We are actors in a play

We play many roles during our lifetime. The hard part is knowing when to play which role. We are often unaware that the curtain is falling, and another act is about to begin. Don't become one of those sad actors, playing a role that has already ended. You know someone like this: They are no longer relevant, and they are reciting lines that belong in another act, in another time. 

There is another danger: Playing our role on stage and then running off the stage and into the audience. We take a seat and heckle ourselves. It is God's play, not our own: allow him to determine the value of your performance. As actors, we do not know when the final curtain will fall. We do not know the outcome of the play or even how storylines resolve themselves. There are twists that only the author understands.

The thought that "we are all actors in a play" is an old idea that reminds us that we do not have enough information to make heads or tails of too much of what’s going on around us. We are forced to ad-lib, to improvise, to guess our way through life.

CS Lewis wrote, “We keep on assuming that we know the play. We do not even know whether we are in Act I or Act V. We do not know who are the major and who the minor characters. The Author knows.” And then there's Garrison Keillor's quip: "God writes a lot of comedy...the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny."

Stephen Goforth