04 - Author

It’s impossible to describe these conversations in chronological order, as many of them occurred simultaneously over periods of months or years, but one of the early roadblocks that God decided to tackle concerned my view of my life story.

Here’s how it started. For several months, I had been pining away over my latest crush, Michael. When a group of our friends decided to take a trip that summer, I decided I should make my move. Throughout the trip, I continuously positioned myself to be within arm’s length of Michael, and I turned on all the charm I could muster. Whenever he exhibited any glimmer of recognition of the leech at his side, my hyperactive female mind went into overdrive. You know how it goes… “He said ‘hi’ to me – he must be interested! We both like beef – it’s a match made in heaven! He touched my arm as he tripped over me trying to escape – he must think I’m hot!”

In my mind, the wedding was planned and paid for. But when days and then weeks went by, and Michael still hadn’t made a move, I had to admit that no matter how hard I tried, this wasn’t going to happen. Just like every other episode of my life, my efforts to garner a husband had ended in failure.

This was so frustrating and demoralizing! I mean, I wasn’t sitting at home expecting to marry the pizza delivery guy; I was trying my very best! I was constantly putting my mind to work, trying to figure out the best places to meet my future husband. Then when I went there and found some possibilities, I’d figure out exactly the right things to say and do. I’d be sure that my planning had lined up a slam dunk…but inevitably, my future husband would choose one of my friends over me. I was trying so hard to write my story, but I was out of ideas for bringing about a happy ending, and this incident with Michael was just another reminder of my writer’s block.

I remember complaining to God about this one day. I thought, “Man, this is the story of my life. No matter what I do, every chapter ends the same way – with the hero left all alone and exposed as a miserable failure. I’ve tried every plot twist I can think of to bring a happy resolution, but the more I try to engineer the plot, the more frustrated I get! If my life were a book, it would be the worst seller in history! I mean, God, even you have to be tired of rereading my same mistakes over and over again. Who wants to read a novel in which the hero never wins?”

This really upset me. Growing up, I’d always been able to accomplish whatever I wanted using discipline, hard work, and creativity. So when I encountered this unattainable goal that I couldn’t achieve with any amount of effort or manipulation, it really caused me to re-evaluate my perception of myself. Was my story destined to be a tragedy?

As I wrestled with this, I came across the story of Moses in Exodus. Though I’d read it many times before, something about it hit me differently that day. In this account, God told Moses that he had an important purpose for his life: he wanted Moses to free the Israelites from slavery.

Now, if I were Moses writing my own story, I would have written it something like this: Moses is a highly esteemed, fearless champion who rides in on a white horse, rallies all the Israelites to form an army, leads them to strike down Pharaoh and his men in a climactic battle, and then victoriously guides the people to the Promised Land, where he wins the girl and everyone thinks he’s great and builds a statue of him. That’s the logical way to develop the story of a hero freeing his people, right?

But that’s not how it goes. First, Moses was no Chuck Norris. He was deficient in the very skill required for his mission: public speaking. Plus, he was an outcast who’d been forced to live alone in the wilderness for 40 years. What kind of hero is that? And Moses was no William Wallace, either. When he told the people that he wanted to secure their freedom, they responded by calling down fire on him! With that kind of reception, it’s kind of hard to build an army and lead a charge.

Moses was more like Clark Kent than Superman. When he tried to confront Pharaoh, he came away looking ridiculous as Pharaoh turned down his request 9 times. Even when he did finally get the Israelites out of Egypt, there was never a definitive battle. Instead, they just anti-climactically snuck away in middle of the night. And then, of course, it wasn’t over because Pharaoh came after them, and Moses still didn’t get to fight. To add insult to injury, when they were finally free from Egypt for good, the Israelites complained to Moses, saying they wished he had never rescued them from slavery in the first place! And then the worst part is that Moses died just before everyone else got to enter the Promised Land. The guy couldn’t win! It reminded me of my own story – no matter what I did, I couldn’t write it so that the hero came out on top.

At first, this made me mad. I mean, I was doing everything in my power to find a husband, and none of my schemes were working. I was so worried that I’d never find a way to give my plotline a happy ending. I thought, “God, can’t you give us a little help down here? Don’t you see Moses and me struggling to write our stories? Don’t you even care that the hero never wins?”

But my complaint didn’t make sense even to me! I knew that God cared. I knew that he wanted to help me. So I felt like I must be missing some huge piece of the puzzle. As I continued to talk with God about it, he finally began to reveal the roadblock that was hindering this conversation. Here’s what it was: I’d been feeling sorry for Moses and myself, blaming God for not helping us to write our stories. But suddenly I realized it was true that Moses would’ve never cooked up this storyline for himself.

That’s because Moses was not the author of his story. God was.

It’s true! When I read it carefully, I saw that God was always the one calling the shots; not Moses. All along, God was the one with the plan; not Moses. In fact, God was the one who suggested this crazy “freeing the slaves” business to Moses in the first place! I never saw Moses struggling to devise a way to accomplish his mission; he just took the next step that God revealed to him. He didn’t strategize to get what he wanted; he just did whatever God told him to do.

Moses didn’t have to deal with frustrating and demoralizing writer’s block as he tried to write the story. That’s because he wasn’t the one holding the pen! And when he handed it over and let God write, the Master Author included events in his story that Moses never could have dreamed up for himself, much less accomplished.

Sure, he didn’t build an army and fight a battle, but he got to experience far more amazing things than that! He saw God send a plague on all of the livestock, but spare the Israelites’ animals. He saw God rain down hail to destroy everything in Egypt, but protect the Israelites’ land. He saw God send an angel to kill all the firstborn sons, but pass over the Israelites’ homes. He saw God part a sea to let his people through, but replace the water to drown their pursuers. He saw God literally deliver bread from heaven each day for the people to eat.

I’d say that even though Moses probably wouldn’t have planned it this way, the story turned out far better than anything he would have authored for himself. When he didn’t insist on writing it, Moses got to play a role in a pretty amazing story – a bestseller that we’re still reading thousands of years later!

In that moment, God said to me: “Jill, you’re trying to be the author of your story. You’re spending all of your time trying to steer the plot so that it ends the way you want it to – with your wedding – but instead of getting a happy ending, you’re just getting stressed out! You can keep doing that if you want, but don’t you know there’s a limit to what you can humanly accomplish?

“On the other hand, I’m willing to take over the stress of planning, and I would love to write some miraculous God-sized events into your plot, but it means you’ll have to give up the pen and let me write. You’ll have to give up your preconceptions about how you want the story to go and let me figure it out. You’ll have to stop trying to arrange everything to accomplish your idea of a happy ending. But if you do give up the rights to your story, you’ll find that I’m writing a masterpiece far more exciting and compelling than you ever could.”

On the one hand, this was good news! I didn’t have to be in charge of engineering my life anymore! I loved this idea because the more I tried to write, the more frustrated I was becoming (and all I achieved with all of my efforts was a tabloid). But God was promising a timeless classic if I’d give up and let him write the story the way he wanted it to go! This possibility really intrigued me.

But I just wasn’t sure if I could trust him with something as important as my life story. Sure, God’s adventures are exciting, but I still didn’t know if I liked the way he developed his heroes. After all, Moses never achieved the recognition and reward that a hero deserves, and I was afraid of a similar fate. I didn’t think I could deal with a resolution that didn’t include my marriage in the near future.

That’s when God took me even deeper into the story of Moses to knock over some more of my roadblocks.