My pastor made a cool statement in church recently. He had been talking about the respectable sins and how we all struggle with some of these in certain ways (i.e. materialism, pride, unbridaled passions). He finished up the series by saying words any writer would latch on to. He said “We are all a work-in-progress.”

Sigh.

It’s true, isn’t it? A writer goes through a long arduous process to get published. You will often hear a story that is being written as a WIP (work-in-progress). Because it is. The initial ideas gets written down, research needs to be done, extraneous adverbs deleted, plot twits tied up neatly and if you write romance like I do, a happily ever after that will satisfy. Ultimately though we want a character who starts out one way and grows through the course of the novel in spite of or maybe because of the challenges he or she faces.

God is working on us too. We are set apart as a story of His grace in our lives. He is the author that decides the plot twists we will experience and how we will grow through it all. The difference is that we don’t get a rewrite. We cannot edit or delete misspoken words.  In one story I wrote I ended up deleting close to 8,000 words, taking my character back to one decision that changed the trajectory of the story. We don’t get to do that in real life although God, through the righteousness of Christ, erases our sins. We are still left with the consequences but he doesn’t leave us alone or without help to deal with them.

And like a loving author of a beautiful romance, we do have a happily ever after to look forward to.

Sometimes when life is hard I forget all of this and I need that reminder. Life isn’t whipping me around – but God is sovereignly writing His story of redemption and I get to be one of His characters, loved and important for the particular role He has placed me in.