Telling a Story and Stinken To It

During these later years of life, I have the sense that an experience I’ve had, whether good or bad, has been line or scene from a novel or a movie—like I'm a part of, at least a small story. Even in my dreams! I suspect this phenomenon has grown largely in the last few years with the ubiquitous presence of Facebook pages and blogging platforms, although those who have been so kind to “friend” me will attest of my seldom presence.  I realize that every human being has a unique story unfolding as they live out their lives. Wow! I’m thinking right now that there are literally billions of different stories going on all at once, intertwining, overlapping, loving each other, hating each other, struggle together, and laugh together. Every minute new human stories are beginning in birth and old ones are concluding in death.

It started the other evening; sitting in my lounger, minding my own business, perusing what I had underlined, years ago, in The Sacred Romance authored by Brent Curtis. This is one paragraph I had underlined:

"The deepest convictions of our heart are formed by stories and reside there in the images and emotions of [a] story....Life is not a list of propositions, it is a series of dramatic scenes. As Eugene Peterson said, 'We live in a narrative, we live in a story. We have a beginning and an end, we have a plot, we have character.' Story is the language of the heart. Our souls speak not in the naked facts of mathematics or the abstract propositions of systematic theology; they speak the images and emotions of story."

I love stories because my living, itself, is a story. My story is taking place in a particular context, culture, and time in history. And dependent on how I grew up; the dynamics of my family, and a million other factors, my story is going to come out differently than any other person who has or ever will live.

But then I must ask the question: Is there any common element that runs through every person’s story, an element that can be seen in every life?

I have never thought of it before about it this way, but the Christian message really introduces a story of its own; and if it is indeed true, it's a story that explains the "plot" of each and every human life story. What is this lot? It's a love story. It's the story of God's love for me, individually and humanity, collectively. In other words; God's seeking to win our hearts again and again, and our responses to this movement toward us. Don’t we see this in the well known text of John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. So, I’m going to challenge myself again to look at my life, look at where I my now and where I’ve come from, and see if I find new evidence of God drawing me closer to who He truly is. I’m going to go beyond minding my own business and adventurously notice if I can find God calling me in the circumstances of my life, even in the hard or painful times.  I’m going to listen more carefully for His whispers of joy, in fear, and pain.

Father, God, I recognize you as the ultimate author.  Your story is the only account that makes sense of my life and brings beauty into my story.  Thank you Father for the human author who said my life could be the very poetry of Your personal handwriting.