Feb 8, 2010

Is That What I'm Thinking?

Someone is writing a biography about someone (I won't say who) and it has started me thinking...

I don't know how it is possible.  Without being God, no one - even if they were to pour over my journals and novels and blogs and facebook posts, even were they to interview all my closest friends and sisters and relatives and roommates - no one would be able to actually perceive, much less understand, the inner workings of my heart or of my ongoing conversation with God.

I know this because I am barely capable of understanding myself, myself.  And when God is completely gracious and gives a little word of enlightenment, my reaction is usually, "Oh!  Is that what I'm thinking?  Oh!  Yes, I think it is!"  (This is all very Biblical:  Jer. 17:9; I Kings 8:39.)  Added to that - the number of times I'm near a journal and have the time and umph to write said revelation down, is very few.

Then, when one IS journaling, the hand simply cannot keep up with the spirit and the mind, and ends up recording every tenth thought or so, so that there is no paper record of the split-second interactions with Jesus that brought one to Thought #10, then Thought #20.  A biographer would be left to speculate in the worst of ways, devoid of most the pertinent information.

For all these reasons, I think it prudent to request - please do not write a biography of me when I'm dead.  Thank you.  Unless you're only interested in "on such-and-such a date she went to school; on such-and-such a date she went to China" and that sort of thing.  Very boring, I warn you.

When I meet Perpetua in heaven (or on the Millennial earth, whichever one I end up in first) I am very glad that on the back of my little book about her is not the word "biography", but "historical fiction".  I did my best by her, based on as much understanding as the Lord and nature would give me through her own writings, her political/geographical/economic context, and my own observances of how God works in hearts.  But as far as writing a true biography, tracing the true movements of an individual human heart - I think only the Lord Himself is qualified to write that about any of us.  This is why we may be often surprised when we meet our famous men during the eternal years and realize how very different they are than we thought.  We might even discover that autobiographies are among the worst of the bunch for giving real insight into the person canvassed.  For what man can know his own heart?

1 comment:

Annie Peterson said...

It is so reassuring that God can write that biography of us! There is something so very vital about being known, and the fact that God can fill that is one of the most precious things in life, I think.