This morning, I awoke from the unsettling depths of another dream of being caught in an inescapable quagmire of life’s circumstances. It was, without a doubt, inspired by last night’s viewing of the 2002 version of Charles Dicken’s Nicholas Nickerby. It is inevitable that my wife and I will be drawn by a irresistible force (like the pull of gravity) to immerse ourselves in these types of dramas that torture and entertain us. These are Dickensian lessons where (almost without fail) innocent young lads are plunged into a troubled life amidst cruel school masters and faithful compatriots or friends. Unless we disengage from all purpose and relationships, we all connect to the desparation and triumphs that punctuate these and other great stories.
How long would we entertain watching the movie that portrays a happy band of friends sailing, without mishap or misfortune from port to port and returning home to plan their next trip? We would recognize it as boring, unrealistic and not worthy of our time.
Real life is more like being aboard a ship of which we have lost control and escaping (or not),with great peril and misfortune, by the skin of our teeth. But, unlike a “novel” existence, our stories exist within a true and larger story, written by the Author of All Things. J.R.R. Tolkien, author of perhaps the greatest and most celebrated novel of all time, The Lord of the Rings said,
The difference in real life is …. He, our Great Shepherd, never leaves us or forsakes us-not for a millisecond. But in Dickensian fashion, we often lose sight of him or lose all hope that we are anything other than abandoned. But, like the patriarch Jacob (Genesis 46), life’s picture can sometimes clear with retrospection to reveal a greater purpose in both the painful, sometimes mundane and seemingly meaningless stretches.
There is purpose, driven by a loving and Good God. Will that purpose or those purposes be explained to us? Perhaps not, but our lives are made or undone by our trusting the Author of All Things and his loving intentions.