What's being written in your book?

Recently in some reading I was doing I came across a statement by J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan that caught my attention. He wrote: The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another.

That line got me thinking about the ‘book’ that I’m writing. Is it the ‘book’ that I want written or is the book just being written? There is no way that any of us can control every aspect of our life. As a matter of fact there are huge portions of life that are really out of our control. We can’t control those things but we can control the parts of life that we can control.

For instance, I can’t control the unexpected health conditions that might arise but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t aspects of my health that I can control and that I better control or else there will be many more unexpected health conditions. People can’t control everything about a job or work. They can be ‘let go’ in an instant because of something that was not in their control. There are many things about work though that is in person’s control. Are they the best possible employee? Are they responsible? Do they honor the people they work with?

This same idea is true regarding school. A student can’t control everything about school or everyone in a school environment but they can control themselves in the environment and the situation. An athlete can’t control everything about the sport or the team that they are a part of but they can control themselves as a team member and as an athlete.

Am I ‘writing’, by controlling and being responsible, the story that I want written or am I just letting life write the story? The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in the city of Corinth about the believers in that gathering being a ‘letter of Christ’ that people read. Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This "letter" is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:3 NLT)

What is written in the story of your life is not totally up to you but it is not up to chance either. What does the chapter about you as a spouse, a parent, a sibling, a student, an employee or a community member say about you? Is what you want to be written being written?