This week in our little dot com internet company, we worked on alternative plans to extend our runway until we have successful operations. Our business development efforts have yet to deliver a large volume user. And, until they do, our business model is in doubt and it is hard to attract capital. A volume internet ecommerce solution without volume to prove it is a potential dead duck. So, my partners and I determined how to buy time by cutting our benefits, salaries and personnel again. In the meanwhile, we work...and work...and work...and work to make things better. New companies such as ours need divine intervention and support, which I fully expect. The frame of our life is bigger than the natural world that we labor in.

There is a wonderful contemporary play, written by Michael Frayn, called "Noises Off" (don't rent the movie. It stinks.).

Act One is a walk through rehearsal of a play. In it you learn the characters and their "back stories" and histories with each other. One is an alcoholic who swears he is "in recovery". Another three characters are a love triangle. Ego clashes, revenge for past wrongs, professional jealousy and rivalry, and pure fun are afoot.

Act Two is a dress rehearsal, this time from back stage. All the plot lines and character interactions are fully developed, to a dangerous point. The play the actors perform is the same as the one the walked through in the first act. Actors go off stage into the play on the other side of the set, where you hear them deliver the lines they first rehearsed in the first act. In the meanwhile, mischief grows and character conflict intensifies. The alcoholic is off the wagon, but not all the way. The love triangle is deteriorating.

Act Three is opening night off Broadway. The set is reversed again, with you seeing what the audience sees. The characters enter and give their lines on cue, but all the conflict is erupting fully as the twists and conflicts come full cycle. You hear them as "noises off" stage, where bottles break, costumes malfunction, as the whole production collapses into hilarious chaos.

Shakespeare's claim that all the world was a play, and we but actors in it, foreshadowed "Noises Off", a play the he could well have written. The art of a play this complex is in the direction and the writing. Without a good director to choreograph, with perfect timing, the two sided set, the audience would neither see nor understand the full story. Without a precisely written script, the play would be confusing and incoherent. Like that, my life makes great sense to the Author and Director of the action. However, like the befuddled characters in Noises Off, I question the coherence of the action from time to time. Why can't the "rescue" come earlier in the play? Why can't the characters do offstage what I expect them to do? Why is so much of my life a surprise?

Yet, by coping this week with the incredibly frustrating twists and turns of the plot of my life, with its recalcitrant characters, once again I find myself admiring the Author and his Direction more than getting bound by the action and the scene. I am certain that he is faithful to me and to my life's direction and purpose. He will resolve the plot lines in a manner which gives glory to His purpose. He will delight me again in the comedy produced by his artistry. And, ironically, I am more and more aware that He is the only audience that I need to please.