Life as a Story

So I was reading Epic by John Eldridge last night, in which he compares our lives with a story, an epic tale. In those stories we have plots, climax, conflict, conflict resolution, tragedy, characters, chapters, maybe different volumes; whatever it is, the elements that make up some of the best literature make our lives as well, with God as the author.

This book contrasts completely with another book I was reading a while back called Inkspell. It's actually the sequel to the book Inkheart, in which stories come to life by people who possess the power to read things out of books. Well in Inkspell, they read themselves into the book itself. As the characters find their way around this new world, the author (who he himself is stuck inside of his own creation) begins to try and change things. One of his favorite creations has died, so he decides to create a brand new one which will rule even better than the last. However, this leads to the deaths of hundreds of other great characters. The author then tries to create other things that will fix what damage he has caused, but this ultimately leads to pretty much the downfall of the place (and the original plot). But luckily, thats only a book.

But imagine if we had the power to do that, how horrible our lives would be if we didn't trust the Author of our story? What if we, as humans could choose what came next in our plot? That would be ridiculous. Millions of human beings sitting around with paper and pen and a magical voice, dictating what we want to happen, who we will be around, what person we want to be with for the rest of our lives, and every other minute detail of our lives. Lets step it up even further. What if we could dictate other peoples lives? For me, thats too scary to even think about.

But lucky for the real world, we have God as our master author, the one who created all of us, and writes our story for the benefit of his glory alone. Of course we have choices; we have conflicts that we have to over come, but ultimately we're not the ones with the pen in our hands. We get to choose what chapter we want to pursue. Isn't making choices about life kind of like choosing what book to read next? Think about it...there are books out there that you pick up, start reading, and then put down because it a) doesnt' interest you, or b) had information you really don't think you should pursue. Same with choices. There are tons out there that are good, and the same amount or more that are bad. But rather than choosing what comes next, and how we as humans can be in control of a situation, shouldn't we trust the Author of our story, knowing that he knows the ending and how we play a part in it?