All

by Pastor Don Nagy

I had a childhood friend named Bob who, years later, became a high-school English teacher. One day, while I was leading a small group of high-school students, I found out that one of the girls in my group now had Bob as her teacher.

Annie was complaining about him because she didn't think that he was actually reading the journal entries that he had assigned her to write. Knowing Bob well, I didn't think he was reading them either! So, I proposed that we run a little test.

I told her childhood stories about Bob, and she would enter them into her journal-keeping all of the details the same, except for the names. If Bob was indeed reading her journal, he'd have to know something was up. Sure enough, after one week, Bob approached her and said "I don't know who you know, but I am going to find out!"

We kept this up for a couple of weeks, until Bob was finally able to figure out who was feeding her the stories and I had to confess. We had a blast writing those stories, but it brings up an interesting question: "Whose story were we actually writing?"

Was it my story? I told the story. Was it Annie's story? She wrote it. Was it Bob's story? He lived it. Whose story was it?

It is a very important question that we need to ask about our own lives. Whose story is this? Is it my story, or is it God's Story? We tend to think that this is OUR story. And when we think that way, we end up trying to figure out how God fits into that story. But that is a bad way of thinking. My story is small. My story is insignificant. My story is pretty mundane apart from God's story.

The amazing reality is this.God has invited me into HIS story.to connect my story to His. And HIS story is so much better, so much grander, so much more beautiful, and so much more significant than mine. It's the story that God has been writing since the beginning of time. It's His overarching redemptive story that includes Abraham, David, Mary, Paul, Peter, Moses, and the whole crew. And He has invited me and you, in Christ Jesus, to be a part of that story!

I don't know about you, but I want my story connected to His story, because His story is so much better!

Instead of trying to figure out God's place in your story, what if you began to look for your place in His story? The question of whose story is actually being written is a very significant one that we need to ask ourselves about our own lives. Is this my story? Or is this God's Story being written out in my life?

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16)