I love self-help books. Give me a motivational book, chalk-full of usable, transformational information and you have me hooked for the next few hours. Give me a fiction book and I’m snoozing in ten minutes. That being said, although I believe these books are helpful, I also believe they do us a disservice too. Why? Because they lead us to believe that we’re the authors of our own story. That we’re the ones who ultimately run the show and call the shots. That we, not God, are in control.
Why is this such a bad thing, you may think? Well, for one thing, we’re often terrible writers of our own stories and we usually have to go back and rewrite our mistakes and flawed story lines. We also use an imperfect medium to write our story with. We dip our pens into our inkwells of pride, bitterness, and disbelief to write our stories and the end result can be a tragic melodrama instead of a wonderfully written masterpiece.
But wouldn’t it be nice to have the master author write our stories for us? Wouldn’t it be amazing if our stories were crafted with love, compassion, strength, and harmony. When we allow God to sculpt our stories, it can be.
So, although I encourage you to read motivational books and always work on self-improvement, remember to pray that God’s hand is always writing your story. That your progression is with His solid guidance and that your story has His happy ending in sight.
