Tell Your Story

I’ve thought about the things I never heard from my parents or grandparents. Yes, I know part of their story, and maybe only the Good Things they felt comfortable sharing, but I’m sure that there’s more to their story than they ever shared.

Though I remember some great-grandparents, however, they passed when I was young. I’ve heard some of their stories from their progeny, but I cannot truly say I know much, or enough.

As I age, I wonder what their story was? Where did they come from? What was it like growing up in another century? Inventions? Challenges?

I have listened to my parents and those directly ahead of me on the proverbial genealogical tree. Though I know I would never remember everything they have shared, at least some things will be documented for the next generation!

Olden Days vs Modern Times

In olden times we would sit around the fire, late in the evening after a day’s chores were done. The story of our lives, memories and future hopes would be shared, over and over. We learned by the repetition of these times. But we just don’t do this any longer. The family would recite their historical stories that just seemed right for the moment.

Mostly, we kids wanted to play hide-n-seek in the dark!

Simpler Times

Back then, there was no internet, mobile computing devices, or all the technology we’ve accepted today. Much of what we learned and carried forward was done the old fashioned way. We heard it! Remembered bits and pieces of it. And polished it for our own telling at some future date. True, the Family Bible contained some history, but it required someone to document the events and there was no room for details.

We’ve moved into that time of genealogy where we search online resources, social media, and nonsensical postings that waste our brainpower, time and future. In our genealogy search, we rejoice as we find some branch of our past and rejoice because we now know where we came from! Some branches are more easily found, but the further back you go some of those connections are tenuous. Fragile. A literal Pandora’s box…

Consider the Bible

Although the Bible contains thousands of years of history, the details are sparse. Since I’ve traveled to Israel several times I realize that even walking the landscape does not reveal the data we need to know the whole story. However, throughout scripture, we find little nuggets like this.

Now the rest of the acts of Abijah,
his ways, and his sayings
are written in the annals of the prophet Iddo.
(2 Chronicles 13:22 NKJV)

What’s the problem with this? I’ve never seen the “annals of the prophet Iddo.” Has anyone? With translation issues, spelling differences, and the passing of time, I may never learn who this person truly is.

Tell Me A Story

I love a good story. Much of my desire for story comes from seeking for adventure, wonderment and the understanding of ancient references. I look for stories that give me insight into a time period or a location, or answers for questions that I have. As a kid, I remember less the Saturday morning cartoons, and the kid-friendly dramas of Africa (Tarzan, Bomba, and such), or the Western Plains of Cowboys, Indians, and Trappers. You may not remember Ronald Regan hosting a show called, Death Valley Days – “One of the longest-running Western series, originating on radio in the 1930s. The continuing sponsor was “20 Mule Team” Borax, a product formerly mined in Death Valley. ” [Source]

Honestly, I remember more about the Borax than any individual story! That’s how good the sponsor advertised their product to Saturday morning rug rats! They’re still in existence today! (Click the link above.)

I’ve gathered that writers like Louis L’Amour found a format for a story and can tell the same format over and over, only the names and places and circumstances are changed. People will buy their novels for years and rave over the books. (Yes. Even me!) In fact, one reference suggests that L’Amour had 5 templates of stories and the names and details changed – yet, he was prolific and entertaining.

My Favorite Story Tellers

To satisfy my own needs of knowledge and exploration of the world around me, I look for stories and authors than can bring the world alive. Give me something that I can live in for the moment of the story and learn about this world we live in. There are many authors I enjoy, but let me share with you these three particular author’s that help me be in the moment.

James Michener

James Michener penned saga’s involved with people, places and things that seemingly covers the entire globe. He covers generations of time in 1,000 pages. For example, he wrote a book on Hawaii. The first 150 pages were nothing more than the description of how these islands were formed. In another book, he writes about an archaeological dig in Israel, and for about 1,200 pages he composes a story of each level of excavation, giving me insight as to how that time period might have lived. Still, in another book he explains the spawning cycle of the Pacific salmon in such a way that Scientist have concluded he’s nailed it!

Bruce Feiler

Bruce Feiler, who wrote a number of books about his heritage and Jewish roots. He documented his travels through the Middle East to discover and document those roots. There is even a PBS special on this that I bought on Amazon and I enjoyed watching him make the trek of a lifetime, interviewing locals and discovering the land.  After reading nearly 3000 pages of his writings I can appreciate the hardship of the Jewish nation from the perspective of a modern man trying to understand why all “this” has happened to his people.

Donald Miller

Several years ago, author Donald Miller was recommended to me in one of my classes. I’m reading “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.”  This book is about the author writing and editing the story of his life that will be made into a movie. Trying to understand his life, and how plain it is, the producer of the movie makes a comment: “The story of your life is too boring.”  The author considers this statement over pages of the book but has a somewhat different insight into the statement. Summation: Life is staggering – and we’re all just used to it.

Our staggering life… What a statement! What a thought!

Most Importantly

I’ve been a student of the Bible since my teenage years. It’s been hit or miss, aggressive and passive, loving and dreading. However, if we look at the long-range timing of scripture we realize it’s nothing we can learn overnight!

Recently, I finished teaching a 12 week Bible Study, and the ending charts tell us that we will someday stand before God and the books will be opened, along with the Book Of Life, and we will be judged by our lives, and the things we did and failed to do with the opportunity given to us.  Perhaps embedded within the pages of His book will be every single moment of our lives. Will there be a record of all the drama and excitement of our lives alongside all the boring and uninteresting moments? Perhaps.

But the most important thing will be our summation.

Will we hear the words: “Well done thou good and faithful servant…” Or perhaps those dreaded words will say: “Depart from me, I never knew you…” It’s a binary answer to our life. Yes. No. What will be the summation of your staggering life?

Stories Contain Struggles

I believe some of us are struggling with the story of our lives and how to make it more meaningful. We are caught up with the drama of day to day stuff and we’re missing the staggering beauty and hope of our existence. We fail to see that our choices are telling stories about us that write our very existence on the pages of someone’s book. At the end of our life, someone will stand over us and read a few pages of our existence. That will matter so little. What will matter more is what God says…

Now… I’ve filched this blog from something I wrote years ago. You don’t have to read it all now, but there is something to be found within these few words that I hope will help you think about your life in the prose of a story. Make it worthwhile to tell the next generation…

Let me share a contrast between two different stories in scripture.

First Story:

The great leader, Moses, is around no longer. The challenge to the new successor, Joshua, is to lead the nation of Israel forward. Listen to what God tells Joshua at the beginning of the book that bears his name.

Joshua

After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, it came to pass that the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying: “Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory.

No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses

My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”  
(Joshua 1:1-9 NKJV)

It’s Not a Perfect Story

Thus continues the story of Israel. They left Egypt after a 400-year span, wander in the wilderness for 40 years, and are finally ready to cross into the promised land. It’s like they are on the banks of the Jordan River, and it’s time to decide what to do next.

It is not always a perfect story, but then, life is never perfect! There are many failures along the way. Crisis, disasters, suffering.

At the end of his life, Joshua stands before the people one more time to give them a clear focus upon the continuing story of their lives.

And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”  
(Joshua 24:15 NKJV)

Choices, Choices, Choices

Everyone was given a choice. Choose the pathway of your story. With one voice, the people chose their pathway to follow God. Joshua then instructs them that they must amend their ways, and turn completely to God. He even writes a covenant describing their wish to turn to God, places a stone under an oak by the Sanctuary of the Lord, and reminds them of their commitment.

Second Story:

The youngest son comes to his father at the appropriate time of life and demands his inheritance. The father gives him what is due and the young man flees from his father’s house to live in a far off place. Perhaps years stretch by and the young man finds himself having spent all that he had on “riotous living.”  The good years turn into bad years. The choices of choosing his own way and living his own life now show his lack of planning and care. He ends up living in the arena of pigs. He is known worldwide as The Prodigal.

Lot

His life is really no different than Abraham’s nephew – Lot. He sees the enticement of life on the well-watered plains where Sodom and Gomorrah were. Abraham gives him a choice of where to turn his focus. He chose one way and left his uncle for a life of his own choosing.

• Lot “Pitched His Tent” as far as Sodom … Genesis 13:12 and then…
• Lot “dwelt in” Sodom … Genesis 14:12 and then…
• Lot was “sitting in” Sodom … Genesis 19:1

Lot never reached a point of “coming to himself” like The Prodigal. He never reached the end of his rope, but he did recognize that the world around him was not a Godly place.

I’m not sure how you take an accounting of your rotten life and decide that what you had before must be better, but that’s exactly what the Prodigal did. He wished to return to his father’s house and live as a hired servant, and not in the privilege of son-ship. He begins the journey home on a hope, dream, and wish.

Rationalize and Understand

Here’s a blessing. We find his father looking continually for him, expecting to see him top the horizon, hoping and praying for his son’s well being. (Father’s, never stop looking for that prodigal child to return home!)

This is perhaps the difference for many of us today. Our storyboard gets rotten with life, and even still the Father is always looking for us to return to Him. How many of us are standing in the place of this Father and looking for our own to return to the fold?

In either story do we get the ending completely written to our satisfaction? They sum up nicely, but I want the details!

• In the first story, we have to keep reading and deciphering all the generations of living to see where Lot falls into the storyline!
• In the second story, we only know that the Father has rejoiced in his lost son’s return and is willing to have a great celebration and restore him to his place as a son.

How do you choose to live your life?

You are your own story creator. From whatever status you find yourself in, you have the power to write a happy ending or a sad twisted horrible ending. You can write a story that is full of pain and suffering where there’s no hope or solutions for your situation. Or you can write a story of a child of the Most High God living in Grace.

You can live like a pig, or you can live like a King!

The pig is happy, dirty, smelly, dependent upon someone to feed, and is doomed to be slaughtered someday with no hope of ever living in the palace. The Fathers’ house has rooms of plenty, and even during the lean years, there is protection around you that the pig never gets to enjoy.

Parables

Maybe others did it equally well, but Jesus is famous for his parables. Essentially, they are stories surrounding some situation that everyone will recognize as common to life. But every story will have a crisis, and then a solution, and maybe it will finish with a celebration.

Jesus teaches a parable about a Sower. (Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 8) The seed represents the Word of God. Mathew leaves the impression that the receiver of the seed is a single person. (Matthew 13:19) Within any one of our lives, we can find segments of each of these soils condition.

Four Sections of Ground

• Way Side – The trampled pathways of our lives separating us from other areas. Hardened pathways that cannot receive any understanding of the Word because we have trampled it down and trodden over it and not sought to make it productive ground. In fact, it’s that needed area of life that transitions from one portion to the next.
• Stony Places – The hardened places that have no depth of soil – we hear the Word, we rejoice with it, but we have no depth of soil so no root can survive.
• Thorns – Our lives are full and prickly with the deceitfulness of riches. The Word has no chance because our focus is not upon the Word, but rather upon life.
• Good Ground – It Produces FRUIT…

Pause And Think:

If Matthew is correct, then you have all these sections of ground in your own life! It’s easy to segment these grounds into the ownership of others, but I know for a fact that this describes “me to a ‘T'”!

Provisions

To live in the pigpen causes us to forfeit living in the “Father’s House.” To live in the den of iniquity that is Sodom and Gomorrah, we are forfeiting God’s blessings and must be rescued. Not because we have bottomed out and recognize where we are, rather, we are so close to “being” what we should never want to be!

God has provided for us in the “here and now.” Look at what our Father has given us (provisions).

• A place where God can be found … Exodus 33:21
• A place where there is no lack … Judges 18:10
• A place where there is no oppression … 2 Samuel 7:10
• A place of refuge … Proverbs 14:26
• A place of future hope & residence … John 14:2-3
• A Place of Dwelling …Psalms 27:5
• For Hard Times … 2 Corinthians 4:8
• For Weary Times … Matthew 11:28
• For Scary Times … Psalm 56:3
• A Place of Trust … Psalms 57:1 – Trust God to protect us, provide for us, and to prepare us for the world!.
• A Place of Triumph … Psalms 32:7 You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah

God gives a song of deliverance, a song of praise, a song of confidence. The “Place” God has provided for us in the here and now is His Word. We find the place when we lean on, trust in, and rest with the truths in the Bible.

What is the story of your life?

Throughout my years of writing, teaching, and preaching, I’ve shared many elements of the story of my life. True, I’ve glossed over some of the details, and maybe even slanted it so that I come out smelling like a rose. Still, there are things I have never told, and will never share, but I know God sees my life as it truly is.

Perhaps the single piece I will share today is through this blog post: Freshen Up Your Knowledge But, I will give you one piece of biblical advice:

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked;
for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
(Galatians 6:7 NKJV)