My favorite memory in Sunday school was when the teacher got out the blue, fuzzy board, and one by one, added an array of carefully cut-out felt characters to tell a Bible story. I just googled it, and it’s called a flannel board? Hopefully someone knows what I’m referring to. The whole exercise was so tactile, I can almost feel the little felt pieces in my hand now. Sometimes there were animals, buildings, and trees, but it is those distinct, colorful robed characters I remember most.
My life often feels like a flannel board. Revolving characters like family, friends, professors, GSIs, random people in breakout rooms and Trader Joe’s cashiers all circulating around me against a “backdrop” of Christianity and biblical truth. And even though I know how the story ends, I enjoy wondering how it will all go down. Does God want me to go to grad school? Does God have someone for me to marry? Does God want me to live in California? I obsess over the plot of my life.
The reality is: God is the creator and the center of the universe, however, in sin, I have made the universe revolve around me. I have made myself the most important person and the main character on the flannel board.
There is some, small element of truth to a flannel board life. After all, the world is a story. It has a beginning, middle, and end. The story of the universe is primarily told through the Bible, but God uses other devices like the Grand Canyon, good music, redwood trees, perfect cups of coffee, the way honeysuckles smell, and hot showers after a day at the beach (and so! much! more!) to reveal himself as good. God isn’t just the narrator of the story of the world, He is the main character.
Colossians 1:16 says “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.” We are his creation, his workmanship. We were not just created by Him, but for Him.
God is holy and immutable and utterly incomprehensible in so many ways, yet he is still a character we can understand because he makes his motives and personality clear. In movies and books, main characters are complex and have the most compelling personality of all the characters. God is no different. The Father describes himself in Exodus 24:6-7 as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty…” He is loving, faithful and just. It’s his personality. The Spirit is our comforter, giver of gifts and teacher. It’s his personality. (John 14:26) And Jesus is Emmanuel, God who is with us. He is compassionate, selfless, determined, generous, righteous, faithful and sacrificial unto death and most importantly, alive. Jesus Christ is the most interesting person, ever.
Our triune God is not only the main character of eternity, He is the hero.
I became a true disciple of Jesus when I surrendered my own self-centeredness and started asking how my life fits into God's story, not how he fits into mine. This is what it means to be restored and reconciled to God: making him the center.
In the story of the universe, we’re living somewhere after the climax and before the resolution. We’ve been introduced to the main character, seen Him defeat the enemy, and we now witness His power, feel His spirit and eagerly await his return. The kingdom is both here and not-yet. How do we live knowing that the hero has been revealed?
I love the language of Romans 12:1-- “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” Having died to our former, broken, self-centered selves, Christ has made us alive. And he’s done this for us so we can now live for God and what he stands for: love.
“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” 1 John 4:11-12
God as the main character should affect the way we read the Bible. Take a classic: David and Goliath. It’s almost intuitive to read 1 Samuel 17 and be impressed by David’s courage as he responds to God’s direction and comes out victorious over the Philistines. But David isn’t the protagonist of the story: God is. We should probably start calling it “David and Goliath and God”. While we’re at it, let’s make it “Daniel and God in the Lion’s Den” and “God’s Ark,” too.
David himself puts it best: it was “the Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine” (v37).
When you read the Bible, don’t try to put yourself in David’s shoes. Be inspired and encouraged by his courage and obedience, but be careful not to make it about you. Goliath is not your student debt or drama with your friend group that God will help you conquer. That makes the story about you. You're not David, God is God.
The Bible shows us God-- who he is and what he's done. While it was written for us, it is not about us.
In The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, Tim Keller cites and expands on a C.S. Lewis quote: “the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking...less of myself, it is thinking of myself less.” Jesus humbled himself to the point of death, even death on the cross (Phillipians 2:8). To become like Jesus is to become humble.
Anytime we’re not living for his glory, we're living for ours. And that is idolatry. We must “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33) To seek the kingdom, we must become like children. Little children look to the Father for guidance in everything, they are humble, they obey. Little children find rest in His arms.
Maybe you'll give glory to God by being ‘successful’ and prosperous, or maybe you’ll bring Him glory by suffering well. Either way, we can bring Him glory in the grand and in the mundane. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says“whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
Ultimately, God is not another supporting character in our flannel-board lives, he is the main character. To live abundantly and purposefully is to live with Him at the center-- to do all things through His love and for His glory.