Surrendering the Pen

I've always wanted to write a really good novel. But, the problem is I just can't think up a really good story - a story so exciting people won't want to put it down - or so inspiring that people walk away completely changed. That's my dilemna - I just don't have a good enough imagination.

Tonight we watched the movie The Brothers Bloom. A quote from the movie was (I'm paraphrasing since my memory isn't perfect): "There is no such thing as unwritten lives. There are just lives that are badly written." That got me thinking about the stories of our lives. Who writes these stories?

I think we make a choice. Either we write the stories or we let God write them. Writing our own stories could be beneficial to us. We can manipulate the story to do what we want, get what we want, and be who we want to be (with some limitations of course - no, you cannot be Superman). Writing our own stories can be an exciting task at first...deciding where I want to live, what job I want, what lifestyle I want, etc, etc. But, the problem is our stories never turn out the way we intend. A few things happen. One is we realize we can't control our own stories. We try to, but external factors always end up getting in the way. The other problem is our stories become too predictable and we get bored or frustrated (or both). Our imaginations are just not sufficient to meet the longings of our hearts.

What happens when we surrender our pens and let God do the writing? At first this is a scary thing because we don't know what He's going to do on the next page. We don't agree with Him. We see what He is writing and we argue and say, "No, that's not right! That's not my character - I don't want that!" But, if we keep going, keep reading, allow Him to keep writing, we suddenly become lost in the story and can't wait to see what happens next. Yes, we're still terrified, but we can't deny that God's imagination is so vast, so deep, so perfect, that we are constantly amazed with every new chapter. And, we realize that this story is what we were made for - and we would have never known if we hadn't had the faith to give up the pen and turn the page.