What Story do you share?
Whenever I am travelling or visiting a new place, inevitably I will run into a new person or two. I am always interested in what story a person shares about his/her life when we first meet. A while ago, my husband and I were out for a walk in a little neighborhood where we were staying on a “winter break”. Some friends of ours let us stay in their house in Costa Rica for 3 weeks to escape the foggy gloom of Sacramento in February.
We met “Tom” out in his driveway watering his tropical plants. His face was somewhat worn and when he smiled it was evident that he had not visited the dentist quite enough in his life. We exchanged the proper “Buenos diases’” and “como esta’s’” …. “where are you from?”and “how long have you been here?” –the usual. Very quickly, “Tom” decided to share with us explicit details of how he and his wife met and how they kept going to Cabo to get married, how they partied too much each time and finally 10 or maybe 15 years later they finally did get married and now he was retired here in Costa Rica. Wow, did we need to know all that? I walked away wondering what it is that inspires us to tell a story of our life, and which one we choose to share when we first meet another—a stranger. We all have a story, perhaps not all of our stories are as “colorful” as Tom’s, but none-the-less it is always a story that needs redemption.
I am thinking that there are many reasons some of us share more of our story than another person would like to know when we first meet, but there is not a one of us who has a story that God does not know the whole of. I am grateful that even though God knows my whole story in intricate detail, He still loves me and calls me to be His friend. No matter what my story has been or where my story is going He is always ready to be watching over me and be a part of my story. He is always ready to redeem my past story and is ready to invest in my future story so that it can be my best story ever.
What story will you share next time you meet a stranger? How will you respond to God’s invitation to let your story be inside of His Story?
John 15:15American Standard Version (ASV)
15 No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knows not what his lord does: but I have called you friends; for all things that I heard from my Father, I have made known unto you.