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TITLE: The Sound and Fury January 24, 2012
By Frankie Kemp
01/24/13
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This little "blip" came to me one morning after a really trying to hear from the Lord and talking to Him about how hard it is to hear Him sometimes in the circumstances of life. After getting up from my designated "quiet place" and going about my business of getting ready for the day, this came to me. Hope it touches something in others who truly want to hear Him. I originally typed it up as a Facebook status. Today . . .well, today I see that it ought to be shared elsewhere.
The Sound and Fury

At the end of Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, when all of Macbeth’s plotting and scheming has exploded all around him in blood and death, he makes one of the most startling statements in the entire play that reveals something about us all:

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

What a tragedy—to make that kind of assumption about life itself—that it has no meaning and no purpose. But don’t we all feel that way at different times and for different reasons—that our lives are without meaning, and we are simply living out some strange drama told by an idiot full of sound and fury? Sometimes we are the idiots telling the noisy and furious tale, but like Macbeth, we don’t want to admit that. Sometimes circumstances thrown at us are the noisy and furious directors of our “hours upon the stage.”

But, my question is, do we have to draw the same conclusion Macbeth did? Do we really want to live like that, believing that are lives are but a walking shadow and signify nothing? Do we have to?

We don’t. We don’t. There is MORE. It is true that our lives on this earth are brief, and we are not as in charge as we think we are, but when our hearts are surrendered to the One who is the author of our lives, we can rest knowing that just as He writes every act in the drama of our lives, He is very much involved with the plot and the storyline. We can know that He knows how the story ends and that His intentions toward us are for good and not for evil. We can even participate in the movements on the stage, no matter how dark or loud or furious. We are not poor players. There is MORE, and all the more is found in one place: Jesus.

Without Him, I am like pitiful Macbeth. With Him . . . with Him, well, who knows who we are like? He shows us and reveals the MORE. That’s the beauty of it: knowing Him makes all the difference.

In John 10:10 Jesus said, “The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy: I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.” (ASV)

The abundant life that He promises us is not found in our earthly possessions or whatever things we can acquire with our own doings. The abundant life that He promises us begins in our hearts—in the unseen places of our souls. The abundant life is knowing Him and walking through our hours upon the stage responding to His direction. All else, for me, is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury.
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