So recently I’ve been praying and seeking God’s guidance on how to proceed as church planter. Many opportunities come our way and they are great opportunities, but not always the best that God has for us. That’s not to say that there is anything wrong with those opportunities or the people that present them to us; oftentimes they are great friends or family who only wish to help us. However, after much reflection and thought over the gospel and how it should impact my life everyday, I realize that no matter how great my friends and family are, they are not my Savior who has a mission for me to see His kingdom expand to the ends of the earth.
So, here is what I know…
God is on a mission to write His name into the hearts of people all across this earth…Or another way to say it, God is writing His story, His metanarrative, the story to end all stories and the story that every other story depends upon.
Now, God’s story is being written not in an abstract way, but in the very lives and hearts of people all over this world. It is being written in the life of a man who goes to work everyday to support his wife and kids; it is being written in the life of a single parent struggling to make ends meet; it is being written in the life of a teenager who is in a fight with her parents; it is being written in every life, and every breath on earth, whether those who are the participants of God’s story even acknowledge His existence.
Knowing this, and then realizing that as I read Scripture that God is inviting me to not only be a participant in His story, but has also invited me to be an instrument for Him to use to write this story of the world, I cannot help but fall on my knees in thankfulness for the story of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this gospel story, Jesus has taken people that hated and ran from Him, and not just redeemed them, as great as that is in and of itself, but now invites them to be an active participant in writing the rest of the story with Him.
Can you imagine that!
God could use rocks or donkeys to proclaim His message of redemption and renewal to the world. He could use trees, a megaphone, or a thunderbolt to get people’s attention and spread His message. But instead, he uses broken, weak, and helpless people like me.
But you see, that’s just it. With Jesus’s story as my story, I am no longer broken, weak, and helpless, but instead I, and you, are more than conquerors when we participate in God’s unfolding story.
For so long we have been fooled by the Enemy I believe, into thinking that are small lives don’t matter in God’s big plan. That wherever we are, whatever we do, is just for us and doesn’t really matter in the long run. But, as I read Scripture, I am convinced that when we attach the story of our lives to God’s story of redemption that He is telling everywhere, all of the sudden our “little” story becomes very, very big.
God’s story defines our story and makes us more than we could be without Him.
So, are you settling for second best by trying to live a story that is not written by the Master Storyteller, Jesus Christ. His story is the story that enriches all stories, that brings meaning to the day to day story, and gives hope that the end of the story is good.
When your story becomes His story, watch out, you just never know what the Master Storyteller of the universe will do in the next chapter. But I can promise you this, it will be bigger, more fulfilling, and more exciting than any story you could have written on your own.
My Story is His Story!
