There is a common desire in people for a plot. Everyone seeks to find the rhythm to the pages their life is written upon. We all seek to understand the themes of life, whose who in the character list, and what part are we to play in the show unfolding before us.
Even when someone demands with all the intensity of a Baptist preacher that surely we are all here by chance, randomness, and an unexplainable explosion at the “beginning” (whatever that means), their passion pokes a giant hole right through the story they seek to explain.
If we really were here because of evolutionary randomness, then no one would fight so hard to prove it. No one would long to place meaning and explanations on life if there really was no meaning or explanation to life. The fact that the debate is so heated, that we all argue about what the storyline really has been and will be in the future – the fact that we care at all to put meaning to life proves there really is meaning. The best evidence that there is no meaning to life and that we all turn into nothingness once we die would be total silence on this topic all together. I think we can all agree total silence on this debate has yet to happen.
Scientists and theologians alike seek to explain the world around them because every time they make a discovery they feel some part of the forgotten storyline is restored. We all have in our hearts a memory we can’t quite bring to picture, but we know somewhere behind us in our ancestors’ ancient history, something happened that would explain this confusing state of existence we all find ourselves in.
And then when the trees on a granite cliff-line silhouette in the springtime setting sun, when the moon casts its reflective glow upon the oceans vast face, or when new lion cubs come out of their den for the very first time – whenever we see natural beauty we begin to remember the true story we all have forgotten. Could it be that through these longings and beautiful experiences that stir our hearts, something, or maybe even Someone, is trying to remind us of what really happened in the past?
The longing to recover the plot to the story we know we are all living in is the surest evidence we have that more than meets the eye is going on here. We know something can never be made out of nothing, and so we come up with ridiculous alternative storylines that take far more faith to believe than simply accepting the truth that way-back-when Someone made us. “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (Hebrews 11:3).
We turned from him as a race, and as the years have gone by, the distant memory of him continues to fade, but it does not fully die. And so the human race continues to search. Where we search is as varied as the people who walk this planet. But one thing is for sure: every single human being who has ever lived always seeks to understand this grand story we are all in. They may explain this story by saying there’s no explanation, they may explain it by looking to the wrong authors (false gods), or they may even turn to the one and only God who actually came to earth to explain all the confusion – however they seek to make the dull picture clear, the fact that we are all looking for answers certainly undermines any idea that there aren’t any.
God is telling a story. The plot is that this is supposed to be all about him displaying his greatness while we worship and enjoy him. He made us, we rebelled, he came to save us, and like any good story the end is going to be full of both tragedy and amazing victory depending on the decisions we as characters make. What part of the plot we choose to live in is our choice. But God is going to keep writing these pages, and they are the only pages that matter. You can live how you want to live, but God really is writing a story that will affect us all for eternity. The fact that we all long to know what the story is proves that there really is one. May we remember what we have forgotten – that God is real.
This is the starting point in discovering the true plot, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
We are all putting our faith in some explanation. Pray that God gives you the grace to put your faith in the true Author of Life.