What are some of the elements of your favorite movies? Is it the suspense? Is it the feel-good vibes? Is it the true story content? What about the storyline of the overcoming underdog?
When it comes to our lives, we all direct our own stories, or movies, if you will. For fellow Christians, we might ask, “Hold up. Doesn’t God direct our story?” I think the answer to that is yes and no. God loves to direct our lives, with his permission. He doesn’t usurp our free will in His desire to bring about his best plan for our lives. He leaves the final choices to us.
In order to be a good director of our own life story, we must be able to visualize the script and capture the vision for the story God has planned. We capture God’s vision for us through relationship with Him. Sometimes the things that God has promised us aren’t going to look anything like what is happening in real time. Kind of like those moments in the middle of a good movie that keep you hanging off the edge of your seat wondering how the main characters are going to make it. For those types of moments in our lives, we need to choose faith to hold unto God’s vision and our trust in His promises. Amazingly, the Bible describes faith as our victory. 1 John 5:4 says, “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith” (ESV).
Next, a good director knows how to craft and interpret the script. As we direct our life stories, we need to be careful about the scripts we choose and the stories we tell. What does this look like? We must choose to reject scripts that undermine who we are and makes us forget our God given identity as sons and daughters of God. We must reject scripts that tell us we are not enough. We must reject every script that lies to us about our value and tells us that somehow, we don’t measure up and aren’t capable. Instead, we must choose scripts that reaffirm our value and worth and reflect God’s love for us and His promises for our lives. We must rehearse the stories of His goodness and faithfulness throughout our lives. We must choose to own and take pride in our stories, recognizing our progress and growth and refusing to embrace shame.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phil 4:8 ESV)
Lastly, a good director knows how to focus his lens. As we navigate our life stories, there will be many things vying for our attention. We will be tempted to focus on our weaknesses, limitations, and mistakes. There will be good things vying for our attention that fall short of the best things God has for us in the season we are in. As we continue to journey through life, we must allow our focus to rest on where we are headed and allow our pasts to slip from our view.
For some of us, there may be elements of hardship in our stories that we never would have chosen for ourselves. What then? God is more than able to work all the elements of our story together for our good, even the elements he didn’t pick for us. As it says in Romans 8:28, “So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together to fit into God’s perfect plan of bringing good into our lives, for we are his lovers who have been called to fulfill his designed purpose” (TPT).
Remember, our God is the one that turns any setback into a setup for a comeback. There isn’t one storyline that He can’t turn into a masterpiece.
