The Ruler and The Tyrant: A Short Story

Part 1 - Subjects of Antiquity

A little kingdom called Antiquity sat just beneath a great hill, which sat beneath a great castle. The kingdom was governed by a good, just, and omniscient king called the Ruler. The Ruler promised to reply to any letter sent to Him by His subjects, but as a rule communicated only through His servants, the Pure Ones.

One day much like any other, a young boy met a dignified gentleman, and had the following encounter.

“I’m Sorrow,” the little boy choked out between muffled sobs. He was.

“That’s unfortunate,” replied the stoic young gentleman. “But that’s that. That’s the way life is.”

“Yes,” said Sorrow, looking dismally at the ground. “It always has been.”

“True enough,” said the gentleman, “And always will be. You see,” he leaned down to look the boy straight in the eyes, “I have learned a secret.”

Sorrow’s expression was unchanged, but he listened with rapt attention to the mystery about to be revealed.

“The Ruler is a myth.”

Sorrow burst into tears, and the well dressed gentleman looked quite displeased with him. 

“No no!” He cried, “The Ruler is very real, and it is very dangerous to say such a thing. Take that back this moment— (his breathing staggered from crying) I entreat you! Before some—awful thing comes upon you, and you’re never—heard from again!”

“This is what I thought you might say,” the young gentleman replied, unmoved. “But have you ever thought, Poor Sorrow, about how the Ruler is said to know your very thoughts?”

Sorrow nodded.

“Well then,” he concluded, “You have already disproven yourself. You believe, by your own assertion, that the Ruler must and will punish all wrongdoing, including rebellion. If the Ruler is so powerful that He knows your thoughts, how have any of us survived? Surely you know that everyone has had treasonous thoughts in their life. Look at you.” He looked up and down at Sorrow’s hunched over, disparaging frame. “You of all people know that the Ruler is not good.”

Just then, a rather plain looking girl walked by, and happened to notice that a discussion of some importance was taking place.

“Well hi there,” she called out, “I’m Reject. Who are you?”

Sorrow introduced himself while wiping his eyes, and the other young man declared himself to be “Skeptical.”

“What are you discussing?” Reject asked.

“The Ruler,” they both said at once, and Reject tried not to look disappointed. “Oh,” said she, and turned to walk away.

“Wait!” Called out Skeptical, “What do you think of the Ruler?”

“I don’t think of Him much,” she responded.

“Indeed not,” Skeptical replied. “And the reason is plain, He isn’t around. You’ve heard that He writes to ordinary people like us, if we will write to Him. Have you ever received a letter from Him?”

Reject and Sorrow shook their heads.

“Who are the only ones He ever seems to talk to?”

“The Pure Ones,” they both answered.

“Exactly. Remember all of the bad things that the Pure Ones have done?” Before they had a chance to acknowledge that he was right, he added, “And I bet I can guess how they treat you, Reject.”

She looked up at him. (He was looking smugly at Sorrow, though addressing her.)

“They don’t even notice you.”

He was right.

“And you, Sorrow. Do they comfort you?”

Sorrow sobbed harder. No, they never had.

“Well, despite the Pure Ones… the Ruler is in charge,” responded Reject.

“In charge of what?” Inquired a new voice, they all spun around to see a lady about forty.

“What is your name, Ma’am?” Reject asked.

The lady didn’t make eye contact with her, instead she addressed Skeptical. (Who was much better dressed than Reject.)

“I’m Simple,” she replied, then hurriedly repeated her question. “What is the Ruler in charge of?”

“Well…everything,” Reject responded, as confused as if she had asked why the sun shone.

Skeptical smiled, “In charge of making you a reject?”

The poor girl’s head hung at the rhetorical question.

Though they lived in a kingdom over which the Ruler presided, and had been taught to trust Him, every one of them had asked the question, “Why? Why did the Ruler never come change things in the kingdom? Why did His subjects suffer, and He didn’t intervene?”

The answer was always, “Trust.” It seemed a meaningless answer, but it was all they had.

That is, until Skeptical informed them otherwise.

“The Pure Ones have invented a very clever ruse, and we have all been fooled by it. That or, (which would be more pathetic) they have been deceived themselves by their own imagination. The castle on the hill,” Skeptical gestured to the East, where the castle sat. “Is nothing but a place for the Pure Ones to go and devise ways to trick and steal from us.”

Part 2 - Satisfaction

Reject, Simple, and Sorrow, each thought about it deeply. No one spoke for the next few moments, until Reject offered an idea. “Have you ever been to the castle, Skeptical?”

“Of course not,” he replied, “It isn’t worth my time. I know what’s to be found there.”

None of them spoke again after that. Each one thought privately that Skeptical was so wise, he couldn’t be argued with. Yet, though logical, his answer wasn’t good enough for Sorrow.

He had a hard time forming sentences, his words were always choked out by grief, but he thought much more than he spoke. The Ruler didn’t seem to be good, but at least if He existed, sorrow had meaning. He promised that if His subjects trusted Him, someday sorrow would end. If The Ruler was a hoax and His promise vain, then there was no meaning, and sadness was the same as despair.

Reject might keep pressing on despite loneliness, Skeptical might invent his own meaning, and Simple might just accept the new way, but Sorrow needed meaning. He decided to go to the castle.

The next morning, the neighbourhood felt a little bit lighter. It didn’t take long for the citizens to realize that the reason they felt better, was that Sorrow was gone. They gossiped amongst themselves, saying a few empty words about missing him, while each one knew that they really didn’t.

(Though Sorrow had left, others remained to keep the atmosphere properly unfortunate. Despair, Depress, Mourning, and others kept them from being too happy in his absence.)

While the others speculated about his disappearance, the three philosophers from the previous day gave each other knowing looks. Skeptical shook his head sadly, muttering that he hoped his fate at the hands of the Pure Ones hadn’t been too bad.

After three days, as Simple and Skeptical chatted about the weather and how nice it was to not have to believe anyone else’s ideas, a new boy joined them. They had never seen anyone like him, radiating peace and brimming with happiness.

“Who are you?” Asked Skeptical.

“I’m Satisfaction,” answered the boy, grinning wider. “You might remember me as Sorrow.”

The two of them gaped, surely this couldn’t be the same boy! Now as they looked closer, he did resemble him, but something fundamental was changed.

Reject, who was often around, but seldom noticed, began to walk toward the three of them. Satisfaction did something that Reject had never experienced before then, he looked her in the eyes. 

“Hi Reject!” He greeted her, “Do you know who I am?”

She knew the voice, but she didn’t know the boy. She shook her head.

“I was Sorrow, but I’m changed now!” He told her, “My new name is Satisfaction.”

“What happened?” She asked.

He told his story.

He had started toward the castle to find out if there really was a Ruler. It took him a few hours before he reached it, but when he looked inside, the little bit of hope he had clung to plummeted. There was a man on the throne, surrounded by Pure Ones. But he did not look good, in fact, he looked evil. Sorrow thought that even a cruel Ruler was better than no Ruler, but now that he saw him, he began to doubt that assumption.

He didn’t stay there long. Suddenly he felt someone tap his back, and a girl was whispering to him, “Come with me!” He felt that she must be an angel, she was so beautiful, and didn’t seem to be afraid.

They began to run down the hill that he had just climbed, and then sat down and rolled until they crashed into something. Sorrow opened his eyes, the girl was picking herself up off of the grass, and heading inside the small cottage they had rolled into. He followed her, tears still streaming down his cheeks.

Inside, there were three other people like her. They weren’t angels, he decided, but they weren’t burdened, like everyone he had ever known. Even the Pure Ones, who claimed to be free from bondage, had some sort of burden they bore.

“Did you come to meet the Ruler?” The girl asked.

Sorrow slowly nodded.

“He’ll be coming presently. For now, I’ll introduce you to everyone. I’m Courage, this is Joy, Victor, and Content. Your name…?”

“I’m Sorrow,” he answered. He didn’t know people could have names like the beautiful ones they had, and in their presence, he began to feel ashamed of his own.

Soon, the door he had come through opened again, and in walked a man. He was unlike the people back home, but also unlike the ones he just met. He was tall, strong, and confident, yet his face showed scars.

“Sorrow,” he said, smiling gently. “Come with me.”

He followed him into another room, where the man sat, and began to cry. Sorrow was so astonished, that his own tears stopped. “What is the matter, sir?” He asked.

“I am glad to see you,” he told him. “I’ve been waiting.”

Part 3 - The Tyrant

“You knew I would come?” Sorrow asked.

“Oh yes,” the Ruler answered. “I’ve always known you would come, I’ve invited you many times. Didn’t you get my letters?”

Sorrow’s tears started again as he remembered all of the panicked letters he had written and mailed to The Ruler, who had promised to write back. Suddenly he realized that in his disbelief of the promise, he had never bothered to check his mailbox.

“I forgive you, Sorrow. Forget the letters, you’re here now.”

Sorrow’s mind was full of questions. The Ruler assured him he should ask.

“If you are the Ruler, who was the man in the castle?”

“He is called the Tyrant. He took over my kingdom many years ago, but he calls himself the Ruler. This way, people either follow him blindly, or deny Me; thinking they’re denying him, but really they are just falling into his trap.”

“What about the Pure Ones?”

The Ruler smiled as he gestured to the people on the other side of the closed door, “They are the Pure Ones. The Tyrant’s servants only pretend. The names they have which you thought were beautiful, were the names they were supposed to have, but the Tyrant changed them. Courage was called Cowardly, Victor was called Victim, Joy was called Jealousy, and Content was called Contentious. You also have another name."

Sorrow looked into the caring eyes of the Ruler, noticing again the scars on his face.

“Your name never was Sorrow, it was supposed to be Satisfaction, but the Tyrant made sure that everyone in the kingdom had names that he picked for them. If you’d like, you can be Satisfaction now, instead of Sorrow.”

Satisfaction fell to his knees and clung to the Ruler, crying harder than he ever had in his life. He felt the burden lifted off of him, the sorrow was gone, his tears were tears of joy.

He stayed with the Ruler for two days, but it felt to him like years. The best years of his life. The Ruler told him that he had sent many people home after meeting him, because the subjects of the Tyrant still lived with the burdens he had put on them, and they needed someone to tell them the way to the Ruler’s house. At last, with the promise of writing, he agreed to go home.

At the conclusion of his story, Skeptical shook his head again. He looked at Simple as he said, “The poor boy has lost his marbles. The trip was too much for him.”

She agreed, and the two walked away together, discussing the tragedy.

Reject stayed, her eyes locked with Satisfaction’s. “Could—“ her voice faltered. “Could I meet the Ruler?”

Satisfaction smiled wider. “He’s waiting.”

"Like A Wife Deserted and Grieved in Spirit."

I once heard a bible teacher make this shocking statement, "Sin doesn't keep us from God. Shame keeps us from God."

Before you start pulling out "For the wages of sin is death," think about it for a moment. True, the wages of sin were death, but the wages of sin have been paid. The offer is extended to every person, so what really keeps them from God?

If you want to get all technical, I'm willing to concede that shame is not the only culprit, if we're looking at the broad scale of humanity and asking what keeps them from God, it might be as accurate to say pride, stubbornness, or ignorance.

But as a Christian, that statement hit me so hard. Have you ever felt like you were in a rut of just failing all the time, and you felt like you were going back for forgiveness every five minutes, as if you could never stay in the presence of God because you just kept falling out? Ever felt like it was so hard to keep up the clean slate after it had been cleaned for you, so after you messed it up a little bit, you decided to stay away from God until you had polished it back to the way He had, and then you'd go back to Him?

I know that struggle SO well. But God didn't put that struggle on me, I put it on myself. His sacrifice paid for past, present, and future, and once forgiven, He has committed to forgive you as many times as He needs to. He was pretty clear about the fact that I can't clean my own slate, and He's never expected me to.

“Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

(John 15:3-5)

"Abide in Me," He said, "Stay with Me." Not, "Stay perfect."

But what is it that we do when we feel we haven't been perfect? Is our first reaction to face Him, or to hide a little bit, try to clean the slate, and then go? Shame will always hold us back from God if we let it.

The first instance of shame holding someone back from God is all the way in the first instance of someone relating to God at all.

“And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself."” (Genesis 3:8-10)

Adam learned what it was to be ashamed of himself, so he did exactly the opposite of what he should've done. He tried to be away from God.

Sounds like me.

It's counterintuitive, but God actually wants us to go to Him right away, not wasting any time. He'll fix it when we get there.

Since I've been thinking about what a huge deal that is, (cause it is, really. Shame is constantly and actively trying to keep us from staying in the presence of God, and that is a big deal.) I've been thinking about some other ways that I have allowed shame a place in my life where it doesn't belong.

One way is the fact that I am a North-American Christian.

Growing up, I've heard so many times about the persecution that exists in other parts of the world, about the poverty that people live in, and how good I have it. I've grown up in peace, comfort, and blessing, and haven't really ever experienced want. You'd think the natural response to this knowledge would be gratitude, but mostly it's been shame.

I feel like I've almost been taught to be ashamed of being a North American Christian. I've been ashamed of not having experienced persecution. I've been ashamed of living in a post-Christian society. I've been ashamed of being blessed. I've been ashamed of hurting, when my problems are so #firstworldproblems.

But recently I had an experience where God just freed me from that guilt. Just with the realization that God is good, and the things He does are good, and He uses things for the good of those who love Him. I never chose where I was born or who my parents were. God chose that for me, and who am I to be ashamed of His plan?

That is not to say that I shouldn't do what I can to help those less fortunate than me, or recognize the abundance He's given me. But now I realize that I am not less valuable or less important to the body of Christ than someone going through persecution, now I am not ashamed of who I am. I can actually receive what I have with thanksgiving, and give with real generosity, not guilt.

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)

He's basically saying that their low status and lack of education did not stop them from being used and transformed by God. The reverse is true. Just like God can use someone in a poor situation, He can use someone in a rich one. The point is the conclusion, that we are not who we were before. We are new creations in Christ, and if we boast, we boast in the Lord!

Similarly to that, I have also felt ashamed of the North-American Church. Again, growing up, every time I heard a pastor preach on Revelation, "the lukewarm church" was always compared to the one I was sitting in. I always felt like a part of a body of sub-par believers, but it always seemed to be chalked up to blessing, "because we live in such a wonderful country, we can't help being lukewarm. We're basically fated to be spiritual couch potatoes unless we move to a full time mission field in a third world country."

Seriously, until I articulated this, I didn't realize how horrible it was. I hope that if you have felt the same way, you realize how wrong it is by reading this.

I agree that the North-American Church has lived in comfort more than other places, but I renounce my former subconscious conviction that every North-American believer is lukewarm or sub-par. Again, we didn't choose to be born here.

Disclaimer Number Two: I am not saying that I think the North American Church can't do any better than it is. As a matter of fact, I think that the same thing that happens on a personal level possibly happens on a Church-wide level, that shame keeps us out of the presence of God. The first thing we need to do is stop limiting ourselves by shame, and surrender to whatever God wants to do with us.

“"Ah, stubborn children," declares the Lord, "who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation. For though his officials are at Zoan and his envoys reach Hanes, everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace."” (Isaiah 30:1-5)

We cannot afford, as the body of Christ, to find comfort in our shame. If we will allow shame to dictate our response to sin, then we are making a plan that is not God's. If we allow shame to dictate our response to God, then we are going back to bondage to "seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt."

These are the three areas in my life where I have noticed that shame has kept me from closer relationship or better understanding of God, but there are more. Even subconsciously, if you are ashamed of your talents or lack thereof, God wants to call you higher. If you're ashamed of the way you look, or things you did in the past, God wants to call you higher. Basically if there is ANY shame or guilt in any part of your life, STOP letting it keep you from Him.

I looked up a bunch of verses about shame, and it just struck me how God doesn't specifically call it out much, but His heart for His people is clearly that they would live in victory, fulfilment, confidence, and honour. That's amazing.

“"Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you," says the Lord, your Redeemer.” (Isaiah 54:4-8)