The Story
What is your favorite kind of story?
Do you like fantasy stories with worlds full of magic and beauty, and a struggle between good and evil? Or maybe you are drawn to epic adventures that involve a difficult journey to reach a seemingly impossible goal? You could also enjoy the feel good stories of love and romance, or even horror stories full of ghosts and ghouls. Personally I love to read all sorts of stories, but have found myself continually pulled back into the fantasy/adventures of J. R. R. Tolkien, the magical world created by J. K. Rowling, the creative science fiction employed by Michael Crichton, and the realm of horror created by Stephen King. Stories have a unique way of connecting with our emotions—of generating excitement, inspiring us to action, or allowing for empathy. Good storytellers do this by framing the story around a main character. This character will generally grow and change in some way over the course of the story. Maybe they overcome some amazing obstacle. Maybe they reach some internal realization which forever changes their life. In any case, we the listeners of the story, journey with this character, going where they go, learning what they learn, and feeling what they feel.
Every story has a main character…
And every main character has a story.
What makes a character the main character of a story is simply that the story is written from their perspective. They don’t even have to be the most interesting or exciting character in the story—it just has to be from their point of view. Their story. Think about your favorite book for a minute. What if that story was written from the perspective of a different character? Chances are, the story would be drastically different. While the events may stay the same, the story would shift points of focus. For instance, if the Harry Potter series were re-written from the perspective of Hermione, it would become more about these two guys continually getting Hermione in trouble and her having to make up for their lack of knowledge. In life this means we are all a main character from a certain point of view—or at least we all believe we are the main character. We can only see the world from our own perspective. This means that naturally the stories we experience are stories centered around us. Even when events are all about someone else, those events still happen in relation to us.
That also means that we are minor characters in an untold number of other stories. Some roles we play may be bigger than others—we are probably fairly prominent characters (for better or worse) in the stories of our family members or friends, but we only have a passing appearance in the story of the Chick-fil-a worker who took our order on that one road trip. In all cases those are the same stories we are living, but we very obviously are not the main characters. All of those ‘stories’ are simply many different perspectives of the same story: the story of humanity.
But how can we be both the main character and a minor character in the same story?
The truth is we were never the main character in this story of humanity. This story is all about God. God is both the writer and the main character. God is the only one who sees the whole story—each of us is only present for a part of it. The stories we experience are never truly about us. We don’t have to carry the responsibility of being the main character, because that responsibility was never even given to us. Nobody is better than or less than another, because in God’s eyes we are all equal characters. Not main nor minor, but equal characters in the story of humanity.
When we are able to let go of our need to be the main character, or even our tendency to see ourselves as the main character, it allows us to view others with more grace and understanding. We put ourselves on the same level of those around us, realizing that this story is simultaneously not about any one of us but about all of us together. This perspective also helps us to humble ourselves before God—to stand in God’s presence knowing we are loved and supported, but this is all ultimately God’s story.
So let’s work to build a community—a community of characters each participating in this great story written by God.