If you have been involved in helping people with their walk with God for some time, you have a core message. For me that message is essentially, “you need to study the Bible.” I have a lot of ways that I say that. You will have a lot of ways to share your message as well.
There may be times when you are about to share that you may say to yourself, “this isn’t very good. They really won’t get much out of this.”
Two things. If you are like me you may have shared that same message 1000’s of times. You have heard yourself share it. It is old hat. It is not for the person with whom you are sharing. For them it is the first time they have heard your message. It may change their life. Stay excited about what God has done in your life.
Second, if you have developed that message in concert with your walk with the Lord, you can bet that the enemy does not want you to share it. No. John Eldredge has said, “Your life is a story of continual attack by one who knows what you can become and is afraid of you.” Your message is dangerous. The enemy will do all he can to prevent you from sharing it.
The bottom line? Your life has impact. You are to share that life and your story with as many of those around you as the Lord allows. In Philippians 2, Paul exhorts us to pour our lives out for others. Part of doing that is sharing that story you have shared umpteen times once more. They haven’t heard it.
Two things. If you are like me you may have shared that same message 1000’s of times. You have heard yourself share it. It is old hat. It is not for the person with whom you are sharing. For them it is the first time they have heard your message. It may change their life. Stay excited about what God has done in your life.
Second, if you have developed that message in concert with your walk with the Lord, you can bet that the enemy does not want you to share it. No. John Eldredge has said, “Your life is a story of continual attack by one who knows what you can become and is afraid of you.” Your message is dangerous. The enemy will do all he can to prevent you from sharing it.
The bottom line? Your life has impact. You are to share that life and your story with as many of those around you as the Lord allows. In Philippians 2, Paul exhorts us to pour our lives out for others. Part of doing that is sharing that story you have shared umpteen times once more. They haven’t heard it.
Memories from the last 50+ years that I have sought to follow the Lord flooded my heart as I read this post. I can't begin to relate even a tiny part. Just two days ago sorting through some of the numberless documents I found one small font type-written page titled, "Some Things I Love About (my late wife's name)." It was written perhaps 15 years into our marriage; there were thirty more to go FAR too few).
ReplyDeleteAs I read and thought about each one stories came to my mind. I assented wholeheartedly and thought of how she had continued to increase in each one through the years. I will only say it was a considerable time before I could get back to work. What an incredibly fortunate man I am to have been granted those 45 years, entrusted with a true angel (messenger of God).
Deuteronomy 6 comes to my mind often. Embedded into the Law was the provision for passing it on. Not primarily through the "professional" class of the nation, but through the generations of the families. As I've struggled to understand how I might minister to our daughters, sons-in-laws and grandchildren as we all experience the grief of losing such a precious and towering presence in our lives, one of my greatest griefs is that they have lost the impact of this incredible woman. Just by her nature and her love for them she typifies this passage. She worked every way she could through prayer, wise counsel and story-telling and gracious service to be a channel for God's love and Story to them all.
It is not very often as I talk on the phone, email, text or we spend time together that we don't tell stories of her faith, courage and love in the context of our lives together.
I don't mind a bit telling the same stories again and again. I know we all tend to forget and need to be reminded of God's "Law of Liberty" embedded in her life that flowed through her into our lives. And one story usually spawns another...
If God considered stories a vital means of revealing Himself to us by incarnation as "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish," John 1:14 (MSG) it must be an important means of communication.
And we are still telling His stories, through the written record and through our lives. May I be as faithful to all around me.
Thanks, Mike