A couple of weeks ago, I was on holiday with the family in Queensland.
Driving down the coastal highway, a billboard caught my eye. It was an ad for Expedia, the travel company, and simply read: "You were made to be the main character".
Now that is a great piece of advertising.
It’s an appealing thought: that my fun, my goals, my journey, my adventures — my story — could be the whole point. That this is what I’m made for.
After all, I was on holiday. In Queensland. The weather was warm. There were beaches to explore.
The idea of being the main character in a sun-drenched travel story? It was almost believable.
But then I flew home.
Back to real life — back to early starts and school drop-offs; full inboxes and diaries.
I found myself wondering: how does "you were made to be the main character" hold up in the every day? When it’s not all excitement and drama, but routine and responsibilities?
The slogan starts to feel like pressure.
And how does it work if everyone is the main character?
If I’m the protagonist, what are you? A sidekick? A supporting act? An extra in the background? That gets awkward quickly.
In fact, it feels a little lonely — and more than a little self-absorbed.
And yet ... it resonates, doesn’t it? We do long for a story.
We want our lives to make sense. To count. To be part of something meaningful. That’s why the billboard works.
There’s a quiet assumption behind the slogan: that we were made for something.
That our lives aren’t just random. That we’re intended. That we have a purpose.
The question is: made for what? And by whom?
In the Christian faith, this question of purpose is front and centre. The Bible tells us we are not self-created beings and life is not a choose-your-own-adventure novel.
We were made by a loving Creator. And the invitation is to discover what we’re made for by getting to know the One who made us.
We find our deepest meaning not by placing ourselves at the centre of the story, but by discovering our place in his.
And at the heart of that story is not us, but God’s Son.
"All things have been created through him and for him," the apostle Paul writes.
Jesus shows us what human life is ultimately for, and we live the purpose for which we were made when our lives are arranged in reference to him.
But more than that — astoundingly — though he had every right to be the centre, Jesus did not live as though it were all about him.
He did not serve himself but served. He lived beyond himself, and he gave himself — his very life — for the redemption of lost human beings.
Here lies the paradox: self-fulfilment does not come through its own pursuit.
Rather it is as we receive Jesus’ love and grace, and then begin to reflect it, as we live beyond ourselves, and towards others, that we are most fully human.
Rather than composing a story for ourselves in which we are the star, we are invited to step into his — a story where we are deeply loved, profoundly known, and drawn into a great saga of redemption and hope.
■Ben Hudson is the pastor at Grace Bible Church in Dunedin.
