We are all authors… Some with pens in hand, some with narratives nested so deep inside that they bleed into every glance, greeting, and goodbye. While we may never see our names on a book spine, our stories are already published… on the pages of our thoughts, in the chapters of our conversations, and in the margins of how we treat each other.
The question isn’t if you’re telling a story.
The question is… what kind?
Every day, we draft tales about ourselves. We write the “why” behind someone’s silence. We imagine the “what” in a friend’s hurried tone. We build backstories for strangers at stoplights, sometimes turning them into villains before the light changes.
Some of us write with ink dipped in truth. Others, with ink clouded by our own hurts, painting people in colors they’ve never worn. Here lies the tension… when our vision is distorted, our storytelling drifts from memoir to slander without us ever noticing. A cracked lens can make a halo look like horns.
It’s not that fiction is always wrong. We have all read stories created to teach us principles and lessons in life. Even the parables Christ told are holy echoes of truth. But when fiction is born from fear, pride, or unchecked wounds, it doesn’t guide… it confines. We lock people inside stories they never auditioned for, never realizing how heavy it is to live under the weight of someone else’s imagination.
These stories blind us from experiencing the actual moment… leaving us stuck in the small cell of our subjective lens.
In the Gospels, there was this guy who was blind from the streets of Jericho. His name was Bartimaeus. It’s fair to say… Bartimaeus’ point of view was subjected to his blindness. One day… Jesus and his disciples were sliding out of Jericho… when they encountered Bartimaeus after he cried out for help.
Christ asked him: “what do you want me to do or you?”
The answer wasn’t profound… It wasn’t poetic. It was simply: “I want to see!” (Mark 10:46-52 NLT).