The Stories We Tell

We are all living within a story. Whether it be a story of achieving a career or income in life, or having a marriage with kids and a picture perfect house that you’ve dreamed of since you were a little boy or little girl, or possibly the story that tells you that doing whatever you want, whenever you want without restriction or much thought is the path towards true happiness. 

Or maybe you’re following all of these stories mixed into one, and in the process you feel lost or even a little bewildered (or is that just me?) because the closer you get to each, you’ve come to realize that the life you once dreamed of isn’t making you any more fulfilled than you were before you spent countless hours working on this for months on end. Yet we keep our heads down and plow ahead because even if we know this isn’t the life we want, it’s the only life we know.

Within the short life I’ve lived so far I’ve taken in my share of stories that I believed to be the good life only to realize that the life I really wanted could only be found in God. My prayer for you is that you would believe that the story God has made in the scriptures, and the story He’s crafting in your life to be good because of the one who’s crafted it.

THE STORY OF PERFECTIONISM

Most of my life has been filled with a ‘me vs whoever was in my way’ mindset. Whether it be from my days in soccer, in music education, or from my current days of writing. I’ve wanted to win at every cost and would often stop at nothing to achieve this. 

In the field of writing it’s a bit tougher to “win” or “beat” anyone. I can obviously compare readership and following, but I don’t believe that’s a true and accurate way of measuring the gift of a writer. Some of the best writers I know have never and may never end up on the New York Times bestsellers list, but the beauty in their souls shines forth with every word they write and there is no way to measure its impact on the world. Writers like Lore Ferguson Wilbert who writes on sayable.net, Henri Nouwen, Dallas Willard, or Tish Harrison Warren are all individuals who have greatly impacted the communities around them and the people who have read their work on varying levels. 

And while I remember that my goal in writing isn’t to be better than any particular person, my heart wanders away from that. I compare, I see where I fall short, and I begin to think God must be cheating me. I rehearse the words over and over in my head, “why don’t you love me enough to give me gifts like those people?” all the while forgetting every single grace he’s already given me. Like being stopped by members of my church who read devotionals and told me that the words I had written had encouraged their soul. Or how during the darkest season of my life after a family member passed away, writing became the outlet from which I expressed my grief and sharing that with my family became a way for us to build greater bonds. Or when I had written about a traumatic experience from last summer and wrote about the response my pastor had, my church was able to both love me and cherish the words I had written about Him. 

Mentioning all of this isn’t to build up my ego or pride, but as a way to remember the call God has for me and the grace He’s shown me along the way.  The lie I so often believe, and I bet you have too, is that you must do everything right before God intervenes. I must have a thought out plan, a way to achieve, and not mess up a single step along the way or it will come crashing down. Yet the God of the Bible is never painted like that. God shows His faithfulness despite the unfaithfulness of Israel. God blesses Abraham despite His unwillingness to wait on the promise that God had given Him. And to give you hope, that God will give you reminders along your journey with Him that will encourage your heart when it needs it most. You don’t have to be perfect, the best at your field, or on an upward trajectory in your field even, because the faithfulness of God is what will both sustain you and carry you forward in every season of life. Not your gifts, not your intelligence, it’s all by the grace of God.

THE STORY OF FREEDOM

Whenever I envision my ideal life, I dream of a life with no limits. A life lived with spontaneous moments thought of on a whim and unbridled joy in the process. A life void of the voices and opinions of others and solely reliant on myself. A life where I simply can be me. So I did it. For two or three years, I did what I wanted and when I wanted to. And it was awful.

I reeked of arrogance, pride, and an uncanny ability to make anyone laugh, even if it meant it was at the expense of others. I would convince others I was right at any cost because what’s more important than being right in the eyes of a young and spritely twenty-one-year-old? Despite not only having the ability to do what I wanted, and actually doing it, I was more miserable than I had ever been in my life. The crippling reality of self-defined freedom was that I was in control. No matter how desperately I would cling to any glimmer of hope around me, happiness left as soon as it came. My soul was searching for any sense of what a peaceful life could look like for me.

Yet it wasn’t until I had submitted to God that I found true freedom. To know that my life was in the hands of the God who uses all things for good (Rom 8:28), speaks life into the world (Gen 1), and to realize that to know God was to know love (1 John 4:16). 

I would bet you’ve experienced something like this. Where you come to an end of yourself, an end of the worn down roads that lead to the same destination, and an end to the life you once thought you longed for. So, you come to God. It’s messy, confusing, and a bit of a whirlwind, yet you can feel your body and soul begin to unwind and come to a place of peace. You see that while life hasn’t become any easier, the beauty shines through because you have God. You have God as your friend, comforter, creator, ever present help, and Father.

THE STORY OF MORALITY

I’ve lived a life of near perfection, at least in the eyes of everyone around me. I never cussed, did drugs, I never drank before the age of twenty one, and I was at church every week going on mission trips and living a pretty normal life. I even developed the nickname “church boy” by someone near to me in high school. 

My parents always taught me that I should do good and be good, so I did my best. I lived a mostly spotless life with a few hiccups along the way, but in general I had lived clean. So when I began to read my Bible and I had read that God desired for His people to be holy like He is holy, my mind immediately began to calm because surely if I wasn’t the poster boy for holiness, who was?

I prayed everyday, wore a cross necklace for everyone to see what I believed, and I even invited people to church every time I felt like it (which wasn’t often), so the vision I had for holiness had become centered on me. My picture on what a person captured by God and His goodness started and ended with myself. I didn’t quite realize just how toxic this had become.

It wasn’t until I had met a couple by the name of Clyde and Sandra that my eyes had been opened to what a life of holiness truly looked like. Clyde and Sandra had taken me under their wing in a time when I desperately needed them, and they cared for me. Every Wednesday night they would sit with me, ask me questions, and love me. Most people besides the exception of a few had never taken the time out of their life to sit down and talk with me, let alone do it every week. At the time I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do when I got older, but I knew that I wanted to be the kind of person Clyde and Sandra had become. 

Holiness and morality had always been this kind of cold and detached way of having an outward appearance of being good. But I was wrong. To be holy means to have a heart that desires to know God, love others, and continually grow in who He has called you to be. Day by day and week by week, your vision for what it means to be holy, right, or moral will change and align with what God calls holy.

PRAYER

May all who read this believe that the story you’ve written is better than any other. May we believe that you are enough even when the desires of our heart seem to be searching for more. May we believe that submitting to your goodness is better than a life we could ever choose for ourselves. May we believe that your holiness is more grand than we could ever imagine and begin to live as if that were true. But most of all, God may we believe that you’re the only thing that can mend our aching souls when all seems lost. Its in your name I pray, amen.