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We all have a story, the way God has revealed himself to us and through us. Your story is uniquely yours, yet, people recognize their story in yours. In this episode we will share the stories that have shaped our lives, and encourage you to know and anchor in your story.
continue reading for the episode notes…
Our Story
We all have a story, the way God revealed himself to us and to others through the events of our lives. Sometimes we want a different story, we don’t want our stories to be our story. Sometimes we want to move beyond our story and into a different story, but we’ve realized that the power to uniquely bring transformation into this would is through our story.
We’ve embraced our story as our anchor for living forward. We cannot answer every question, but we can know and tell our stories. We cannot prove God exists, we cannot answer everyone’s theological questions, but we can always tell our story.
Over the past 99 episodes we’ve alluded to our story many times, and we decided to just tell our story in a straight line for episode 100.
The things you set out to do are not necessarily the important things that happen…
We’ve learned that the things we set out to do in a season or chapter of life are not necessarily the things we accomplish. No matter how strategic we are, when we look back over our lives we will realize the things we thought were the main things were not the most significant things that happened.
We plan, we strategize, we do our best to understand our “why,” but then we move forward into life’s seasons knowing we will discover good things we could not have anticipated at the outset of the journey. The disparity between what we thought would happen and the things that did happen cannot be a disappointment, but a confirmation that we were indeed on the right path. This is our story.
Your story probably isn’t one of dreaming a dream and envisioning a life and then making it happen. For us, our story isn’t one of embracing the precise and exact calling of God and living our lives fulfilling the calling as it looked in our heads and in our hearts. Our story is one of walking, of following, of living life as it unfolds. Our story is one of twists, turns, surprises, disappointments, redirects, and sometimes just pushing through.
Your life and your story is a gift from God. When your story is indelibly rewritten, you have no choice but to follow the script. Trust. We have to trust God that the revised script is going to develop into a wonderful story.
(In the podcast episode, David and Donna relate their stories. )
That which has happened to us…
The story of apostle Paul in Philippians has become a part of our story. Paul, sitting in prison and literally in chains for preaching the gospel, says, “That which has happened to me has really served for the advance of the gospel.”
What has happened in your life? What is your story? How has it uniquely prepared you? What’s ahead, and can you live the rest of your story while embracing the understanding that when you look back it will be better than you thought it would be, and that the main things you will be thankful for are not the same as the main things you thought would happen.
I use the phrase “Lord willing” a lot. It’s because I have a plan, but I am always ready and willing to yield my plan to God. Lord willing, we’ve transitioned our lives to go to Africa to lift multiplying leaders, plant churches in the gateway cities of Africa, and to advance the gospel of Christ through the influence we can have.
We would not be on this path unless “that which has happened to us” had redirected our path. And it will serve for the advance of the Gospel and for the fulfillment of God’s real plan for our lives, Lord willing.
Three Commitments…
When my wife died, and my world was upside down, God prompted me to three commitments to myself.
- I would do what it took to be whole again.
- I would believe that good things would happen in my future that could not or would not have happened had this tragedy not happened first.
- I would help other people with what I had learned through the pain.
All three of those things have happened.
That which has happened to us has really served to prompt other good things.
This is our story and we embrace it.
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