Seeing the Forest Through the Trees

Continuing to think along the lines of "it's not all about you," I was recently reading a book that spoke more eloquently to this point. The book is written by a Christian author - not the sort that tells you to do this or that and life will be blissful. Donald Miller isn't always sure about Christianity or about how to live his own life outside taking the easy route. In his book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, there are a few passages I dog-earred in order to reference later. He talks about writing a good story, specifically the kind that makes an epic movie. And, he works through how that can help a person write a good story for his life. He's not talking about taking over Scotland or returning the ring to the center of the earth. He just talks about getting off the couch everyday and doing something memorable (even if it's simple) to live a good story.

In it he writes ..."I felt the way I hope God feels as he writes the world, sitting over the planets and placing tiny people into tiny wombs. If I have a hope it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you."

Much later he writes that someone once pointed out to him that in life, you need to be able to see the forest through the trees. That we, as individuals, are the trees and that what is going on in a bigger sense is the forest. We need to remember that. He also notes that what makes a story truly epic is one has to overcome conflict, and sacrifice everything to do so.

Miller writes, "The oldest book of the Bible is supposedly the book of Job. It is a book about suffering, and it reads as though God is saying to the world, Before we get started, there's this one thing I have to tell you. Things are going to get bad. ... God doesn't explain pain philosophically or even list its benefits. God says to Job, Job, I know what I am doing, and this whole thing isn't about you."

And that, right there, is what I think is the most important. It isn't about you.

I discussed that point with my dad one morning while waiting in line at Starbucks. I'm one of those annoying people who talks on my cell phone when I probably shouldn't (must work on that). Regardless, I told him that I always appreciated how forthcoming he was that life isn't fair and there is never any guarantee that it is supposed to be. His quick response was that things weren't even fair in our household, nor were they ever meant to be. He's right. We kids were treated as individuals and privileges granted to one weren't granted to all, just like experiences had by one weren't had by all.

I think this may be one of the guiding principles of my life - that it's up to us as individual people to make things happen for ourselves and it's up to us as individuals to deal with what we are dealt. It doesn't matter what anyone else has been dealt - whether that's better or worse - we are all a part of something bigger than ourselves and we each have our own roles to play within that. And, that overcoming conflict and sacrificing to do so paint the most beautiful stories for our lives. Why would we ever want to pass on that opportunity?