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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