Get Ready for the Lord

2005-08-04

A lot of people have a philosophy of life that begins like this: “life is like a _____.” Fill in the blank. Life is a journey, life is a game, and so on. I lived most of my life under the banner, “life is a show.” So many times I would rally myself with the war cry, “Get ready for the show!” And a show indeed I thought it was: a beginning, with intensity and intimacy, mountains and valleys, comedy and tragedy, a climax and a conclusion. You can be the judge if you like the model or not. Somehow I found myself always waiting for the curtain to open, and with an exuberant explosion of joie de vivre, I would burst across the stage into an operetta of my soul, winning the hearts of my audience. We all have such legitimate longings - to share ourselves, to be understood by others, to love and be loved. The only problem is the script we write. It’s only a story. In my case, it was a story I wrote, where I was the star, and I designed my own character. Trying to live this way, I found out the plot unfolded in a fashion I never intended.

We make ourselves out to be the perfect hero to win others over and feel accepted by them. But in the process we lost everything God created us to be. Fortunately or unfortunately - you decide - we are not the playwrights or the main actors. God is the sole writer and main actor of the show (and He also is the audience, which is another topic for another day). He is in control of what happens to the other actors. Though tragedy seasons the plot, we must remember He promises an ending of joy that we cannot match in our pathetic scripts. We must somehow give up the silly stories and masks and makeup, and even our stages we act on and begin to live in the epic God has written. Our stories are only an attempt to control God and protect ourselves from things such as pain, sorrow, rejection, and uncertainty.

But God’s story is real: a masterpiece that transcends the ages. He invites us to give up the charade and live the parts He wants us to live, and be the people He made us to be. It all begins with a relationship with Jesus Christ, that we rely on Him to save us from our all-encompassing and penetrating sin. But then what? It is time to abandon our agenda and truly live.

The question to you and me is: Where are we now and what are we doing, and compare this with where God wants us to be and what He wants us to do.