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What's Your Story?

We tell stories all the time. The world is full of stories. But why are stories so important to us? Because stories tell us about our identity. Whether we realize it or not, we always have all sorts of stories that we tell ourselves and others to answer the question, 'Who am I?', the stories that make us us. Not only that, stories also help us make sense of the world we live in. "What is the meaning of all this?", "Why are we here?", "Where do we come from? Where are we headed?" We all have to locate ourselves in some kinds of stories to answer these fundamental human questions.

So, what are your stories? Are you aware of the stories that you're living in? And how satisfied are you with the answers that your stories give to the basic human questions? 

God's Grand Story


God has a story, too. It is a grand story of why and how everything came into being including ourselves and where we’re all going. It is a story that truly answers our deep questions about the beginning and the end so that we can live the present, our everyday lives of here and now, with meaning and purpose and hope. It is The Story of all stories.

We need this story. Our youths need this story. There're so many stories in our world that try to grab our attention and tell us to live in those stories, but I have not found a single story in this world that is actually better and more complete than the gospel story. This is the story that we need to locate ourselves in. There is no better story.

So, what is God's Story?

God has his story recorded in the books of the Bible throughout human history. It is God’s grand history and plan of saving and restoring humanity and his creation. It’s an ongoing story. In fact, we’re in it right now. God is inviting us to write his story together with us.

God’s Story is a drama to be lived.

The drama starts with God’s creating his world with his intention to bless. Not only that, He creates human beings to be in loving and trusting relationship with Him. Also, humans are God’s coworkers to share his task of ruling the entire creation with wisdom, justice, peace, and love.

But the first humans break trust and relationship with their God, and it brings sin into our world: broken relationships, pain, suffering, decay, loneliness, and death.

God starts his mission to save humanity from this curse by calling his people, Israel, and making covenant with them, however they keep falling into the same pattern of breaking the trust and relationship with God. It seems like God’s plan through Israel has failed.

Yet, Jesus is born in Israel, the long-awaited Messiah, the son of David, and he proclaims the good news of the coming God’s reign. He willingly dies on behalf of the world, bearing all sin and paying the debt entirely. He conquers the evil, the curse of sin and death, by perfect obedience to God and love. He then rises from the dead, the beginning of new creation!

Now those who believe in Jesus and confess Him as Lord are His church, the foretaste of God’s Kingdom in this world, and they are to join God’s mission of restoration and re-creation. They are to spread this good news of forgiveness of sin and restoration of all things to all nations.

And in God’s timing, Jesus the King will come back to gather his people, to judge the world completely, and destroy evil forever. New heavens and new earth will come where there’s no pain nor tears nor death. God will come home finally, and we will gaze upon the beauty of Him forever.

I believe that this is a beautiful story that answers our deepest questions of life most satisfyingly. It is a story of hope and love. Can you imagine yourself being in this story? You might not believe this story to be true yet, but I think this is a story that you would deeply want it to be true because it’s so beautiful and in line with all aspects of the realities of our life.

(For a bit more detailed version of God's Story, read The Drama of the Bible In Six Acts - excerpts from NIV, The Books of the Bible)
It is this story of the Bible, the Grand Story of God's Salvation History and Plan, that I commit myself to teaching our youths. And I invite you to do the same to your children as I support and assist you to the best of my ability.

I hope to go through the whole of God's grand story throughout the year. I'll listen to our youths' stories; the stories they tell themselves about who they are, the stories that make them them, the stories from the world that they listen to, the stories they live in and locate themselves in in order to make sense of the world around them. And I'll invite them to compare them to God's Story and help them see for themselves which is the better story.

May we commit our life to teaching our children the truth and beauty of our God's Story.

"And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up." (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

Listen to the song below by Dale Lund, our own church worship director: If The Children Don't Learn
Click on the image above and listen to this song by Dale Lund, our own church worship director.
 
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