Resurrection Letter No. 14: God is Telling a Story through Your Life

 

Dear Good Shepherd and friends,

Your life matters. 

That's a big phrase these days. I'm using it differently. Many of us struggle from day to day wondering how our life matters to the people and the world around us. We live and go through our routines. How much does it all matter? In what way is there significance and meaning to the lives we live?

There's a pretty big demand in our culture of "doing." If we're not doing enough, speaking out enough, then will we have an impact? It can be very overwhelming. It doesn't have to be. You don't need to prove yourself or your worth according to the criteria of our culture for your life to matter. Here's the thing: you already matter.

Your life means something to those around you. Maybe you matter because you are a wife, husband, daughter, son, parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle. You meet needs. You provide comfort, companionship, love, or advice. Each of us is relationally involved in someone's life. In these relationships, you are someone who loves and you are loved. Yes, you might get on one another's nerves. You might sometimes not want to be in the same house with each other. You might need to forgive or be forgiven of past hurts. But no matter what, your life matters. Your family would be different if your life wasn't in it.

Your life matters beyond your immediate family, too. Your life matters to those you work with. It might feel like you matter only because you produce something or play a role in the company (if that is actually the case, your managers need to watch this video and read things from Simon Sinek on creating healthy work cultures). At any rate, some days you might feel like you don't matter. We've all been there. 

Remember George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life? He didn't see how his life mattered. It was all too overwhelming, and he was done. Then he was given a vision of the world without his life. As it turned out, his life mattered a lot. He had a hard time seeing that, sadly. Sometimes we can, like George, have a difficult time seeing it, too. We sometimes can't see the forest for the trees, and we get disoriented by the not-so-good moments.

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There's a very crucial way your life matters, a way your life matters even when you don't feel like or see its importance: God needs your life to tell God's story in a way only you can. And those around you need your life to hear God's story.

Let me put it another way: Your life is the evidence of God's presence in the world.

And YOU matter to those around you because only you can be that evidence for the people in your life, for those you encounter every day. I can't do that. Someone else can't do that. Only you can be the way the immediate people in your life hear and see God's story. 

Sure, God's handiwork is seen in creation. But that only gets people so far. And the idea of God that comes from creation alone is quite vague. Even the best preachers and pastors can't substitute for a life lived as evidence of God. 

Think for a minute about the gospel stories of Jesus written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These stories are packed with...Jesus telling people what to do, or Jesus explaining who God is. NO! Not at all. If that's how we read the gospels, then we haven't read them rightly. 

The gospels communicate the story of God's forgiveness, healing, justice, and mercy for the world through stories of Jesus' encounters with real, everyday people:

• The woman with a sick child (we've all been there)
• The Roman soldier -- the oppressive enemy upon whom Jesus had compassion
• Zacchaeus, the seedy businessman who was changed by Jesus' example 
• Thomas, Jesus' disciple who struggled to believe Jesus rose from the dead (we've all been there)
• The woman who Jesus healed and welcomed whom everyone else ignored
• The frustration of Mary and Martha because Jesus wasn't there when their brother died
• Jesus patience with his disciples who struggled to understand 

Imagine if these stories weren't part of God's story. Without these lives the story wouldn't be told.

If these stories of normal people tell the story of God's good news for the world, why can't the story of your life do the same?

If the world is to experience the God made real in Jesus Christ, the God who forgives, the God of mercy, the God of hope in darkness, it is in our lives. 

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I'm not telling you to do more. I'm inviting you to open your eyes to what's already happening. That's the thing. The people in the gospels didn't do anything. Jesus invaded their lives, he heard their struggles, and they in their struggles became part of God's story.

You don't need to do more to be evidence of God, to be part of God's story. You don't need to be more perfect (I've already said that here). Just live and let your life breathe, and know that God already gives your story meaning. Recognize that you are already part of God's story, whether you see it or not. And remember. Remember Jesus and let his ways of compassion, love, and justice become part of your ways as you live.

Being aware of how God writes his story with your life does not make you a better person. It makes you more intentional about your life. Think of people in your life -- family members, coworkers, people in the neighborhood. What might they be missing out on? How does your life invite them into the story of God, or to see it in their own lives? What sort of experience of God are your children, family, coworkers, and friends having through the story of your life? They're watching.

It might be just a different outlook on things because your mind is set not on the kingdom and ways of this earth, but on something higher, the kingdom of God. 

It might be your own struggle that someone else identifies with and is encouraged by.

It might be that you go about your day with a little more hope because the living God has taken up residence in your life. 

It might be an attitude of Christlike compassion or forgiveness to those around you because the same Jesus who had compassion on the Roman soldier, the Jesus who forgave even those who crucified him, is now making his appeal through you. 

It might be the way you set aside your self and seek the needs of others to reach out, encourage, or laugh with someone else.

People around us all, whether Christian or not, are looking for evidence of something more, something better in this world, something beyond the everyday cycle. People are watching, waiting, taking it all in. And they're looking to the people who claim to believe God is real. Your kids are doing that. Your friends are doing it. You are doing it, too. We all are looking for evidence of the living God among us. 

The evidence of God is not proven just through philosophical arguments or scientific proof. It is evidenced in your story, in your experiences, in your life.

Your life matters. Don't forget that. And other people around you on a daily basis matter, too. They are ways God tells God's story to you. Pay attention to the story as it unfolds.

In defiant hope,

Pastor Kyle