Reinventing Valentine's Day

Ah, Valentine's Day. A holiday of crushes, boyfriends, girlfriends, dates, flowers, chocolates, cheesy romantic comedies, and general goosh-ery of every variety. We see the store displays with the chubby Cupid with his bow and arrows with the heart tips. We see those nasty little heart-shaped candies with little phrases like 'BE MINE' or "I LUV U' on them. We embrace telling out sweethearts 'I love you, babe' or 'You are beautiful!' or if, you're a fundimentalist Christian, 'I enjoy your presence and would like to pursue you with a friendship outing.' Gag. Not to mention the singles that decide to pout and sit around wishing they had a boyfriend or a girlfriend or were married, etc.

What, really, is the point of all this? One day of the year to focus on... romance? Love? What is Valentine's Day really about? I'm about to give you the Linus answer; you know, where Linus on 'Charlie Brown' stands up on stage and tells the Christmas story? Well, imagine I'm Linus, and it's Valentine's Day.

The Legend of St. Valentine is just that - a legend. There's little historical record about him, and in fact, there were several St Valentines recognized by the early church. I think, though, the idea of his story is what we should look at; the man, yes, but more so his message. If St. Valentine exists only as a parable, so be it - the story is still one of the deepest love. Love you won't find in a Hallmark card or on a balloon or in a sappy romance song.

In a time when Christians were being persecuted for their love for Jesus Christ and the life they led because of that, St. Valentine was a brave man. When they could dip you in burning oil, feed you to lions, or just corner and slay you in the street because of your devotion to Christ, St. Valentine saw that as a problem. Legend has it that Valentine helped many Christians escape the harsh torture and even murdering of his Christian brothers and sister, which perfectly exemplifies John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."

For this, the Roman government had Valentine killed. He died for the sake of the Gospel - showing such TRUE love, and not the sappy romantic crap that ends up on cakes, cards, and Facebook that has been associated with his name these days. What a shame, eh?

Love is a theme that is probably the most profound theme in the Bible. Besides salvation itself, which is basically God proving his love for us, love is an obvious main bullet point in scripture and Jesus' teachings. Love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Love is patient, kind, doesn't envy or boast, is forgiving rejoices in truth, it protects, trusts, hopes, preserves (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). It is the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:36-40). It is God Himself! (1 John 4:18). Doesn't that sound like something you'd devote a holiday to?

What if this year, we forgot all the generally mooshy and sappy traditions and connotations associated with this holiday, and look at it from a Christian perspective? What if we focused on TRUE love, and not the love of some star-crossed teenagers, a dozen roses, or posting the lyrics of out favorite love songs on the internet? What if we treated Valentine's Day like Christmas or Easter? We complain that those holidays are losing their 'true meaning,' but we still celebrate Jesus at least a little bit on those days; why not Valentine's Day?

Think about it: a day devoted to love! Christian love! A type of love that when you see it in others, you don't get depressed; you are filled with joy! A love that when shared can literally change the world! A love that saved you, and a love that is perfectly exemplified in our God.

The Beatles sang 'All you need is Love.' Switchfoot calls the love of God 'A symphony, a melody, a song...' They also say 'Love is the Movement; Love is the revolution.' Jars of Clay says 'Love is the protest!' Muse says 'Love is the Resistance!' Steve Fee says the love of God 'is better than life.' Now, doesn't that sound a lot better than 'BE MINE' or crappy dollar store candy?

I dare you to look at Valentine's Day differently today! Look at it still as a day of love, but as a day of TRUE love. The Christian Love. The kind of Love God has for us. I promise, your holiday, as well as your life, will be much better when we take that into practice.

So Happy Valentines Day! Love this day!!

----

Also, thought this would be cool. I made a playlist called 'Love Is...' and it has a bunch of great songs, all having some variation of the phrase 'Love is.' Enjoy!

Better Without You and Better than You

First off, maybe this is just a 'Matt' thing. I actually don't know if a lot of other people think about this, and if you don't, I'm sorry in advance. Allow to talk about myself for a few paragraphs.

One feeling that seems to rear its ugly head every so often with me is a feeling of insuperiority. Actually, that sounds wrong. That makes it sound like I'm whining when someone is better than me. That's not it at all, really. It's more of a feeling of 'You try so hard... and yet, you can't accomplish what you try... and here's someone else who can.'

I've talked about about lies of the Enemy to degrade ourselves to make us think the worst about ourselves, but this one is tricky. I'm not saying this one is not common, but it's easy to misunderstand by ourselves (and others) as selfishness. Here's a good example.

There's an amazing scene in the newest Harry Potter film, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One' where Ron Weasly and Harry Potter are standing, together, preparing to destroy the Horcrux. If you don't follow the series, you're probably like 'What.' but that's that's okay. The Horcrux is basically the soul of their greatest Enemy, which they are basically battling for seven movies now. Sound familiar?

There they stand with the sword promised to be able to combat the Horcrux, and to destroy it, they must expose it (The allegory is unmistakable). They open the locket, and a flood of darkness and shadow encircle Ron and Harry.

(Note: this is an illegal video someone recorded in the theater, and the title of the video... might detour you from watching it, but it's the scene I'm talking about. Listen to the dialog.')

Wow, huh? How often have we heard the same lie? 'You are nothing... compared to him?'

Voldemort (the Enemy, in our case) uses the same tricks to get us to believe the worst. Poor Ron is attacked over and over again in this scene: "Least loved by your mother who craved a daughter..." "Least loved by the girl who prefers your friend..." Ouch. Voldemort, are you sure you're not talking to me, Matt Walker? It goes on.

A vision appears before Ron. His best friend... saying something that kills him inside. "We were better without you. Happier without you..." Then, Hermione speaks. "Who could even LIKE you..." "What are you... compared to [Harry?]" "What woman would take you... you are nothing..." Yikes.

Seem familiar? Have we not all had the same attacks laid against us before? Have we not all been through exactly what Ron is dealing with in that scene right there? The Enemy telling us things that we know aren't true... but that seem more true than anything else?

"Your friends are happier without you." "Your not at all what your parents wanted." "What woman/man could ever love you?" "So-n-no is superior; why do you even try?" "You are unlovable." "You are nothing."

I know, personally, I deal with at least half of those on a daily basis. The Enemy has a way of digging into the quietest openings in our heart, and despite the Proverbs urging us to 'guard them above all else,' (Proverbs 4:23), he finds a way in. He exploits our weaknesses. He plants thoughts and ideas that turn on us, and eat us alive. Our most clever Enemy knows our heart better than we do it seems... and he knows how to destroy it.

What do we do? How do we stop it? All these lies feel so true. You know they do to Ron Weasly. You know they hurt him deeper than anything. What on earth does he do now? What on earth do We do now?

We have to destroy it.

Like Harry in that scene, we have our friends and people that love us shouting 'It's lying!' or 'Kill it!' but what about when they don't? What about when they let it happen? What if they don't even seem to realize it's happening? What if it seems they don't care?

"Though an army might encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war may rise against me, in [God] I will be confident." (Psalm 27:3)

God is willing to fight with and for you. When the Enemy comes and begins his attack, God is on your side. He wants you to know the truth. He wants you to know your worth. He wants you to know the plans he has for you are for good, a hope and a future; not disaster. (Jeremiah 29:11). He wants you to know that YOU are here because YOU are the best person God could think of, in all of eternity, to do what the work he has planned. Isn't that something? Not only that, but to God, you and the plans he had for you were important enough to die for, before you even knew Him.

Nothing is better without you. Nothing is better than you. God doesn't think so; don't think so yourself. You would not exist had God not said 'They are worth it.'

You are worth it!

How, then, do we fight the Enemy? We attack back. With our own swords (Hebrews 4:12), like Ron did. We attack back.

And we will always be victorious.

Talking to God

It seems to me, the more I grow as a Christian, as a man, as a friend, as just a person in general, the answers we struggle the hardest to get and the solutions we fight for most are the most obvious. When we get them, we suffer a moment of 'Naw-duh, Sherlock,' and that can make us/me feel stupid and embarrassed, but I think it's something we all have in common.

This blog post has the potential to get very personal with a lot of people, but for the sake of anonymity, I suppose it would be polite for me to be as vague as possible while still having some sort of meaning without sounding like I'm a whiny teenager. Ooh, boy. Specifics aren't important anyway, hah.

I'll begin with a question: Have you ever been in a situation where you had no where to turn to for help? I know what you're thinking. 'I ALWAYS HAVE JESUS, HALLELUJAH - AMEN!'

While that's true, be honest - how often do you turn to God for help? That's what I thought. An embarrassingly small amount of the time, isn't it? I can say the same. Whenever something's got me down, or worse... I can honestly say that sometimes God is the last place I will turn for help.

It seems odd to say that, though. Usually, outside of Christianity, we see people only going to God when we need help, but I bet for a lot of us, as Christians, it's easy to maintain a regular prayer life filled with ins-and-outs, daily 'quiet-times' (sweet child of mine, I hate that term), and what have you, but I find myself never really going to God with my problems or... I guess my heart.

I wrote a little bit about this a few weeks back - about opening up to God. I think that is a major part of it. I haven't been nor have I really ever opened up to God, and I find that when I do, He is able to show me things I'd never expected or things I'd never thought of otherwise.

In the past few months, I've been struggling pretty badly with... life, hah. Things got pretty low at one point - they still continue to drop down there now and again. It got to the point where I was physically hurting myself because, you know, apparently that's supposed to help. It didn't. My doctor put my on antidepressants which have helped a tremendous amount, but still... it doesn't fix anything.

So, I figure I could turn to people. My pastors. My family. My closest friends. I've opened up very little to anyone, and when I do, I find myself stuttering, censoring myself, and never really even releasing a coherent thought. Even talking to the people I love most (they can tell you this and are probably reading this now, hah), I'm very secretive, cryptic, and quiet about what goes on in my own heart.

And pretty soon, I found myself in a situation where there was nobody I could talk to. At all. Don't get me wrong - without a doubt in my mind, God places people in our lives to hold us up, pray for us, talk to us, and help us... but what about when we find ourselves going there first? Instead of having people there as pillars of support, I found myself treating them as a foundation of it.

So, in this situation, I found myself getting deeper and deeper into confusion, pain, sadness, and numbness. What was I supposed to do? Recently, it got to the point where I was, literally, angry at God. You know, like the cheesy Christian movies where the protagonist is like 'God, why did you allow this to happen! It's your fault! BLAH!' But I was basically like that.

'God... why are you even allowing this to happen to me? Why... in all of your ability as God and Ruler of the freakin' Universe, would you allow these little things to line up so perfectly that not only are my feelings hurt and my heart in shambles, but I have no one to talk to about it? Why on earth would you allow me to be so alone here?''

That's when I had my 'Naw-duh' moment.

And it's pretty much a recurring theme in the Bible, especially the Psalms.

"Seek the Lord and His strength; seek his face continuously." (Psalm 105:4)

"Those who know your name trust in You; for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you." (Psalm 9:10)

"Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken." (Psalm 55:22)

"In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened; he saved me from all my troubles" (Psalm 34:6)

I think that's what He was trying to tell me. I think God allowed me to fall so deep into this literal depression so that I could see, sooner or later, that the only - the only - way out would be to rely on Him.

The Enemy, of course, was hell-bent (pun intended) on making sure that I felt everything that ever happened to me was the result of my surroundings and not the way I was choosing to deal with them. Think about it - if I break my arm accidentally doing something, who do I go to for help? The people I love? They can comfort me and give me advice, sure, but does that heal me? Do I just go through it alone? No, because my arm would remain broken, wouldn't it? I need the doctor, don't I?

It's a simple, Elementary school analogy, yeah, but it's what I've been doing. Does going to God first with my heart, my troubles, my concerns, my everything fix the situations I'm in? No, not necessarily. There's still going to be pain because the attacks of our most relentless Enemy do not stop because we notice him performing them.

I think the most important thing for us... and me, really... to remember is that God is Father, and I am his son. He wants me to come to Him, because he loves me, and is willing to help me. He's willing to just listen if that's all I need. How many times has that happened to you - you're talking something out to someone, and they say nothing at all but continue to let you talk because they know you'll eventually come to the conclusion yourself? I think God does that a lot with us.

The bottom line I want to say is the God listens, and God helps. Sometimes, He allows absolute crap to pour into our lives from every direction so we see that there is no one else that can really help us but Him.

Questions for you now: How much do you trust God? I mean 'trust' in the sense can you really tell him everything, like a best friend... like a Father the Bible says He is? Can you be open to God? He did everything in His Power (and the God of Eternity has a lot of power) to be with you; can't you spare more than a campy ritualistic 'quiet time' with Him? It's something to think about.

As I pray today, I ask that you join me in really just going to God and opening your heart. Forget 'praying,' sit down and talk with God like you have a relationship with Him. That's what Christianity is, and we often tell people that, but act like we don't believe it. 'It's not a religion; it's a relationship!' we'll glibly spew along with every other Christian cliche, but we still pray like God is a stained-glass window image in the cathedral of our mind. I think he deserves and wants more than that. I think I want more that that.

So, try it today. Talk to God. Tell Him about your day. About what makes you happy. About what makes you sad. About how much you love your friends. About how much you liked that movie you saw. About that nasty food you ate at the mall the other day. Be reverent, but fod God's sake, be personal. God is a person. A person who loves you.

Pray for me, too, reader, as I learn this with you.

-Matt

Merry Christmas!

I'd like to wish you and your family and friends a very happy, very safe, very blessed Christmas. Thanks for reading 'The Bigger Story,' and I hope that you realize that Jesus is NOT the reason for the season! YOU are! He came here for YOU!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

-from

Matt Walker

An Obvious Perspective on Prayer

I pray a lot. I mean, I'm a Christian - someone who has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ; of course, I'm going to talk to Him. I pray when I get up, usually when I eat, throughout the day, in the shower, in the car, when I'm going to bed, and in bed. I set aside a special time each day to study His word, and to pray (I... set the time aside, although I'm not the best at keeping it...), but I do pray often. 1 Thessalonians says we need to pray without ceasing, and for the most part I think I do that. At least, I do more than some Christians...

But I had a brief conversation (actually, it was more like a few passing comments) between a good friend of mine, named Whitney that really made me think about how I pray.

First off, a little bit of background. These past few months have been pretty rough for me. I've been really down, I've had a lot on my mind, I've been really kind of sad these days. It's gotten pretty bad at times, too. There were some people I knew I needed to apologize to, to be open with, to be honest with, and just needed to speak to, but I've been finding it hard to be open with... anyone.

If you have a personality like me, you know how hard it can be to be open with anyone - even the people you're closest to; the people you love. It's taken me two weeks before to work up the courage to say things to some of my best friends before - I'm not shy, I just have a hard time giving any bit of my heart to anyone it would seem.

Well, I said something about this the other day - about it being hard to be open with people. Whitney said something that, at the time, I thought was nice, but it wasn't until days later I remember what she said, and my perspective was changed drastically.

She said (paraphrased, not quoted), that she knew how I felt - she has problems with that, too. Then, Whitney said something that seemed like the obvious thing to do, but I realized I had never done it. She said that, really, the only one she felt she could really open up to was God (and once in a while, their little pup that I have a love/bark-madly-at relationship with, but that's not important.)

And it wasn't until a few days later that I really sat down and thought about that. 'Even though I pray often... have I really ever opened up to God?' The more I thought about it, the more I realized... no, I have not.

I realized that most of the time, my prayers could fall under four catergories: Please, Thank You, You Are, I Am.

Please being requests to God, like 'Please keep me safe today,' or 'Please let so-n-so feel better,' or 'Please let me be on time for class today.

Thank You being thanks for what God has done. 'Thank you for today,' 'Thank you for this food,' 'Thank you for providing and protecting...'

You Are meaning praise to God, like 'You are so good God - you are holy, you are the King, you are my lord, and I love you.'

I Am being confession, like 'I am a liar, lord - please forgive me.' 'I am so sorry for rebelling and not being obedient here and here, etc.'

The thing with all these, though, is they are crucial to a prayer life. All four of those things are great things that we are supposed to pray about. But then I started thinking about what Whitney said - about opening up to God.

I'm reminded that God calls us his children, and we call Him 'Father.' I imagine that when I become a father someday, I hope that my dearly beloved children will want a relationship with me because I want one with them. I hope they talk to me often, because I love them... but I hope they talk to me like their father, and not just with please/thank you/ you are/ I am. It's a relationship, but... not much of one, is it?

So last night, I decided that I was going to try praying at least once without using the PTYYAIM format. At first, it was very awkward. I felt whiny and childish, just talking to God - treating him like a father, I guess, was new to me. I felt that some things I'd tell him about were so pointless and petty. Then, I was stricken with a thought.

It was almost like God said to me 'I love and died for your heart, Matt. If it matters to your heart, it matters to me.'

At that moment, I was just kind of surprised and in awe. I really opened up to God. Told him everything. I even cried a bit. I laughed a bit. It was like no prayer I'd ever said before, ever. And I was just being open with the God who knew it all anyway. Wow.

So, my point of this blog is this - try being open with God. Talk to him like a Father - a Father who loves you enough to listen, to guide, to say 'I love you, son,' or 'I love you, daughter.' A Father who is always there, even when you can't sleep in the wee hours of the morning, or when you feel alone and deserted by everyone else. "Oh, how I would treat you like my own children.." the Bible says in Jeremiah. We can trust Him. We can talk to him - really talk to him. He loves us enough to listen.

It seems so obvious too, doesn't it? Most revelations or 'wake up moments' we get as Christians usually are. It just took some wise words of a close friend to get the idea into my head. :)

So try being open with God today. He's listening. :)

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7)

I am an After-Thought

Let me begin with this question.

Have you ever felt like an after-thought?

Jason finds out there's an outing planned by his closest friends and they invite him at the last minute... or not at all. Laura feels left out when her parents are discussing the success of her older brother. David wonders if his friends talk to him out of anything other than pity. 'If I just didn't show up one day, would anyone miss me?' he thinks. Megan's closest friends often will leave her behind or not even say hello when they see her.

Have you ever felt like that? Sure you have. Everyone has. I have. Plenty of times.

I have a philosophy. If the Enemy is not attacking a Christian, he has no reason to. If Luke Skywalker and the rebels didn't fight to destroy the Death Star, do you think that Darth Vader would have flown his own personal TIE fighter out into battle? If Sauron didn't believe Frodo had any chance at making it up to Mt. Doom, would he have sent hoards of orcs after them? If Lord Voldemort didn't think Harry Potter, the Boy who Lived, was any threat to him, would he have devoted his strength and ability to killing a mere teenager?

As a Christian, we have an Enemy, too, don't we? The bible calls him a 'deceiver.' In fact, his first assault on attempting to rip humanity from the arms of God was to get them... us, essentially... to believe his lie.

What lie is he trying to feed you? I think I've figured out mine.

'You are an after-thought.'

I think the one thing that can destroy my confidence... that can isolate me from the people I love... that can singe my heart to ash is thinking and feeling 'I am an after-thought.' And I feel that quite often, coming from the people I love the most, no less.

It's a very lonely thing - the feeling that you're not important enough to matter, or that your closest friends or your own family acknowledge you only out of pity or so they don't look completely rude. It's led to many tears, many days where I just don't want to get out of bed... it's even led to me going to the doctor and having him put me on antidepressant medication... but they haven't helped at all. What is wrong with me?

Am I really so unlikable that even the people I thought I was closest to or the people I love the most scoff in disgust at the thought of me? That they hear me speak and look away? They run off and leave me behind, they plan family dinners without me, or they just plain act like they don't care at all? What have I done to offend them - Am I really so wretched?

This is an attack on my own heart if I've ever seen one... and I've seen plenty.

The thought of being an after-thought was plaguing my mind the other night and, I don't know how, but I began a text message conversation with someone I've probably only shook hands with once, but have Facebooked and had phone conversations with for a while now. He's a new friend that came about from both of us having a mutual friend - anyway, we were texting, and he ended up being a major encouragement to me.

I forgot how it came up, but I think I asked him just what I'm writing about right now. 'Have you ever felt like an after-thought? Like, even to the people you love the most?' His answer was absolutely a God-send; just what I needed to hear, even if it was something I already knew (which these things often are).

"...If we can wrap our minds around this, we'll never be the same. To your Savior, you are never an after-thought. You are His only thought!" (Zach R.)

Wow, huh? It's true, though. Even though I knew this already, it feels very important to have someone tell you this, personally. The very idea that there is actually someone - the God of the universe - doesn't even look at me as just a part of the human race, but as an individual; as someone who He has plans for, as someone He's proud of... someone He died for JUST so that He could be with... me? That is an incredible truth.

That's not just feel-good Christian talk, either. We find it all throughout the Bible, but I think it's summed up best in the most popular Bible verse of all. John 3:16.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

A more heart-felt translation might put it this way.

"God loved you, as an individual, so much, He stepped down out of His own Kingdom to die for you - to pay your debt - because he loved you so much. Because He has done so, He's given you the opportunity to live forever, and perish not."

John Eldredge says this in his breath-taking book, 'Waking the Dead.'

"We rebelled, and the penalty for our rebellion was death. To lose [you] was too great a pain for God to bear, and so he took it upon himself to rescue [you]." -John Eldredge

I think when we think of Jesus coming to save the world, we think about Jesus coming to save everyone rather than Jesus coming to save EVERY ONE. Notice the space. Every individual, not just humanity as a collective. He came to ransom and rescue you, dear reader. He came to rescue you, specifically. Think about that for a moment. He came to rescue you, as an individual.

Which reminds me that... He came to rescue me. He came to rescue Matt Walker.

I am no after-thought to the person who matters most. I am adored by Jesus Christ. So much so, that being nailed to a beam of wood, hanging for hours with broken bones as a crown of thorns lodged into his skull causes him to die a slow and painful death... was less painful than the very thought of being apart... from me. Matt Walker. For God so loved Matt Walker...

Even though I know my friends love me, even though I know my family loves me, even if they didn't... the fact of the matter is that nothing I could ever do can separate me from God's love. The remarkable thing about that love - the thing that proves I am no after-thought - is that God chose me, like he chose you. It wasn't a collective salvation effort. He looked at me, he looked at you, and there was not a doubt in His mind: '[Insert Name Here] is worth it, to me.' That is an incredibly encouraging thought.

Next time you struggle with the idea of being an after-thought, or even less than that... remember that, quite simply, you are not. You're more than just a sinner saved by grace. You're more than a Christian, and you're more than a number on some divine Christian tally list. You are an heir to a Kingdom because the almighty Creator and Ruler of existence said 'You know, I love that guy/girl so much, that I'm going to have them do big things.' You are loved.

I am loved.

Thanks for reading.

Story Teller, Part Two: 'Character Development'

"He's a real Nowhere Man, sitting is his Nowhere Land, making all his Nowhere Plans for Nobody..."

Peter Parker is the nerdy High School kid that just wants to 'get the girl.' Frodo Baggins is a Hobbit from the Shire where 'nobody ever had adventures or did anything unexpected.' Luke Skywalker is the lonely farm boy on the desert planet of Tatooine where he feels he's 'never gonna get out of [there...].' Harry Potter is a miserable orphan living with his awful Aunt and Uncle who 'were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.' Sora is a teenage boy from a small island in the middle of nowhere. Link is a Kokiri child living in a tree house. Abraham Lincoln is born, poor, in a log cabin, and homeschools himself by candlelight for years. Jesus of Nazareth is born the son of a common carpenter in a barn.

All these stories, whether they're fictional or not, all start similarly, do they not? You have your main character living a pretty... boring life. Sometimes, it's a hard one, at that. King David is a scrawny shepherd. Aragorn is basically Middle Earth's equivalent of a hobo. Jack Shepherd is a normal doctor with daddy issues. The list goes on, and on, and I think, a lot of times, we can relate. I know I can.

Some one asked me not too long ago to 'tell them the Matt Walker story.'
"I'm afraid it's pretty unexciting and uneventful up to this point," I replied.
"Well, it's not finished yet," he said.

In part one, I talked about my drive to be a story teller. About how, since birth basically, I've been creating stories and tales and worlds and characters because... it just felt right. Whether I express that through my writing, or filmmaking, or even just imagining and dreaming - I feel, at my core, I was born - I was created - to be a story teller. But, at the end of the last post, I expressed how things have slowed down considerably in recent days.

Which makes me think about where I could possibly be in my timeline right now. Sometimes... actually, a lot of the time, lately... I feel like Bilbo having morning tea with Gandalf. Glancing out the window on the lovely home he's blessed with, but feeling... discontented. 'Like... butter scraped over too much bread,' he says. Sometimes, I feel like Peter Parker, dreaming of the day he can get the girl, move past his years as a teenager, and get on to what he was meant to do. Sometimes, I feel like Luke Skywalker or Sora from 'Kingdom Hearts' and I just want to... go.

Go away, physically? Not really. More like... hurry up. Go ahead. Get to Act II. Press the 'Next' button on the remote; skip to the next chapter; cut to the chase. You get my drift.

I know this is foolish, I know it is. I know I'm supposed to 'Wait for the lord, be strong and take heart,' (Psalm 27:14) and I know that 'God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them,' (Romans 8:28) but when? When does Obi-Wan give me my lightsaber? When does Gandalf tell me I need to leave for Rivendell? When does the radioactive spider bite me, or when does Hagrid knock down my door one day and say 'Guess what, Matt? You're not only capable, but were born with the natural ability, to do extraordinary, supernatural, unexplainable things?'

It feels like it's taking forever.

Worse than that, I feel like I'm going the wrong direction. Even though I know it takes time and patience to get there - it's a long path, indeed - I feel like I'm going down the wrong path altogether. Like in 'The Fellowship of the Ring' when the Company is nearly brought down by the mighty blizzard on top of Mt. Caradhras, as they're going the wrong way in the first place. I'm not acting like Jonah, though, where God told him to go one way, and he's going in the other - no, not at all. I feel like I'm out at sea without a map. Lost in the forest without a guide. Wandering a mountain range without so much as a path.

But (and here comes the kicker)... is that such a bad thing?

Think about a story that begins with the hero in Nowheresville, doing nothing, with no adventure, no lover, no nothing. Where do we learn the most of that person? Where do authors and filmmakers take the time to develop their characters? In the first scenes and in the first chapters. Where do television producers take time to tell back stories, to develop personalities, to make you care about the people they've created? In the first season. In the first Act.

So what is the Author of eternity doing and planning during my first chapter, or rather, my first book?

A lot of the time, our favorite characters are thrust into circumstance that later lead to the rest of their story. Luke's home is attacked, the storm visits the Destiny Islands, word of Voldemort rising again startles the Wizarding World, etc. But they all start from somewhere, do they not? 'From humble beginnings...' we hear often.

My prayer these days is that God is developing me like a hero in an epic story. That He is using this time of seemingly inactivity to shape me into the person - the man - I was created to be, prepared to do the things He has prepared me to do, and the stories He has inspired me to tell. My prayer is that when the day does come that the Ring falls into my hands, that I know what to do with it. When I take off with Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi, that I understand the ways of the Force. That when I stumble through the wardrobe in to Narnia, I'm wearing a coat to keep me warm and safe. That when the time comes, I'm ready to take up my cross and follow Him.

That is my prayer. It's exciting to think about the future, and the good things God has planned for us. Let us not, however, forget the crucial step of character development. Without character development... well, we're just in a crappy movie like 'Avatar,' aren't we?

So it is, eventually, that Peter Parker becomes Spider-man, and saves the city and wins the heart of Mary Jane. Frodo Baggins saves Middle Earth. Luke Skywalker redeems his own father, and puts an end to tyranny in the Galaxy. Harry Potter defeats the Dark Lord. Sora understands the light that exists in the human heart. Link defeats Gannondorf, Abraham Lincoln becomes the President that sets the slaves free, and Jesus Christ raises from the dead, and ascends into Heaven.

I wonder what Matt Walker will do?