Shine: Stepping Into The Role You Were Made Forনমুনা

Allison Allen: Shine, Stepping into the Role You Were Made For Devotional Day 3

Your Part in God’s Drama

Scripture: Ephesians 2:10

Long before the word meant an emotional performance or fodder for reality TV, “drama” meant to do something significant in the story being told. It meant to face conflict. It meant gutsy, decisive choice. It meant to act.

In many ways, God himself was the prototypical actor on the messed-up scene of humankind. Onto that Genesis garden stage he entered, back when we were playing hide-and-go-seek behind fig-leaf costumes. There, God sought us out, spoke to our fearfully sinful hearts, and set ultimate redemption in motion because he was intent on the eternal Drama of acting on our behalf. Because if the God of the universe didn’t do something dramatic, you and I would never reenter Eden—not on earth, nor in eternity. We needed Someone to step in. Someone to change the course of the broken way things were going. In other words, Someone to act. 

And God our hero did act, setting in motion capital D Drama, the likes of which will continue until the Director says, “Time for time’s final bow. Bring down the curtain.” But until that moment, you and I, as followers of Jesus, are compelled to take the stage with him.

Of course, one woman’s God-stage is not another’s. I’m thankful for that, because if I tried to stand on your stage, in your light, I’d be doing so in my own gumption and not by the empowering grace of Christ. God doesn’t call us to stand on someone else’s stage any more than he calls us to stand in someone else’s shadow. 

Your particular stage may be that opulently lit boardroom where it’s time to raise some uncomfortable questions. Or perhaps it’s your annual candlelit Christmas dinner, where your teenager announces that he no longer believes in Jesus. Your stage may be under the streetlight where you offer hope to a fragile woman. Maybe it is where you rise up under flourescent lights and bravely spit out the pain of a secret addiction that has kept you in prison for years.

Not one stage is more stunning than the other. Not one is more necessary. Not one is more effective. The kingdom needs them all. 

What role do you believe you’ve been invited to play in the divine Drama of God?