Directions

When Does Your Story Begin?

Sooner or later, every child asks, “Where did I come from?”  Some adults may blush while others calmly explain that because Mommies and Daddies love each other they want to have babies.

The question “Where did I come from” is really a question that asks, “When did my story begin?”  We want to hear stories about how Mom and Dad met, how they fell in love.  Sometimes we thirst to hear stories about why Mom or Dad isn’t in our lives anymore.

If you read the Bible, somewhere along the way you make the connection that the Bible’s story is really your story.  Just like Adam and Eve, you’ve made poor choices.  God calls you to an adventure like He called Abraham and Sarah.  Just when you start to protest your unworthiness, like Moses, God tells you the job is yours.  You have been blessed and you still mess up – like David; God forgives you.

Your story is like Peter’s:  flawed, but still chosen.  You are like Paul: called to change the world wherever you go.  You are John, beloved by Jesus, and given a message to share.  Your story is the Bible’s story.

Learn a little church history.  You are Gregory the Great, called to responsibility in the church without losing your love for Jesus.  You are St. Francis of Assisi, opening your eyes to the amazing work of God in every moment of life.  You are John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Smyth, and Thomas Helwys, who saw a church that strayed from scripture and rallied to the idea that the Bible alone was enough.

Reading scripture and reading church history, though, only starts the conversation.  The truth is your story begins much earlier, earlier even than the words of Genesis.  Your story begins when there was no time, no stars, no gravity – when there was nothing you and I recognize as “universe.”

There was only God.  Your story begins and my story begins when God says “I make a universe.”  I can only imagine there was conversation between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit before God speaks.  That conversation had to acknowledge how this creation business would turn out.  For the universe to be more than a wind-up toy (and it surely is more than a wind-up toy), space for choice and freedom would also be necessary.  And God knew what we would do with choice and freedom.

So the plan, from the foundation of the world, would require redemption built in.  From the beginning, it was clear that a sacrifice would have to be made.  The Son would have to come into that which was created, exist in this world, and pay a price to buy back what creation would wreck by using its freedom.

Before the light shown, God knew you.  Before the light shown, God planned Christmas.

When did your story begin?  The same time Christmas began.  Your story is the story of Christmas – a sinner who needed a Savior.

Grace,

Clay