What I Write About

I write about the infinite number of intersections between every day life and the good news of the God who has come to get us.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Star Wars on Betamax: Finding Our Place & Our Story

A decade ago, when the first Star Wars prequel was about to be released, I was about as amped as anyone that I knew. I had watched the oldest Star Wars on our family betamax (don't hate) at least fifty times, maybe one hundred. More Star Wars, more often, that's what I was saying.

And then, of course, they actually came out. And they were awful. And I went from "more Star Wars, more often" to "leave well enough alone."

There were many problems with it, of course. The story-line was terrible.

But one of the main problems was that they attempted to put supporting actors in main actors' roles. When you put supporting actors in main actors' roles, they simply cannot carry the story--even a good story. Perhaps especially a good story.

This is something like what happens with our own lives when we try to live as if we were the main actors. Our lives are meant to be a part of the Epic story, the story that's being written throughout the whole of the history of the cosmos.

When we try to live our lives as if we were the main actors instead of God, our lives ring hollow, they're fake, bare wisps and shadows of what was intended. Our lives become poor copycats of the grandeur and power and purpose that the Author intended.

Our work is to constantly be yielding the main actor role of our lives to the Lord. To follow his lead, rather than demand that it be the other way around. To walk in his story, rather than try to create our own.

The human catastrophe is that so many lives end up wasted, ruined, pointless because we demand that our lives be our own stories, with ourselves at the center. This is a recipe for a Star Wars, Episode 1 category of mistake.

3 comments:

Elizabeth Johnson Phillips said...

This is probably why no one wears "What would Hayden Christiansen do?" bracelets.

Alex said...

good point, elizabeth, and thanks for being the one to inspire this post!

Macon said...

Betamax hate?

no way, brother! that's *serious* geek cred right there.