“Your life is a story.” I feel like the idea of “life story” has become very popular in our culture lately… I seem to run across the idea of “story” everywhere I turn.
I think that culture has latched onto it because it’s *true*… It resonates with us.
However, pop-culture maybe missing a major piece: our life as “story” necessitates an Author… and the Author has author-ity over the story and characters He is writing. Of course what I’m getting at is this: God, who is Elohim “Strong Creator”, is Author and Authority…
This also has the implication that your story is not yours only. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Therefore, if you know Jesus as Lord and Savior, YOU and your *life story* were bought at a price… Your story is not your own… it belongs to God, FOR the Kingdom of God and HIS glory.
This means that God not only authored YOU but wrote into your story all the particularities of the street you grew up on, your mother, your father… your childhood abuse… and all the trauma in your young life (although God is NOT the author of Sin- your sin or the sin done against you… this is a mystery, an apparent contradiction that is not explained)- And you have been finding ways of escape- But not through God your Savior.
Trauma and abuse is a part of *each person’s story*. You can’t live in a fallen world where sin and evil reign and be exempt. Evil doesn’t give free passes. Evil has worked to harm you and evil has worked *through you* to work harm in the lives of others. I feel that often we want to leave the idea of “sin” and personally being a “sinner” as nebulous ideas that we accent to, because it’s essential to “being a Christian”. But have you really wrestled with the anger (hatred) and lust (adultery/ idolatry) in your life story? How did you as a young child metabolize the anger and lust of your primary caregivers? We can’t think that our parents were “sinners needing a Savior”, but that somehow their personal sin didn’t cause harm in our young hearts. Unless your parents were “pre-fall Adam and Eve” and your home was the “garden of Eden” your parents perpetrated harm in your life. The intricacies of that harm, how it became woven into your heart, mind and body, and how Evil came in and whispered lies that you hold so deeply as *truth* (about who you are, who your parents are, who God is etc), and also offered ways of escape and promises of life apart from God… are ALL *key* to your story.
Have you buried your story like the man in the parable of the talents??
He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, … so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ (Matthew 25)
Or have you brought your story into the light before God- for healing, for redemption- and for multiplication of God’s rescue in the lives of others?
You can stop pretending that this life is normal and good- it’s *not*. But you can bring Heaven to earth. Let your life shine- Christ IN you and through you- He is Savior, Redeemer, the One who frees captives, heals the lame, gives sight to the blind.
If you deny (oh you might have the correct “Sunday school answers”, but deny by the way you live or what you *don’t ever say*) that you were ever lost and needed a Savior, or broken, sick and lame, blind… bound as a slave in strong chains (even to your own self-righteousness, ie perception/mask of “goodness”)- then you are denying Jesus in your life- His rescue of you- you are burying your talent (ie gift of Salvation) at risk of being the modern day “church of Laodicea”:
‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. ~ REVELATION 3
I hope you see here in the last verse of this passage, there is a *FEAST*… but this feast is only for beggars… and for the sick and broken made well through Christ.
If God is opening your eyes, maybe for the first time, that you are spiritually lost and broken and need rescue, then His invitation of “Come!!” is to you!!
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” ~ Mark 2:17
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” ~ Luke 4
delight of my life 