What does your current journey look like?
Do you sometimes look around and think you would rather be on someone else’s’ journey? A journey with fewer twists and turns?
Or wish your journey liked a little more like Instagram? More beach days and less mess days.
We may wish for a perfect life of calm and no major swings in either direction, but our journey through this life is messy, full of lessons, conflicts, ups and downs.
There is no one in the Bible with a Pinterest life. I have never read a memoir where the main character had an Instagram life. No one I currently know has a perfectly smooth life.
I doubt you or I will be the first ones.
The plot line of life. Everyone has one in this journey of life.
Everyone has trials, conflict, and troubles. Bible characters. Major and minor characters in novels. People in magazines, movies, and television shows.
It’s called the plot. And what makes the plot interesting and keeps us watching or reading is the plot line, which consists of conflict, partial resolution, more conflict, some resolution, a new conflict, and then another new and bigger conflict. Up and down the story goes. Pulling us in. Getting us concerned for the characters. Wanting to know the outcome for the characters. And finally, at the end of the plot, there is big resolution and we can sigh and smile and be happy for everyone involved. And on that happy note the book ends.
That plot line with conflict and resolution that we find in movies and books, well, that is our life. Our Journey.
Up and down we go on the plot line. Conflict and resolution taking turns.
Some conflict we bring upon our self through our choices and actions, some conflict is caused by others. Some conflict just arrives from nowhere, and some comes from natural disasters, disease, and chance.
Up and down on the plot line of life we go. Just like the characters in a novel.
Life is a journey. Things to remember about your journey and your plot line:
1. We have some control over our journey. We get to choose our actions and reactions. While we can’t control other characters or the future, we get to be in charge of ourselves.
2. We know some things about this plot line. We have an enemy. We have a lover, comforter, and Savior. We have a helper living inside us. We know we will never be forsaken for any reason. We know the glorious ending and who wins this cosmic battle. We know our marching orders: love God and others.
3. Our journey is supposed to change us, improve us, develop us into better characters. Just like characters in a book are supposed to change because of the conflict they face, so we too need to change.
In literature class you may have done a character analysis paper. Where you pick one character from the story and explain how the character changed and grew, how they developed or what they learned. In other words, how the plot caused them self-awareness or necessitated change in them.
Some characters change for the good, like Anne in Ann of Green Gables. Some characters change for the worse, like Fagin In Oliver Twist. Those that don’t change, are stagnant and flat characters.
4. Our journey will have peaks and valleys. We get through the valleys as best as we can. Not perfectly, or prettily, or knowing exactly what we are doing, but we get through and learn how to better handle the next valley. We look back and see God’s hand and his walking beside us in the valleys. And as time goes by, we begin to understand how better to approach the valleys and know that they too will end sometime in the future, but none of us get perfect at traversing them.
5. Don’t judge another person’s journey. You never see all the peaks and valleys their life contains or the plot line that developed character growth.
6. A perpetually happy ending is a myth. We think some day we will arrive. Be mature. Know it all. Be able to relax and watch others battle, but that is a myth. We will only arrive to a perpetually happy ending on the other side of eternity.
7. God will finish the journey with you. He promises he won’t give up on you until you make it past the finish line.
8. While we are the main characters in our stories, our story is not ultimately all about us. Not all about our glory. Because if we are Christians, the story ultimately comes to be about him, to point others to him, to glorify him. That is why we surrender our will to his will. Our way to his way. Our dreams to his dreams for us.
9. We are never alone on our journey. God is working behind the scenes, providing the courage and strength, the will to change and keep going.
What does your plot line look like?
Your character analysis?
We are on a journey of love, growth, faith, hope, and endurance.
Enjoy your journey.
We look forward to that day when there will be no more conflict and resolution. Where our plot line is steady. Because one day we will be living in a perfect world.
Thanks for stopping by. Keep remembering what’s important.
Theresa
If you need some weekly encouragement and hope, tied up with some humor? Subscribe and join the journey. Life is sweeter when we walk alongside one another.
Join the Discussion: What does your current plot line look like?
May link up at Jennifer Dukes Lee (#tellhisstory); Holley Gerth (#coffeeforyourheart), Lori Schumaker (#Moments of Hope), Crystal Storms (#HeartEncouragement), Arabah Joy (#Grace & Truth).
All pictures, except flower pictures taken at:
At the Volcanoes National Park It was pretty weird to see acres and acres that turned into miles of recent stark black lava. No plants. Just dried and hardened lava that once flowed and bubbled. I imagined it was what some planet looked like. Maybe Mars. It was so desolate. But keep driving to a little older flow and you start to see greenery. It doesn’t take long, before bushes, trees, and plants are growing here and there on this hard rock. Gaining a foothold. Growing despite the lava base. And over time, the landscape is transformed into a lush tropical landscape. And your wouldn’t know that it was lava instead of dirt, unless you bent down and tried to dig the black base that is nourishing the plants. We may currently see only the barren black hard lava in our life. But God can plant seeds that one day turn into a tropical paradise. And when he looks at us, he doesn’t see our barren parts, but the tropical paradise we can become.
- How Knowing Your Husband Can Impact Him for Good - March 24, 2022
- How to Stop Focusing on What’s Wrong with You - March 9, 2022
- Is God Really Good All the Time? - February 24, 2022
These are all great points, Theresa! It is so important to remember that no-one’s life is perfect, however it might be portrayed on social media. And to remember that it is not all about us but that we’re never alone on the journey because God is with us!
Thanks Lesley. So glad we are not on this journey alone.
Mine is a Serialized Nancy Drew mystery. Someone is causing problems. I have to go solve why there is a problem. I am in the dark as to the problem. The plot, the characters, and the solution. LOL! Sure glad God is in charge of the ending!
Yes, me too, Colleen. So glad God is in charge of the ending and directing the beginning and middle. Some day we will know all the answers we need to know. Solve all the mysteries. Or maybe then we won’t even be curious.
I can see God rewriting, editing, and giving me a happy ending. If I were a movie, there’d be stuff he’s cutting out, out take and bloopers.
Oh, love it. Isn’t it fun to know that God is really going to give us a happy ending.
A terrific and helpful list – how about a bookmark for these or pinterest pin? My favorite is number 2 – I have an enemy and a lover. I forget. Great post!
Great idea Sue! Number two is easy to forget for me too. Thanks for the suggestion.
Theresa, I KNEW those pictures had to be of Kilauea. 🙂
Your post spoke to this aspiring writer. Our plot lines. I love the points you brought out. How we have control over our actions and reactions, but not of others’. And especially that God is working behind the scenes. He is the author of our stories.
My plot line right now holds the crazy mix of mothering two teen boys and balancing that with other responsibilities and dreams. The conflict is there, the refining work God is working in me is there. And my life is never dull. 🙂
Jeanne, your guess of the pictures was right.
As an English teacher and writer, this idea of conflict and resolution really made sense. Then looking at my life, well, then it made even more sense. 🙂
Awesome things here. I am very glad to see your post. Thanks a lot and I am taking
a look forward to contact you. Will you please drop me a e-mail?