“You
are fat!”
Those
three words became the story that my friend’s fourteen-year-old daughter told
herself. In fact, she believed that
story so strongly that this once bubbly, happy, certainly not overweight, young
woman began struggling with her self-esteem and, eventually, became anorexic.
What
would have happened had she believed a different story? What if “You are amazing”, or “You are smart”,
or “You are beautiful” were the words that shaped her?
Stories are powerful and what we
do with them can have long-term effects.
Jesus
knew the power of stories. In fact, most
of his teaching falls into a category that we call “parables” which are simple
stories with a point. However, Jesus
used stories in another, even more powerful way: He told new stories!
One day
a group of religious leaders came to him and said, “We caught this woman in the
act of adultery. What should we do with
her?” Jesus quietly reminded the group to
examine their own lives and not hers. Then he turned to the woman and said, “I do
not condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin” (John 8).
Another
time, he met a woman who had a bad reputation, but he ignored what everyone thought
about her and instead talked to her about “living water” and new beginnings. She became a believer and then told the whole
town about the man who changed her life (John 4).
A man
named Zacchaeus wanted to catch of glimpse of Jesus as he passed through town, but
no one would let him to the front of the line.
He was a tax collector and a cheat and everyone disliked him. When Jesus spotted him and said, “I must stay
at your house today”, everyone was angry because he was going to the house of a
“sinner”. In the end, though, that
sinner gave his heart and his possessions to God (Luke 19).
The
point is simple: When others were
telling stories about what people had done, Jesus was telling stories about
what they could become.
Jesus
focused on hope, new life and new creations.
We will be his messengers when we tell those stories too.
“God
made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
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