Telling My Story

Greetings, fellow disciples of Jesus,

What’s your story? 

Every Christian has a story (even multiple stories) of God acting to save, to provide, to intervene, to reconcile…but not every Christian feels equipped or confident in sharing that story with others–but you can!

As you through the book of Acts—and you can as part of our initiative to read through the whole New Testament this year—you might be surprised by the number of times we get to hear the story of Paul’s conversion experience.

The first time his story gets told in a narrative form (as from the narrator to the reader in Acts 9). Later in Acts, Paul himself tells the story to a group of people trying to kill him (Acts 22), and again to Governor Festus, King Agrippa II and Bernice (Acts 26). [Paul also recounts a concise version of his conversion story in Galatians 1:11ff; and of course, he makes brief references to it in other letters, too (e.g., 1 Timothy 1:12-16;  1 Corinthians 15:8-9; Philippians 3:4-9).]

Paul knew his story of how God in Jesus Christ had intervened to call him, to save him–to turn his life upside down and right side up for the kingdom–and Paul shared that story over and over again. It sounded a little different each time he told it because it was his story, not a script. It was a way that he connected the grand story of what God was/is doing for all creation in a personal way by telling what that looked like in his own life.

Every Christian has such a story; the way the God of all creation has touched your life in a personal way. What is your story of how God has acted in your life? Where have you seen God at work?

Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in a tour of your life. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic experience like Paul’s–just something meaningful to you which relates who you confess God to be–Savior or Provider or Friend. (Your story will be compelling not by the dramatic elements it contains, but by its authenticity.)

You have a story worth telling because by God’s grace your story is part of the Greatest Story.

The Lord be with you.

Pastor Mike