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The Best Story Ever


                 This past weekend, family and friends gathered to celebrate my brother and sister-in-law’s 25th wedding anniversary.   It was an informal gathering that had only one real goal: Hang around and tell stories about Kurt and Tracy. 
                This was done not because we did not remember their wedding or anything else from the past 25 years.  We did it because stories are the language of relationship.  They remind us how much we care and that we are connected.
                It should not surprise us, then, that the Bible starts with, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).  That is the start of a story and that story tells about God’s relationship with his people down through the centuries.  There are good reasons why God chose to communicate this way.
                First, stories draw us in and cause us to feel the emotions that go along with the truth that is being conveyed.  That is why you likely have a favourite book or movie, but you do not have a favourite tax code.  Tax codes are true, but they are not very interesting.  Stories tie us into the truth. Therefore, instead of just making flat statements about how God wants everyone to be saved, Jesus tells a story about a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost son (Luke 15).  By the end, we not only understand how lost we are, but, as importantly, how our father feels about us when we are found. 
                Secondly, stories allow us to discover the truth ourselves.  The parable of “The Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25-37) came about because Jesus refused to spoon feed an answer to someone.  Instead, he told the story and taught the man to think properly about his real-life circumstances. 
                While there are some truths that must be stated clearly and propositionally, we do a disservice to the word of God when we boil it down to a bunch of cold, hard facts and rules.  In fact, we do a disservice to our own stories of faith when we boil them down to “I was baptized 50 years ago and now I am waiting to go home”.
                God was and is working in the lives of his people.  We need to be able to tell the Biblical story and our stories as well, because we have something worth sharing. 
                And our story has a great ending too!
                “I will never leave your or forsake you!” (Hebrews 13:5)

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