Skip to main content

Telling Our Stories


              Every life is a chapter in God’s ongoing story.  He never tires of reading the stories we write each day we live.  I’ve got to believe that so many of our stories must bring tears to His eyes as he thinks about the cruel things we say and do to one another.  Yet He records our lifetime experience, each life a book that has the potential to become a bestseller in God’s eyes. 
              Revelation 12:11 says: They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.  It’s important that we recognize the power in telling our stories.  Once you tell what you saw God do in your life to someone else, you have received it deeper into your truest reality.  We do overcome by the power of telling our story.  Telling our experience in walking with God to another person solidifies what you believe about your experience.
              Many avoid telling their stories because of the way they have seen others rejected for speaking about God’s movement in their lives.  I am only responsible for the stories I tell about how I see God in my life.  I do feel uncomfortable when listening to some who speak boldly about God and what He has told them to think, feel or do about thee; yet their bold statements sound contrary to the God of the Bible.  There should be a healthy doubt and humility of your experience of God most especially when it is about ideas of grandeur for yourself and vengeance on people you do not like.  That is not likely to be a story about God.
              I love to hear people tell their stories.  I love to hear the unique and special ways that God moves into each one of our lives.  Our stories are as unique as our fingerprints.  Though God’s ways are the same—we come to Him through acknowledging our sin and helplessness and belief that Jesus alone can somehow (we don’t have to understand the intricacies of how) make all things right between God and ourselves.  That is our story.  Each day has a story of the battle between our flesh and our spirit.  You may not realize it but you have a story to tell at the end of each day about how you overcame the enemy of your soul or how you gave in to him. 
              It will do us well to pay attention to the story we are writing by the decisions we make each day.  Our story is being written whether we are aware of it or not.  How do we think about God this Monday?  How do our lives write out His glory in ordinary ways?  Whose story intertwines with yours in a surprising way today?  How have you received new meaning about God as you looked into the sky or pondered a blade of grass?  These stories are good reading for God.  He loves to watch your life and see your victories.  He plants little remedies for your distant soul throughout your day today.  When you find and drink them (hopefully teatimeforyoursoul.com is one of your antidotes today), you have another paragraph or chapter to the story of God’s love for you.
              Be aware of opportunities to tell your story.  Don’t impose on others; perhaps you should wait to be asked.  Maybe in the wait you can ask others about their stories.  This might prompt them to desire to hear your story. 
              Look at your life as one long, interesting story.  It will not be a page-turner for the average mind, but the mind of God longs to see your story intertwine with the meaning and purpose He offers.  He reads your story with strong interest and, though your story might hurt, anger, or sadden Him, He will keep on reading, keep on hoping, keep on praying that you will find the meaning of your life story and live it out with awareness that He is your co-author and that His ideas are best!

Copyright © 2016  Deborah R Newman teatimeforyoursoul.com  All Rights Reserved.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Pilgrimage that Started with Tears

                Who would think I would shed tears deciding to set out on a wonderful journey that I have longed to take for many years?   Before I was ready to fully accept God’s invitation for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, I had to journey to a place of agreement between what my soul wanted and what the Lord wanted for me.   For years I have been declining opportunities to travel to Israel—not because I didn’t want to go but because I wanted to go with my husband by my side.   I know that God could have arranged that for me, but instead He asked me to accept that He wanted me to be willing to go and leave everything behind.   When I was asked to make a decision about going on a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, God gave me this verse in answer to my prayer -- Debi, observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess (Deuteronomy 11:8).   I decided through tears that I would go on

Day Nine - Journey's End

    I didn't think I could write today, but do to bad weather we now have extra time at the airport. Today we looked over the model city and I can't believe all I have learned. Some of the excavations since the model was completed reveal differences in what they built in the model. What amazed me was that I could see what wasn't where I expected based on what I experienced. Here is a wide view of the Model City which is 1:5 scale.  It was created by a Jewish man who wanted his son to understand what Jerusalem was once like.  Someone said that if you didn't see Jerusalem during the time of Herod the Great, you have never seen a beautiful city.  Do you understand what I mean about how grand this Temple was?            Next we saw the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I learned a lot about the Essenes.  They lived like monks today.  Like Jesus, they were not happy with the way the Temple was being run and they came to the desert to offer truly holy sacrifices, untainted by the mismanage

Not Treating Others as Their Sins Deserve

            Turning the other cheek has become a Christian cliché.   These beautiful and penetrating words of Jesus are minimized when we humans try to apply them without God.   The best we can do to achieve Jesus’ description in our power is repress our anger about the way someone sins against us.   This only serves to make us look stupid to the world, creates ulcers, or causes an unplanned, embarrassing, public explosion of anger.   Jesus spoke these words and many others like them to invoke the spiritual understanding that it is impossible to live out His directions for our lives without Him.   He has no intention of our trying to take His work on in our flesh.             It happens all the time in marriages and other relationships where one person who thinks they need to be a certain way to please God centers his or her relationships around keeping peace.   I don’t believe that kind of turning the other cheek is very pleasing to God.               No, God is inviting us