Playing God

   Being God is a tough job. There are many misconceptions about it, many who want nothing to do with those in that profession, many who say they appreciate what God does but live their lives as if they don't. Human relations have to be the toughest part of it. I wonder if God's laughing right now. "You don't know the half of it," he's saying. He's right. I don't even know how much I try his patience. I am one of seven billion people on this planet, not to mention those who have passed on before me. I have no idea how hard his job is. It's incon-
   I'm getting way off the point.
   There are many reasons we writers take up the pen. If you were to ask a hundred writers why they write, ninety-nine would probably give you one or more of responses similar to these:

• "I write for the money."
• "I write for the possibility of being famous."
• "I write for the fun of it."
• "I write for the glory of God."

There is one response, however, that I never expect to hear anyone say, though I believe it's one of a writer's most common motivations.

• "I write for the thrill of playing God."

   Does that shock you? It shouldn't. Think about it. As writers of fiction, we create and control everything about our character's lives, inside, and out. We are, in a sense, the "gods" of our story world.
   Though we are gods, there are still things we cannot do. Our characters will never have free choice. We control their choices, and we are the author of their thoughts. They are simply our robots, dead without the life we give them. They live in our books, but each time our books are read, they will go through the same performance, changing nothing, immune to boredom. Because of this obedience (indeed, they have no choice but to obey) they will never give us the same grief that we give God. Though writing a story can be frustrating, we will never have to fix it after our characters mess it up, ever. They are unable to mess up, for their messing up is always according to our plan.
   All writers are capable of using this reason of part of our motivation, whether they know it or not. I, for one, have a skyscraper-like need for control, and I'm sure I have used it in the not-so-distant past.
    Does this desire for playing God mean that Christian should not write stories? No, absolutely not. Harriet Beecher Stowe told a story that raised the awareness of a nation to the injustice of slavery. And who is to say that God did not work through the stories of C.S. Lewis?
   The answer is not to stop writing, but to allow God to be the God of our stories, and not us.
   Unlike us, God has the power to give us free choice. We are not robots. We have the choice to either take control of our own lives, or to allow him to take control. The answer for Christians is to allow God to control our writing, even as we allow him to control our lives. That, I believe, is the only way to destroy this subconscious desire to play God.

   I think this is my favorite post to date. I'm a little surprised. I don't usually like writing non-fiction.
   Your turn. Let's keep it simple: What are you thinking?