The Grand Narrative

Any good narrative (story) must have:

1.) characters

2.) a setting

3.) a plot.

The protagonist (the lead character) will have challenges to overcome, not least of all his antagonists (enemies), and these travails will make up the bulk of the plot. How did I come by this insight you ask? Simple. Three years of literature study at Uct. What does any of this "narrative" jargon mean for you and me? Well, it means a heck of a lot if you want a life story worth reading!

Now imagine a story set in an exotic location filled to the brim with exciting adventures, but the story has only a single wistful character that inwardly longs for a meaningful, loving relationship. After many years of unfulfilled longing our hero decides against wasting his time looking for a soul-mate to share his adventures with and chooses rather to seek more exciting adventure and even more fun things to see and do to fill up the now gigantic empty void he has inside. Would you want to read that story? Pffft, of course you wouldn’t!

Unfortunately there are many stories (lives) like this around today, stories that are devoid of substance and meaning because they are filled with all kinds of busy-ness but are light on the stuff that good stories are made of – soulful romance. Now I know what you’re thinking. You probably think that I’m talking to my fellow celibates out there who are looking for love, but I’m not. I’m talking about something deeper than that. Something which many people are completely oblivious to.

Consider this account:

On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.

Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and developed and entered puberty. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, yet you were stark naked.

Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you and you became mine.*

Weird? It shouldn’t be. Your story began the same way. You’re thinking - “What?! When was I ever tossed in a field naked and bloody?” Answer – when you were separated from God. You became an instant beggar. This story is a first-person narration of how your life could be, as told by God to you. The truth is that the “author” of your life is also supposed to be the lead protagonist in your story. He has been watching over you since the beginning and he’s crazy about you. We were separated from God at birth and some will continue to exclude him and try to replace him with other characters or try and add adventures to the story to mask the missing protagonist, but they will find that his boots are too big to fill. Sure, we will have human loves and they do add value to our lives but they are not what our story should be about, there is a bigger story, those loves are in the sub-plot. The best part of your story is the soulful love that God has extended to you and the divine relationship that you can now have with him.

Your story should be about our valiant hero who loves us and saves us when no one else can, about how he set out on a journey to receive a kingdom where he will be king. Your story should be of our courage as his beautiful girl to hold true to our love until he has returned and we rule the kingdom together and live happily ever after. So if you have lost the plot, maybe you need to rediscover the missing Protagonist.

* Ezekiel 16