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Story is the currency of human contact, reminding us once
again that life is a grand narrative. If you want to understand what someone values,
listen to the stories they tell. Without
story, nothing has any meaning; life isn’t lived in the abstract. We long to
know who we are, why we exist and what the purpose of life is, but we cannot
locate those answers unless we first know our story and our place in that story. The question ‘Who am I?’ can only be answered within the context of a larger
inquiry which first and foremost asks ‘What
is my story?’ [1] To
indwell the story of God is to live with the answers to these questions.
Scripture places a tremendous stress on remembrance. Israel is constantly challenged to remember
the larger story of God:
“And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led
you these forty years in the wilderness.”[2]
We join Israel remembering the whole road we’ve come, from the
Garden, down to Egypt, back up to Canaan, exiled in Babylon and scattered to
the ends of the earth. At the heart of
this narrative is a God who takes the world by its corners and shakes us
forward and shakes us free[3];
a God who is slowly and surely working in history to redeem all of creation. And strangely, He has written us into the plot,
giving us a place, a name, a job and a purpose. When we face the drama and
dangers of life, we do so with an understanding that we are a people of the
incarnation. We are a people who know what it is like to cross the Red sea on
dry ground, to be fed with manna in the wilderness, to sing upon our return
from exile, to meet Jesus on the road and to join Him in toiling for humanity.[4]
This is our story, a story of universal
history that somehow has room enough in its final chapters for us.
“Who am I?” can only be answered by asking “What is my
story?” and that can only be answered by asking “What is the greater story of
which my story is a part?” My story,
your story is one of cosmic history from the creation of the world to its
consummation. It is the spectacle of the
human family, divided into kingdoms but united by one chosen nation whose own
story is fulfilled in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus,
giving meaning and purpose not only to universal history, but to our smaller
stories as well.[5] Therefore, whatever our small story, we offer
it to Him for whatever place it may have in His larger story of kingdom
fulfillment.
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