Skip to main content

Our Stories

          For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

 

I’ve been listening to a series of podcasts by John Ortberg. Yesterday’s broad topic was about our each having a story. He’s been talking about this idea for a couple of weeks, but it was only yesterday that my mind dredged up a memory of something that happened more than 25 years ago. A speaker said, “Someday, you’ll be up here telling your story.” As I drove home, I wept as I said to God, “But I don’t have a story.”

When I was doing genealogy, people told me that no one would be interested in their stories.

Both when I have raised puppies and when I have been around parents whose health was failing, I noticed that since I saw the puppy or the person every day, I didn’t notice their increase in size or decrease in health as clearly as someone who only saw the dog or parent once in a while.

We are blind to our own stories most of the time. We don’t notice our lives as stories because we’re too busy dealing with our lives or because our lives don’t seem to follow the simple pattern we expect in books. “Nothing ever happens” in our lives, we say, even though we’ve just gone through some trial. Perhaps we go so far as to express irritation because the challenge we’ve been facing is getting in the way of our having a story. The irritation is partly because we want our story to be a romance or a rom-com; instead, it’s a quest. We want it to be man against the world, but it is often man against himself.

But a word used in the last sentence is integral to a story: against. If everything went well, there would be no story. It’s the struggle against something that makes the story interesting. The character in the story doesn’t think so. Frodo Baggins, Harry Potter, and Luke Skywalker never consoled themselves with the idea that what they were going through would make their story interesting.

When Paul wrote of being convinced that nothing could separate us from the love of God, he was setting up our stories for us. How are we to know that none of those things can separate us from the love of God unless some of them try? And how can there be a story if we have no struggle against those things? How can there be a story if we do not learn the truth of what Paul has said, that none of those things separate us from the love of God? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen!

  While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5)            Do you like roller coasters? I don't. You spend forever climbing a hill. You get to the top and have half a second, then you race down to a low point. Sometimes the racing down involves tying your insides into knots. At the bottom, you either have to be dragged up another hill or you get off the ride. Peter's life was a roller coaster from the time he met Jesus. There would be miracles, and then Jesus would teach things that didn't always make sense, and then they'd go out and perform miracles, and return to be taught. Peter was praised for giving the right answer to "Who do you say that I am?" Jesus said that said answer came from God. Peter was at the top of the hill.            ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Prayer Lists

                 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. (I Peter 2:2-3)   In connection with what I wrote yesterday about the possibility that I’m wrong, I’m feeling the need to go back to basics - craving spiritual milk because somehow, I missed something. It’s a little embarrassing, craving milk like a newborn, but the truth probably is that we are newborns many times in many ways in our lives. From God’s perspective, we may never be anything more than newborns, forever needing that milk. On the other hand, being a newborn can also be exciting because so much is new. My mind is playing pinball - ricocheting from one idea to the next and through six more before it happens to hit the third again. The main topic is prayer. I have at least seven organizing structures all somewhat influenced by the movie War Room , which I’v...
Post a Comment
Read more