Living in the bigger story

If the greatest desire of our heart is to know Him more intimately and love Him more dearly, we would bow to worship Him with the surrendered actions of our lives, fulfilling the incomparable destiny that He assigned to us before we were born. Our lives are actually a part of a larger story. Everything we do from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Everything that happens to us, wonderful, terrible and everything in between. We have the privilege of joining the larger story and experience the joy of watching that story move forward. The older I get, the more I believe that a larger story a really good one, one that is being told right now in the middle of whatever mix of good or bad is going on in each one of our smaller stories. Through our limited perspectives we can change the plot to accommodate how we want our lives to turn out. We can tweak our understanding of the meaning of life to accommodate our heart felt desires. We can live in a quick-fix, feel-better, make-life-for-us, we-want-it-now-and-we-are-entitled-to-have-it-now culture. If you assume that Christianity means satisfaction in this life of all your desires, including the ones that lie deep within your heart, then you live as no person was really meant to live. We live for satisfaction, We feel entitled to it. Or we can live for true intimacy, respect, fullness, and contentment.

So what is the bigger picture? What kind of person do I want to be, for my kids, my friends, for me, for God? What values do I want to hold true to? What matters the most to me at any cost? What is my life really all about right now, and what fire is still burning in me that can keep me moving toward something truly good? What difference does the sure hope of heaven make right now on my attitudes, passions, and choices? What can I do to make my life better? What story is my life telling?

Life is hard. It will never be as good as we hoped it would be. But what story should we tell with our lives? If there is a good story to tell, one that give us solid hope through bad times that good times that lie ahead, and one that releases us to live with joy and purpose now. If we focus on the smaller story of life from our natural birth to our natural death, than we will miss out on everything that truly matters.

The Bigger story is told in the Bible. The Master Storyteller tells His story, and when you hear it, a shift begins to happen in the center of your heart. You can pause in the middle of a incredible blessing or in the midst of a terrible trial, or maybe just in everyday life and say "So this is what life is about." Husbands and wives can understand how the story relates to them in a different way that aims you toward different goals. Professional people will define their success differently. People will illness will view their diseases differently, face disability or death differently. Everything we formerly called a disaster we can now see as a painful but strangely welcomed opportunity to tell more of His story, not because we have to but because we get to.

I am discovering that the more I long to hear what God is saying in the Bigger story, the more I get to know God and realize that it is the call of a lover inviting me into His story and that my very life is a part of it! It may be only a small part, but the part we play matters. It matters a lot. Therefore we need to know and understand the Story, the plot and the ending, so we can flow with it. The key to living this good life, that is available to each of us now is to join in God's story, to see life as He sees it and to learn to live it as he wants us to live. But first we must know it. We must hear it. We need to hear the Master Storyteller tell His story.

I want to weave the many truths revealed in the Bible into the one true story that I have been invited into. I want to be a bridge builder. To connect people not only to one another, but to God and His big story. I want to invite others to join in the greatest love story ever told. If you hear it I will guarantee you will want to be a part of it. This story might just ring true for you as it has for me. It's a story that will take you deeper than you ever wanted to go and lift you higher that you ever imagined you could go. It is a story that gives power not to give you everything that you may want in this world but it transforms the little story of your life and changes it into part of a meaningful and wonderful larger story that is the only one worth telling until we wait for the satisfaction of every desire in the next chapter when we get to meet the Storyteller, when everything will become clear and it will all make sense.

As you read, underline sentences that may jump out to you. You may identify with doubts and struggles and longings. Ask God to speak to you. I pray that you will feel drawn to the story God is telling. Listen to the story unfold, one chapter at a time. Perhaps your only responsibility is to believe that He can speak, and that He is speaking right now. Maybe your only part is to listen. Lord, Show me! Speak to me! I am all eyes and ears. I am seeking to know You. Let me see You. Let me hear You. May the Truth flame burn bright. Woo me into Your arms. Lord, I want to know Your story. I want to be a part of Your story. I want to feel passion about Your story. I want to become the person I was meant to be. I want to live in a new way of the Spirit, in new way that values what You value. That loving others above everything else, that puts You first and all else second. Help me to join You in telling Your story.