Deb picked up a copy of Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years for me a few weeks ago.  I saved it for our trip to Florida, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

In the book, Donald discusses the components of a good story, and talks about “rewriting” his life to make it into a better story.  The book came at a good time, as I’m re-evaluating my life right now through a lot of introspection and a program called Focus of a Warrior.  While reading it on the flight south last week, this quote stood out:

Somehow we realize that great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in.  We think God is unjust, rather than just a master storyteller.

To take this further, we could imagine God as a director and play write.  Instead of a script, he is giving cues, general directions and our motivations.  As actors on the world stage, we are learning the story as we’re performing it.  Most of us focus on what our character is doing, and some of us are straining to listen to the Director’s cues.  A very few bother to look around, and discern the Director’s instructions by what is happening in our scene, or throughout the whole play.

When someone we love is removed from the stage, the pain we feel is real, since we don’t know the rest of the story.  However, even though we don’t know the rest of the story, we do know the end of the story.  Like all the best epics, the bad guys are ultimately vanquished, and the good guys live happily ever after.  Any other ending just feels wrong.

At the end of the story, those who had major roles and bit parts will know how relevant or irrelevant they were.  In really good stories, the characters and lines that seemed insignificant will be revealed to be the crux of a much bigger story.  It’s not how much stage-time someone has, or how loudly (or badly) the lines were given.  Instead, it’s the Writer/Director that determines their importance.

And, at some point, I will join the fellow actors who were in my scenes for a curtain call.  All of us who listened to the director and took His cues will stand reunited in the lights and bow.  We hope to hear the audience of One give us a standing ovation, shouting “Bravo!”

Then comes the cast party…