian life, Baptism means we have left our old world and entered on a new adventure, one that we cannot turn back from. We will face many trials and have much to overcome before we reach the end, but what we cannot do is just stop.
We must complete the journey. We must finish the story. How we accomplish that, is determined by our willingness to endure the trials and stay focused on God. The story is God’s but the kind of protagonist we are, whether we are the hero or the villain, is up to us.