We live in a never-ending story of God’s love, power, and goodness, as it plays out in real time in the universe. There we are, on page 9,653,745,853. God has written us into the story.

It is an interactive story and we, in our small way, are contributors to it. We get to write our own lines, at least some of them, and construct our own scenes, at least some of them. God trusts us to share in the making of his story. Or – and this might be more to the point – he trusts himself to make the story come out right even though he allows us a hand in writing it. But we mustn’t forget that it is still his story.

And it is so easy to forget, to think that the story is ours and that we can write it however we choose, even in total disregard of the Author. But the Author will not easily allow us to forget him. He will write chapters into the story that bring us face to face with him – comedies, if possible; tragedies, if not.

The final scene, the death scene, is designed so that we have to face God, whether we want to or not. For those who refuse to be a part of his story, death is a tragedy. For those who choose to be part of his story, death becomes a comedy, a divine comedy in which everything works out in the end. And the end turns out to be just the beginning.

Some people, however, refuse to be part of God’s story, though they may still want him to play a part in theirs, usually as a deus ex machina. Their stories follow a simple plotline: achieve fulfillment, gain respect, and live happily; or do your best, be misunderstood, and suffer as a tragic hero. But whichever plotline a person’s life follows, the story will come to a dead end. Only if a person is written into God’s story will their story continue on, happily ever after.

Some intellectuals insist that life’s story is meaningless and absurd. “It is a tale,” they might say, in the words of Macbeth, “told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” And the truth is, they are absolutely right. Life is meaningless and absurd for everyone who refuses to become part of God’s story. If I refuse to co-author my story with God, then mine really is a “tale told by an idiot.”

When all is said and done, there will only be one story: the glorious, all-encompassing story God is telling. If we refuse to be a part of it, we will lose our place in the storyline. We will be cut out, excised. We won’t make the draft; we will be missing from the final edition.

Will everything in a person’s life fit into God’s story? No. There are always some things that don’t fit, things that must be cut out of a person’s life, the way an editor cuts lines and paragraphs out of a story. That kind of editing is what the Bible calls repentance, and we find that even after we have been written into God’s story, there are plenty of unwise plot elements and flawed character traits that need to be edited out.

Sometimes my editors (my wife or my sons) tell me that some paragraph I’ve written doesn’t fit well in an article. It is invariably a paragraph I like, one with some really good stuff in it. But they are usually right and, with some reluctance, I edit them out.

Something like that happens in our lives. There are things that don’t align with God’s story and never will. So, he gets out his red pen and puts an X through them, and then we have to edit them out of the story. That can be painful, but the story is always better for it.

This story that God is writing is an adventure. It is a love story. It is a mystery. Our part in that story is rarely one of comfort and ease. But it is important. It has meaning. When God writes our story, it is always a masterpiece.