God's Joy With Us!Sample

Storytelling: Remembering who you are

The Bible is full of stories. Stories allow us to enter someone else’s experiences and imagine their emotions. We can imagine what Jacob must have felt when he woke up and found Leah lying next to him. We can also imagine what Leah felt knowing she was the unloved sister.

Learning to tell stories about our own emotions is an important skill for quieting ourselves from our upsets. Stories also remind us how it is like us to act in times of difficulty. When emotions get the best of us, it is easy to forget who we are and to turn into someone else. One of the hallmarks of maturity is the ability to stay ourselves even when enduring hardship.

At many key moments in Scripture, people had to be reminded to remember who they were. Peter reminded his readers that they were strangers and aliens in this world and to live holy lives as those who had been made holy (1 Peter 2:11). If you have ever seen the Disney movie Lion King, you probably remember the scene where Simba is told in a vision of his father that he has forgotten his true identity and has turned into someone he was not meant to be. The words, “Remember who you are,” echoed through the night as the vision faded. They reminded him that he was born to be a king and it was time to start acting like one by thinking of those who needed him to lead.

We need to practice telling stories of times that we remembered who we were despite upsetting emotions. Such stories are reminders that our big emotions don’t have to have the final word in driving the way we live. It is possible to act like ourselves even when life is hard.

Practice Exercise:

Reflecting on memories of joy trains us to feel joy in the present and expect joy in the future. Share a story about a favorite trip you took or time spent at a favorite spot (like a lake, a house, or a dorm room). Share your story and thoughts with a friend.