Today, I read a tweet that said:
“Do you trust God with the storyline of your life?”
That one pierced my heart a bit, because for as much as I post about living in the moment, loving my story, and trusting its Author, I realized today that if I’m being completely honest, this is something I really struggle to do.
Perhaps, it’s the writer in me, because I’ll take a look at my life and think of a number of different nice and neat ways everything could come together and work out. This could happen like this… And this like this…
That’s not surrendering, though.
And it certainly isn’t trusting God with the storyline of my life.
Within the last year, I’ve faced a number of different disappointments (with creative pursuits, with relationships, and even just with myself), and I think I haven’t always known how to handle those or what to do with them.
I know the logical answer is to take them to God, trusting that He works everything out for our good and His glory. And I’ve done that a little bit, but I’ve also tried to solve some of the issues myself — jumping in there with my red editor’s pen and telling God, Well, what if this happens like this? Or, What if we rearrange this part in this way?
In the midst of all of that, this is what I realized I’ve been learning:
People will disappoint us, and we will disappoint ourselves. Circumstances and timing and answers to prayers will not always make sense. We will feel stuck and frustrated and discouraged when we can’t clearly see the path we’re supposed to be following.
But we forgive — each other and ourselves. We find reasons to be thankful, even when it hurts. We look forward with hope, and we believe that God is good, and that He is making sense of the mess, even when we can’t see the tiniest bit of order amongst all the pieces.
And above all else…
We trust.
We stop wrestling with the plot and the characters and the length of each chapter, because we know, deep down, that He is an infinitely better storyteller than we are, and that our version of the story pales in comparison to the one He is ever-so-faithfully writing for us.
