The Plot: Part 01 Character Development
November 2, 2008
Imagine with me for a moment that a man walks into a store and begins to load his pockets down with food. He then tries to slip out of the store without paying for it. The store owner sees him and begins to fight with him to get back the stolen food.
What are your initial thoughts? Most would feel that the man didn’t have the right to steal the food and that the store owner was well within his rights to try and get it back.
I love stories. My favorite teachers in college taught as story tellers. These few teachers told history as a story. One teacher in particular was great at this. Brother Crabtree would have the entire class on the edge of their seat and then class would be over and he would just stop. People would beg to hear the rest, but he always responded don’t miss the next class. I think this type of learning is so good because it is enteresting and exciting.
A great story form today is “the movie.” I own lots of movies and we have some great family nights watching great movies. Have you ever seen a bad movie though. A poorly made movie is almost always one with a poor storyline or plot. One aspect of a great plot is a great character. Character development helps us better understand not only the fact that a person is doing something, but what drove them to it.
Let me retell my story….
Imagine for a moment that man who was stealing the food was doing so because he and his family were starving. In fact his wife had just died and he was left with three children to fend for. This man wasn’t just stealing though to eat. In fact for years he had owned his own farm and grew his own crop. A group of men had come into town and began to force the people of the town to pay an extremely high tax to them in order to live there. This group of men had no right to do this. They were just stronger and better equipped than the towns people. So in fact this man was fed up and had come to the store to steal what he felt was truelly his.
So now how do you feel about the man stealing food? What about the store owner? With a better understanding of the characters involved we see the story differently.
The same is true in the greatest story ever. The story of God. Most of us will live our lives knowing some truths, but never understanding them. The confusion comes in to the picture when we don’t know the characters. So who is God? Just the creator of everything? I could answer this question with a lot of scriptures about who God is, but you need to see Him for yourself. God wants to reveal Himself to you. Better understanding the character traits of God, the central character in the story, will help you to better interpret life.
There is another character that needs some attention in this story and that is you. Most of us feel like we’re good people and think that we’re doing what we should. The problem is that we don’t want to really examine ourselves and understand our own character, because we won’t like what we find.
Once we connect with the characters in the story we want sequels and TV shows about them. We want more and more of them. The same will be true of God. The days of complacency will be gone and apathy will be no more when we understand the character of God as He moves in our lives.
