It's Not All About Me

I have recently come to the conclusion that it really is not all about me. It is not even all about my kids, my family, my friends. The story of my life is just a part of a larger story that God is telling. I am not even a plot point in the movie God is making. He is the author, the director, definitely the producer. I am an extra. I am in the background of the scenes at times, lending to the flavor of the story, but I am not the story. It is not all about me. And I find this immensely comforting.

Maybe I should be all upset that the world does not revolve around me; that I am not the integral part of even my own life story. But I am not. I am relieved. It takes a lot of the pressure off of me to make my life meaningful, fulfilling, exciting, movie worthy. I like seeing my life as part of God's bigger story, His story of love, sacrifice and redemption.

This does not mean that I don't think I am important to God because I know that I am. I know that God loves me personally, just like I know that He loves my kids more than I ever could. I know that He has a plan for my life, a plan that grows me closer to Him, and hopefully is a part of the telling of His story. I know that he cares what job I take, who I marry, how many kids to have and even what road I take when I drive to the library. I know because I have a friend who was in a horrible car accident while driving her kids to the library to return some books. Her oldest daughter went home to Jesus and she has had to deal with the after effects of a traumatic brain injury ever since. God cares about the big details in our lives and what seem to be little details to us such as which way we take to get to the library.

I think we often think of God in human terms. How can he keep track of all of us, all our needs, our thoughts, our desires. There are a lot of people in this world, even if you only count believers, which is assuming he only cares about the believers. But we are thinking of God in our terms and we have trouble remembering to buy eggs and milk we when go into the store, but we always come out with those cookies we really like. I think God is more like Google. There are how many millions of websites out there that Google somehow in its greatness figures out what matches my needs when I do a search. God is even bigger and better than Google. He works in ways that our minds cannot comprehend. He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. He is focused on the bigger story, keeping all the actors, cameramen, grips and costume designers on task. But while doing that he is also completely intuned to my life, my experiences, my hearts desires.

God is way bigger than I could ever imagine. So why would I not take great comfort in knowing that He is in charge, telling a bigger story with our lives, than we could ever tell on our own.