the story of choice; or...the choice of the story

      I’ve been watching the DVDs of one of the big popular TV dramas this year. I’m nearly to the end of Season 2, and today I finally cracked. There have been deaths along the way, and those have hurt, because it is such a wonderfully constructed story. And each time something bad has happened, I have accepted it as part of the story. I’ve been sad, but I’ve allowed the story to continue. I’ve allowed myself to continue to be carried along. But today was different. Today two people who I was beginning to care about died. Rather, they were murdered. But that wasn’t all. One of the women who was murdered was beginning to form a relationship with one of my favorite characters, someone who has had a hard time in life and for whom I was thus really happy he had finally met someone. And then, bam, she’s gone. And for the first time I wasn’t just sad, I was angry. And I wasn’t angry at what had happened within the show. I was angry at the show’s creators. I was angry at how fond they seem to be of giving someone a glimmer of hope in their life and then stripping it away like it’s nothing. I was angry at how they can’t seem to let one happy thing remain, to let anything endure. If someone loves their child, that child must be taken away. If someone loves another, that too must be taken away. And I know there have been happy moments, but this time it was too much, and I faced a decision: I can either continue with the story, and accept where the storytellers take me, believe that their purposes will ultimately be good, even if right now it seems dark, or I can just quit. I can stop watching the show, I can refuse to be saddened or frustrated or angered any more, and I can just put it away and leave it for good.

      And then it struck me. We face this same decision every day of our lives on this wretched planet. Every time there is a war. Every time we or someone we love or know or hear of suffers. Every time there is ugliness or injustice or pain, we have a choice. We can blame the author, the creator, the one who allows it to endure; or we can allow the story to carry us forward, trusting that even though at times it seems too dark and terrible to endure, somewhere in those shadows there is hope. We can choose to believe that somehow, though at times it may be far beyond our comprehension, the creator knew what he was doing, knows still what he is doing, and that somehow there is purpose to it all. That somehow, it is good. He is good.

      But it is a choice, make no mistake. And many, perhaps most, cannot endure the pain of hope, and so they choose to let it die. And it is not just for ourselves, but also for them, that we must pray.

Grace

Too many Christians live their lives trying to earn the grace of God; trying to earn that which by its very nature cannot be earned. Let us not count ourselves among them! Let us pray earnestly that the Lord would open our eyes to the reality of His grace, that our love for Him may abound. And in so abounding, that we in turn would act out in love toward the world, not to gain what has already been offered, but to bring glory to what already is. And if we ask in faith for our eyes to be thus opened, the Lord will open them, for He delights to pour out His blessings upon us.

            Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
            Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
            Matthew 7:7-11

            You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
            James 4:2b-3