My life has dramatically changed recently. I've gone from a character that is afraid of drama, to a character that actually gets a little bit excited about the idea that something thrilling or risky or unexpected is about to happen.
I'm come to see my life as a story, like a novel. I want it to be a novel that someone would want to read someday. The only way this would happen is by creating some good drama, not avoiding it or being afraid of something unexpected. I credit Donald Miller for writing a book called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years which provoked this way of thinking.
Everything in our life revolves around stories. When we talk to friends -- we interact by sharing stories. When we troll facebook -- we're looking at stories. Texting -- stories. Reading books, watching movies, reading my words right here is all because we like stories. But more importantly -- our lives are stories. Someone once said that our lives are not like novels, novels are like our lives.
You choose what story you believe that you're living in, and you choose what your character in your particular story is going to be. I think this is pretty amazing.
You can choose to believe that your life was just a chance occurrence in a universe that is a big cosmic accident, and your character is just another mammal that will die in about 80ish years, or you can choose to believe that your life is part of a universe that has something supernatural going on, and your character is trying to make the best of it by pursuing happiness. You can choose to believe that you're life is not fair, or blessed, and you can choose to believe that your character is a victim, a failure, a success, worthless, troubled, special, unique, and the list goes on.
There are countless stories that you can choose -- and there are countless characters that you can choose to be. The story that we choose and the character that we choose will determine the meaning that we find (or don't find) in life, and it will determine the virtues of our character such as whether or life is mostly self-focused, or others-focused.
I've considered many different stories, and I've considered several different characters, and the best storyline and character choice for myself is a story that involves a character that lives fearlessly, attracts a massive following, changes the way that people look at life and is worshiped thousands of years after he lived on earth. The character is a Jew named Jesus that lived 2000 years ago in Israel, and the story is that Jesus was actually God in the flesh to show us that He is love. I want my character to be a character like Jesus. Every day my character has to look for opportunities to love others, and be ready for adventure. I think it's a pretty cool character.
It's a crazy and mysterious story to me, but it's the story I choose because there is nothing better than centering my life around showing love and introducing true love to other people. As a skeptical believer I oftentimes have questions that start like "if this is true, than how come..." but I never question whether love is the one thing in life worth worshiping, and I never question whether there is a better story out there than the life of Jesus to capture what love is.
This is the best character, and the best story that I can live. This character, and story about Jesus will save us from lesser characters, and lesser lives.
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