What Story Are You Telling? …Hello Weekend readers. Today’s question is something I musing on quite often. Our story: is it about whether or not we are truly right or making something up? You can say, “my life is my own to live and my story to tell is in my own” but what does that mean? Is it truthful or not? So often we clutch our stories so tightly in our minds that we find ourselves in a loss of control and we hope our senses won’t belie what we said!

Of course, all of these tactics never seems to work anyway. We can plan out our day with everything just right until—it isn’t. What do we do then? We must stop telling ourselves things that are not true about ourselves! We must stop saying: “Hey, this is my life so keep out of my businest.” But the most important of all is: “We must find the purpose in all of it.” And that, my friends can be not only tricky but down-right hard!

Let’s hear what the prophet Isaiah says about all this. He surely knew something about a change of plans. It started with a God-given vision which he wrote about in Isaiah 6, where he saw the throne room of God—it was magnificent. As he took in God’s holiness, Isaiah realized his own sinfulness and failure by comparison and he was truly overwhelmed. He knew many of his stories were lies and now he was caught…but God loved this prophet so much he didn’t want him to ‘stew in that uncomfortable state’. So, an angel took a burning coal from the altar and used it to cleanse Isaiah’s lips, declaring him forgiven. Then he heard the Lord asking “Whom should I send to my people? Who will go to represent us?” Isaiah spoke up and said, “I will be the one. Send me.”  [Isaiah 6:8 TPT]

Think about Isaiah’s turn-around and what was it about that moment that made him so quickly to commit? I’d love to know the full story but we are not privy to his thought process. Perhaps being saturated in God’s glory put everything into perspective? Or did he finally understand like never before, that his life really wasn’t about him at all? Whatever Isaiah thought his story should go, he turned to God first, knowing God had something for him to do and it suddenly mattered more than himself! He took the chance and dove in to an unexpected detour straight into the heart of God’s will. And for the rest of his life, his story was God’s story and he shared it with everyone.

How about you and me? Does God have a story to tell through our lives as well? He does indeed in Psalm 71:15-16 [Voice] “I will bear witness to your merciful acts; throughout the day I will speak of all the ways you deliver, although, I admit, I do not know the entirety of either.  I will come with stories of your great acts, my Lord, the Eternal. I will remind them of your justice, only yours.”

When we decide to demand our story are way, we find ourselves bouncing back and forth like a ping-pong game! We bounce between happiness and despair and in the midst of our chaos it’s easy to miss what God has for us. We may hesitate God’s plans for us. What if we don’t like it? Instead of stewing in this frustration, we need to do one major thing: LOOSEN OUR GRIP and LIFT OUT EYES TO GOD’S BIGGER PICTURE!

In closing, let’s ask ourselves one more time: “Whose story am I telling?” It is our choice to make. We can stubbornly hold tightly to what we think our story should be or … like Isaiah, we can turn our palms up in surrender and tell the story of our incredible and loving God. God gives us a choice so choose wisely. AMEN.