I love a good story. If you've known me for a while, you may have noticed this about me. It's why I'm such an avid consumer of good TV shows and movies. It's why I love reading fantasy and sci-fi so much. It's not just reading or watching stories that I love though, I love to tell stories. I've never been good at writing stories, mostly cause I could never get the hang of writing dialogue, but I love to tell a good story. We've all been there when someone is telling a story, and they just aren't doing it very well, and we have to step in and go "no, no, you've got it all wrong. Let me tell it." I'm a storyteller, I love to tell stories well.
Throughout my life, I think I've told stories to myself. I think we all do this to one extent or another, but because of my propensity for storytelling and my overactive imagination, perhaps I do it more than most (In one of my favorite movies, The Brothers Bloom, one of the con-man characters says the line "There's no such thing as an unwritten life, only a badly written one"). I form the story of my life in my mind, and however ridiculous it seems at first, the more you tell it to yourself, the more certain you become that it will come true. When I was going into high school, I was sure I would play on the basketball team right away, heck, I'd probably start. Forget the whole "short and unathletic" thing, that was the story I had written for myself, so that's how it was gonna happen. Well, that's not how it happened.
I've crafted a lot of stories for my life. Most of them have not come anywhere close to being fulfilled. Let me tell you, my story going into high school was not to get cut from the basketball team twice and ride the bench for the other two years. My story going into college was definitely not to be single the whole way through it. My story for this year did not include not being able to find a job. My stories for my life, my visions of how I want things to be, they rarely come to pass, and that's a good thing.
I heard an excellent sermon last Sunday. It was, of course, the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and the pastor spoke about trying times, because just a couple weeks ago, the church had lost one of their own, a woman who had died. On a day commemorating tragedy, they were experiencing a tragedy of their own. The pastor, though, told an amazing story about joy coming through even in the face of tragedy and sadness, a story that he never would have predicted or expected. The thing that he said, the line that stuck with me, was this: "God tells better stories than I do."
"God tells better stories than I do." That's why it's ok that none of my stories have come to pass. If they had, I'd be in a very different place in my life right now. I'd never have had the time to invest myself in youth ministry. I would never have discovered my love for ministry. I never would have ended up here in Charlotte, attending seminary. "God tells better stories than I do." Even when I can't see the goodness. Many of the things that have brought me to where I am now have been hard to live through in the moment, but I would not change them if I had the chance. God has always closed the door to my stories in order to direct me somewhere better, even if I couldn't see it at the time.
"God tells better stories than I do." That's why I'm not worried that I again find myself in a story I didn't write. It certainly wasn't in the plan that I would be unable to find a job this fall, that I would be facing next month's rent and tuition payments with a dwindling bank account and few job prospects despite my searching. I did not plan this, and I would be lying if I said I was happy about it. However, I do believe that God has placed me here for a reason, and I believe that in his sovereignty, if he desires me to be in seminary than he will provide the means in such a way that all the credit and all the glory is his, not mine. God tells better stories because ultimately the stories aren't about me, they're about him. The more my story reflects the great storyteller, the better that story will be.
"The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps." - Proverbs 16:9
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