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Stories. They’ve been around since the beginning of time. What started as those passed down orally and inscribed on the rocky walls of caves and carved into totem poles then were put into parchments and eventually books. But by then we were such story lovers that we wanted them to have visual components and movies started to flicker on screens and eventually became “talkies.” Now stories come to us in more forms than our earliest ancestors could have imagined.

Most of us love a good story and we never tire of hearing our favorites. Despite all the ways we can enjoy a story, we never tire of those etched in our memories shared by our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. We pass them along generation after generation just as those ancient ancestors did.

It can be easy to forget we are all caught up in the greatest story anyone could ever create authored by God himself. That story is not just told in Genesis to Revelation in the Bible but is a living breathing ongoing tale. We are a part of it because God created us in his image, a living breathing representation of Him. Not unlike most good stories, there is a villain as well.

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God created angels in that great story and one of them was jealous and wanted to be like God and sought to disrupt the story and allow him to be the main character. That lust for power and position became evil that despised God and the life He created in all its forms. Little wonder because we are created in God’s image that he would want to disrupt our part in the story. Our very existence represents the One he despises. He hates existence.

We see in the Bible stories of old all his tactics replayed page after page. They include murder in all forms, slavery of any he can conquer, disruption of relationship, abuse and more in the hope of robbing God of those things pointing to Him. He is skilled at lying and deceiving and we see that too. When he succeeds, humankind become pawns in his schemes. Those play out throughout history to the present moment. He uses the smallest thing to stir up doubt that God is, God loves us and can be defeated. He used those ploys with Jesus who never succumbed and defeated his tactic of death eternally on the cross.

It could sound pretty gruesome. Often it is. THE enemy and villain, serpent of all, Lucifer, wants to be light but only can cause darkness and fog to try to discourage us so we lose our way and miss the One who is light that no darkness can hide if we put our trust and faith in the One who is for us. We have only to call out to Him and we discover He is there in whatever battle we face.

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Because we are finite we need Him and we struggle with needing someone outside of us. We like our independence, doing things our preferred way, and that can get us into trouble because it plays right into the enemy’s plot. As an angel, he believed he had no need of God so it should not surprise us when that quality shows up in us. When it does we can take a detour in the unfolding story just as so many others we read about. That gift of choice that God gave us can be a gift we don’t use very well at times. There is so much we don’t know despite all we know (or think we do).

The time we are living in (no matter where in the world we are) is growing darker and foggier. It’s a time of great deception with smoke and mirrors to try to disrupt us in every and any way possible and we can be tempted to believe there is no hope, no good news anywhere. If we look or listen to today’s headlines we will be prone to believe we have no hope in any way. We may not hear it from our neighbors or friends who listen to and see the same things unfold on the nightly news. The stories of local crimes and atrocities and those on the scale of cultures and countries against one another can defeat us.

Never before has it been more crucial for us to know the greatest story and how it ends. Too often the images found in the Bible are ones we don’t understand. They are describing things beyond our comprehension but don’t lose track of the main thing, the one thing.

If you ever saw the 1991 American Western comedy City Slickers, you may recall actor, Billy Crystal, conversing with Jack Palance, the weathered trail guide on a cattle drive with city folks. In one iconic scene after another Palance reminds Crystal he needs to find the one thing. Crystal puzzles over that until the end of the movie when he reveals he has once again found his smile.

The one thing we need to discover is how the story ends if we believe in Him and Christ lives in us. He is returning for us to take us out of this battle torn world. He loves us and every other prophecy in the Bible has come to pass. The signs that the time of his return is drawing closer are everywhere and should cause us not to fear but to look up to the sky and Him in whom our hope finds a sure foundation.

Until He does don’t let the villain of the story rob, steal, distort, or kill the role you are called to play as salt and light in an ever-darkening world. It’s not untrue many will try to steal our identity but the ads miss the real identity that is the thief’s target. God has the copyright on this story!

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