The Old and New NormalSample

What’s Your Story?

The only qualification for God to make a beautiful story out of our lives is that we trust the storyteller. That means we have to revisit the ways God has met with us before. That means we have to remember. And not only are we called to remember the story but also to rehearse it, recite it, and tell it to ourselves and one another.

This idea is counterintuitive, I know. But here is the thing: the past holds the key to trusting what God wants to do in your future. The memories of how God moved, what God did, and how God made a way for us need to be remembered and rehearsed—and not just the memory of what God has done but also that God is the One who did it.

Our past, present, and future are all different verses of the same song—the song God is making of our lives. Yes, in God the future is always where our very lives are oriented. Christians have been praying for two thousand years, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10), and that is a day from the future that God wants to bring crashing into our present. The emphasis, the weight, is always on the future.

Still, you cannot prepare for the future if you don’t take the time to review God’s faithfulness in the past. I call this sacred memory. As you have already seen, to take the new land God is calling you into, courage is everything! Remembering what God did in the past prepares you for your future and gives you confidence and resolve in the present. You don’t need to relocate to the past, but you do need to remember it because the God who met you then and there is the same God who carves out a good future for you. The way to the future is the way of remembering.

Remember, remember, remember. It’s so simple, and yet it’s the one mental exercise that builds your faith. When the people of God crossed the Jordan River at flood stage onto dry ground, they did not go any farther without stopping to recognize the miracle that God had performed.

And he said to the people of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’…so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.” —Joshua 4:21–22, 24

Remembering was not the responsibility of the children. Rather it was on the adults to build an altar and to mark the moment in a way that would elicit curiosity from the children. If our children are not curious about what God has done, it’s because we have not been faithful to build a monument that would demand their curiosity. It is a curious thing to pile rocks together to mark what God has done, a curious thing that will incite curiosity. When people come later and see these stones, how can they help but ask, “What do these stones mean?” In other words, “What’s the story here?”

Verse to dwell on: 

And he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”—LUKE 22:19, NIV

Scriptures:

Matthew 6:10 

Joshua 4:21-22, 24

Luke 22:19