You are currently browsing the Bruce Smith weblog archives for the day 14. October 2009.
14. October 2009 by BruceSmith.
In Search of a Better Story
When is the last time you remember hearing, reading, watching, or even being part of a great story? There is something about a truly fantastic story isn’t there? They capture us. They make us dream. They make us long for more. They put a desire within us to be part of a bigger story ourselves.
But what kind of story actually grips us? Which stories do we remember? My guess is, if you are honest, its the stories that matter which catch you and keep you. Few thinking, intelligent, and sincere people get all amped up and feel butterflies inside watching empty stories about jokers who just live life for the moment, living it up, one party after another, one relationship after another, just blending in like the rest of the crowd.
Robert McKee, the master of story, and renown teacher of story, basically reduces story to the simple premise of character. It is the character, a character who desires something, faces obstacles, and finally gets there after a significant battle, who captures us. The quality of the character, and the significance of the goal play a huge role in the overall pull of a story. If the character has something we all admire or are drawn to and if the desires and goals of the character are admirable, and the challenges big…we tend to really engage and put our hearts into the story. Think of Schindler’s List or E.T. or Hotel Rowanda or The Pursuit of Happyness.
Here is what I have been thinking lately. What kind of story am I living? I have always thought on this theme really, but the question has been heightened for me at various periods in my life. Lately, it has been heightened again. One impetus for the question arising for me again is Donald Miller’s latest book which wrestles with this question. The book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, puts this quest for living a bigger story front and center. I stumbled across the book, however, as I was already contemplating the idea. I think one big factor in my consideration of the theme is the fact that two of my three kids are soon headed off to college. I find myself regularly asking, “Have I adequately inspired them to desire to live a great story?” “Will they go off and live the typical college life, the typical twenty-something experience…?” “Or will they really get after life and pursue big things?” “Will they know how to live a big story?” “Will they care?”
My fears are, that like too many, my kids will go off, be enamored with a world gone mad for pleasure and fun, and be drowned amidst the soul swallowing waves of passion and thoughtless living. My greatest pain, as I think about it, would be to see my kids settle for the average life, the life lived by all those around them. In actuality, its my greatest fear for me, and for everyone I encounter and care about. We live in a culture awash in the waters of passion, perversion, corruption, debasement, meaningless pleasure, and momentary reality. I want to be part of something bigger. I don’t want life as usual, relationships as usual, sex as usual, money as usual, entertainment as usual, parenting as usual, church as usual, … . I want to live outside the norm, I want the kind of life God promises me in the scriptures–life to the full. And I want this for my kids.
Here is the rub. Thinking about this lately, here is where my mind has gone.
If story, big, engaging, and life-inspiring story has elements of character, aspiration, goodness, obstacles, and dream making, why is my life not more like that? Why is my character not more like that which God calls me to? Why is my aspiration all too muted for things which matter (the poor, the orphaned, the widows, the sick, those spiritually deceived and lost), why do I view pettiness as obstacles, and why am I not accomplishing more? I honestly want to know the answer to these questions, and I want to live in the reality of those answers. I think most people do, but most hide from this reality.
How do we find the desire to live a bigger story? Where do we find grounding and adequate purpose for a bigger story? Where do we turn to to find an example of the kind of story we all hunger for in our most honest and transparent moments? I find, again and again, all those answers, and all the elements of big story, as I engage the scriptures, the Bible. Nowhere have I seen, read, contemplated such character, love, generosity, obstacle overcoming, and dream making story. I don’t see it in the lives of those we call “celebrity” (and honestly, after meeting several in my life, I have come to find very few who even remotely impress me or have anything I desire), I don’t see it on television, and too seldom find it in daily life.
Where I see the kind of story we all long for is in the scriptures and the men and women of faith whose lives unfold there. Likewise, I see the most inspiring hints of great story in the lives of those I know who are hungering for and moving toward a bigger faith story. Dentists I know who travel to dangerous countries to share the gospel and do medical work, hang-gliders I know who aspire to take their love of flying to to foreign lands and reach needy orphans and others, businessmen who donate huge sums of money and their talents in Africa to reach people of a different race, many of whom are dying with Aids. And I see the thirst for a bigger story in the lives of women who find a dream to assist the abused and broken and battered, and make an effort to build a place for them where they can find a new story. These are the lives I see which pull me toward a bigger story.
I am inspired to live a greater story also as I watch the lives of godly women who so utterly enjoy and cherish motherhood, marriage, faithfulness, purity, and worship that its contagious and undeniable. I am inspired toward my own pursuit of God’s story for me as I am privileged to live along side of lifelong friends who love me and are honest with me and remain devoted to me even when I fail. I am pulled toward a more honest pursuit of God’s story for me as I watch devoted men of God, despite enormous talent and charisma and penchant for business, give themselves to God and offer their labor for the Kingdom rather than for personal gain. And I am amazed and allured by the graciousness of God’s story displayed in the lives of Christians who, despite beauty, position, privilege, opportunity, or advantage, display integrity, devotion, humility, and service to others as they live daily life. Moreover, I am humbled and captivated by those few, who, despite great loss, failure, and trial, only seek a greater sense of gentleness of spirit, kindness, and love for life and others.
Donald Miller, in his book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, tells of an interaction with a good friend of his whose daughter is just living a messy life. She has been found with pot in her room, is dating a less than desirable fellow, and is an emotional and relational wreck in the home. He tells his friend that his daughter is living a really bad story, and needs a new story. His friend, hit hard by this reality, takes it to heart and realizes his entire family is living a pretty lame story. They are just getting along, not taking much in, letting daily life just happen, and “making the best of things”. Determined to save his family and his daughter from this lousy story, one day he decides to take out a second mortgage on his home, and commit $25,000.00 to building an orphanage in Mexico! He did not discuss it, take a poll, or ask anyone what they thought. He just decided the story would be bigger or they would not go on. He jumped into a big story. The short version of the story is that, after his wife’s shock and daughter’s cries of “insanity”, his wife was turned on and loved him like never before, and his daughter fell in love with the idea, dropped her boyfriend, and decided the family should actually not just spend money on the building project, but they should go to Mexico and really get in the game! A new story had just begun!! I want that kind of story in my life. Don’t you? How? Ah, but how?
My hope and prayer for each of us as we read and ponder this idea of story, is that God would birth a renewed desire in each of us to live for something bigger. In reality, that something is a some One. Jesus, the Man who lived the greatest story the world has ever known, is the only aspiration strong enough to push us toward the kind of story God has in store for us. It is Christ alive within us, the Living Story, who gifts us with purity where we have settled for common road of our culture, patience where we are filled with anger and pettiness, love where we are consumed with selfish desires, sobriety where our story is replete with a lack of restraint, gentleness where our story is filled with abuse and disaster, poise where we have only chaos in our soul, depth where we are shallow, thoughtfulness where there is only reactionary behavior, service for others where we have sought only our own fun, generosity in place of greed, humility in place of arrogance, pursuit of purpose where we have only sought pleasure, and life and light where our souls have been dark and dying.
As the scriptures have suggested, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, has come and offered the light of life. He offers those trapped in a dark story, a story without joy, hunger, love, and life, a bigger and better story. He brings character, purpose amidst the struggles, and direction for the future. He is our compass, our journey, our desire. Only the life whose story is caught up in Him shall have a journey big enough for an aching soul. He is our Mt. Everest, He is the screen play worth seeing, He is our longing, and He is our God. May His story, though the world may laugh, mock, despise, and label us fools, be our story. May He, in the truest sense, be our story. Oh, that He would be our plot, our narrative, our redemption, our healing, and our hope. My this story run through every word, every line, every expression, every scene in the drama of our lives. May the story of Christ secure our loves, our relationships, our drives, our ambitions, our goals, our dreams, our careers, our families, our music, our money, our marriages, our coaching, our teaching, our doctoring, our passions, our play, …our all. May our story be lived for an audience of One. May we find His character description for us, and live it to the full.
God give us a bigger story. Amen.
Bruce Smith
optimuslife.org
soulstormsite.com
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