Stories. I love them!

 

What do I love about them?

 

Some are written. Some are only told. Some fade from memory like calico that has been left too long in the bright summer sun. Some are tucked away for safe keeping in a pocket only to be lost when we discover the pocket had a tear in it. Some lay unfinished on the floor of our dreams.

 

Some stories are true. Other stories are a tale made up of imaginings and bits and pieces of the realities we or others have lived. Others still are only imaginings that are so unique that they do not fit into any reality at all.

 

Some stories are valued in and of themselves. Some stories are only valued as they coincide with other stories and some stories are deemed unworthy of the telling by those who do not even own their own story.

 

God is the BEST storyteller! He is the Author of our life, of each of our lives.

 

 We come into this world in the midst of a large exciting story that is being played out on the earth, under the earth, and in the heavens above us. Most of us do not recognize this. We also don’t recognize that we are helping to create a story.

 

God, our Creator, creates us and places us in the midst of His large story. Each of us has a part to play. He has designed it that way. He has written us into the story to reveal something about Him.

 

 What we are ‘writing’ may be haphazard initially, much like a new artist tries different colors and textures on a canvas to determine what will most suit what he wants to portray. Those around us may suggest what we paint or write, what colors or words to use, what textures to feature. If we are very young, we can be highly influenced by what they suggest.

 

It can be easy to forget (if we ever knew) that no one else should be writing our story.

 

 Of course we don’t know very much about writing so we need someone else to guide us. Only after we have accepted the Lord and acknowledge that He is the true Author of our story can we allow Him to guide us and lead us as a co-author with Him.

 

If we try to write without Him, our stories will never reveal His larger story and never give a glimpse of Him that we have the opportunity to reveal in our own unique role that is unfolding.

 

There is a great deal that influences our story. Some of it occurs before we come to know Him. It has lots of twists and turns in it, full of places where we intersect with others both human and divine.

 

What do we do with those parts of our story?

 

First, we must come to know and own our story, to recognize it, value it, and recognize that we have both defined it and been defined by it. When we invite the Lord into our lives, we have the opportunity to pick up the loose and tangled threads of our story and hand them to Him.

 

Something miraculous happens when we hand Him those bits and pieces, scraps often smudged and torn. The Lord knits them together as a backdrop to allow His beauty to be clearer somehow. Nothing is ever wasted with Him. No matter how we may have failed or marred the beginning of the story, He redeems it.

 

We can regret deeply those parts of what we have “written” before we knew Him. We can even see (if we look closely and are honest) that we have tangled some of the threads of our story after we knew Him.

 

If we look at our story carefully, we can see what the Lord has been up to all along. Yes, we made choices that were often not the best, not His desire for us, but when we give our story to Him the very darkest parts of our story allow His beauty and light to shine more brightly.

 

What lines will you add to your story today?

 

Where does He want to take you in the story?

 

What does He want to show you and me that will make this unique story one of His masterpieces, one that uses both the best and worst of you and me to make something known about Him?

 

I can’t wait to see what comes next.

 

 

 

I am not a big fan of tabloids or magazines highlighting stories of the rich and famous being rich and famous. I do bump into them at the checkout counter at the grocery store, hair salons, and an occasional mention at the end of a newscast on a slow news day.

 

When I see the cover story or if I happen to glance at the contents, I discover that Solomon was right. There really IS nothing new under the sun. Romances today blow apart and are often thrown out before the ink on the marriage certificate dries and although the reasons vary, the most common reoccurring issue appears to be unfaithfulness. Every scheme imaginable to get rich without hard work ultimately gets exposed. Truth hijacks every lie.

 

Mistakes happen. Everyone agrees on that even if our own are harder to admit. Men and women (each and all of us) are mistake prone in every area of our lives whether in relationships, academic or professional areas, or even in the kitchen when that “foolproof” recipe flops just as the doorbell rings and company arrives.

 

Some mistakes are bigger than others for certain. How others respond to our mistakes is pivotal. How we respond to our mistakes varies, but can make all the difference.

 

 If our mistakes are met with understanding, instruction, or second chances and we own them, we tend to recover despite our disappointment and embarrassment. If our mistakes are met with disdain, anger, and harangue, we either lash back or withdraw into ourselves.

 

By the time we reach adulthood, most of us have had more than a little experience with mistakes. Our response to them has likely shaped our view of other people in all sorts of positions as well as ourselves and perhaps God. We have either gained courage or grown or we have never risked again and remained stuck.

 

It can be easy to feel betrayed when we mess up. That sense might come from how a relationship changes or dissolves, whether it is a personal one or a work-related one. It might also come from us toward ourselves for failing to give as much time, attention, and care to the person or thing that the mistake involved.

 

If we admit we are guilty as charged, we often still cannot regain what was lost. We have broken trust and that does not get easily repaired.

 

It would be nice if God kept us from making mistakes and messing things up, but you and I both know it doesn’t work that way. We have choices and from Adam and Eve onward, we have a timeline that shows our choices may very well take us down a path that leads to a bad ending.

 

I love stories and reading the Bible provides me with some of the best stories ever written.

 

Time and again I see a mistake is made. What kind of mistake? Take your pick.

 

Abram and Sarai can’t have children, but have been promised too many heirs to count. Time goes by and they aren’t getting any younger so they decide not to wait and help the process along. Sarai has her maid sleep with Abram and Ishmael is the result. Their impatience doesn’t change God’s plan to give them a child of their own that will be His own special people, but it does result in two sets of offspring whose differences are still at war today.

 

David, the giant killer, the one called a “man after God’s own heart”, the one who praises and trusts God, becomes king of Israel. He is blessed with wives, children, and a kingdom, but one day he sees a beauty bathing on a rooftop and wants one more thing. He summons her to his bedroom and arranges for her husband to be killed. You know the story. The first baby born of this unfaithfulness dies.

 

The incredible truth is that God is committed to us and working through us. He stays with us in the midst of chaos, wreckage, dishonor, and disgrace. He was from the very beginning an expert at creating something out of nothing; moving from void to substance, dust to flesh.

 

God knows how to make something incredible happen on the other side of our mess, our mistake.

 

 He does so in spite of us if we yield to His mercy and grace, if we yield to His ever-pursuing love.

 

 He can make all things new even for those of us who make mistakes and messes after we know and seek to follow Him. He weeps and aches over our failures and we should never take His mercy and grace for granted. But we should never believe the lies that may echo in our heads that His love can cease for us when we fail. His commitment is everlasting.

 

The Lord is the lover who refuses to be jilted by us. He is a lover like no other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hadn’t seen this friend for some time and I was looking forward to our lunch together. It seems that both of our calendars stay full, but our relationship is one of those that doesn’t include shopping trips together or surface conversation so periodically we make time to be together.

 

As we sat across from each other looking over the menu choices, the conversation quickly moved from the broad descriptions of what has been going on in each of our lives to a list of several things she wanted to process or get my read on.

 

I smiled as I thought of how many of our times together have been just like this. She honors our time together and is clear about how she desires to steward it. Now don’t misunderstand. We don’t spend all our lunch visits on deep theological subjects or get stuck swimming in old news, but the conversation is always purposeful.

 

Each of my relationships is precious to me and each is unique. The truth is: I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

My friend is a leader in ministry and as a result of my similar ministry involvements, she feels safe to express things she might not otherwise share. I’m a safe place for her. Sixteen years her senior also puts me in that place of being an older woman in her life.

 

There are many things that are different about each of us. Our backgrounds and hobbies do not totally align. Our church and ministry experiences have also been different. She is single and I am married with children and grandchildren. Even so, the Lord has blessed our link with each other around the hard choices and evolving ministries we have each been a part of.

 

I especially respect her fear of the Lord and her desire to watch over the flock given to her as a stewardship from Him. She has seen too many harmed by the misuse of power, authority, and trust within ministries. She has seen too many ministries crumble or erode over time despite starting with a solid foundation marked by humility and reliance on the Lord’s leading.

 

Our conversation had included sharing about such a ministry on this day and her concern that she not fall prey to what she sees happening in so many places. We had spent time talking about what safeguards might help prevent such things.

 

We both agreed that accountability was key and that leaders needed to have at least one safe relationship with which they could be totally authentically real.

 

It would also need to be strong enough for the person to be able to share hard truths with the leader if she or he saw the leader appeared to be off course, caught up in seeking to control those entrusted to them or use them to build up his or her ego.

 

During a pause in the discussion, my friend looked up and asked me if I could be that person for her and be willing to risk saying hard things she might not always like to hear. In many ways our relationship has been much like that for a while, but this felt different because it was asking me for a specific clear commitment. The request honored me, but also humbled me.

 

It was a rare gift of trust and responsibility and one that required a considered response.

 

Beyond that, it carried with it the unspoken understanding it would require me to be aligned with the Lord so that I would speak less out of my own preference or opinion and more from a biblical perspective as well as I could comprehend it in my own finiteness. As I accepted her request, I felt the weight of it and an awareness of my own fallibility.

 

The sad thing is that it is rare as members of the body in this modern age to risk being vulnerable and risk saying potentially hard things in order to be pulled back from our weaknesses, the chinks in our armor, our temptations to hide behind the cleaned up exteriors of our lives while ignoring the condition of our heart and spirit.

 

I have a personal trainer who holds me accountable for my physical well-being. I know I need her to do that because I know myself well enough to know I don’t do well on my own. If I want to steward my body, I know I need such accountability.

 

On more than one occasion, the Lord has shown me that I need someone to hold me accountable for the condition of my heart, my spirit, my attitudes, and behavior.

 

Of course the Holy Spirit seeks always to do that, but I doubt I am the only one who may not always listen as carefully as I should or turns off the receiver if it is not pleasing to hear.

 

Jesus sent out his disciples two-by-two. He clearly had knowledge of the value and importance of that. I think he was pointing to the gift and protection of accountability.

 

Accountability. It’s a rare and needed gift for each of us, for all of us.