You have a powerful story to tell

Stories have this way of stirring up my heart.

Historical fiction lures me in with the tales of courageous main characters who persevere through hardship. Those characters are typically strong women (my favorite type of heroine). I’m inspired by their ability to overcome obstacles, endure suffering and cling to hope while facing darkness. I choose podcasts that highlight women sharing stories of God’s redemption in their life or how God met them in painful experiences. In my own story, I resonate with those experiences by identifying a similar moment. And I’ve learned to listen when friends share their stories of loss, the pain of waiting, or unanswered prayer. We get to rejoice together in the breakthrough moments when God shows up in their story! Those stories make me feel something. Stories bring my heart to weep with others and stories increase my hope in what is to come.  I believe every person has powerful stories to tell.

The original storyteller

Jesus is the master of storytelling. When we see Him speaking to the masses, He frequently used stories (called parables) to illustrate the Kingdom life. His stories made sense and offered wisdom to those who were ready to hear and shift their way of living.  To others, they were mysterious and confusing.  His stories made them think, ask questions, or nudged them a little closer towards believing. But they weren’t ready to make a full turn into new life. They were those:

Whose eyes are open but don’t see a thing, Whose ears are open but don’t understand a word, Who avoids making an about-face and getting forgiven.  Mark 4:12 (message) 

Even still, many were listening. Jesus knew the power of telling stories.

He also interacted with people that would give them a story to tell. Throughout the gospels, we read stories of men and women who walked away from an encounter with Jesus that changed them. The story of Jesus rescuing the woman on the verge of being stoned by her accusers after she is caught in the act of adultery. The desperate woman who reached out, with faith, to touch the hem of His robe. Twelve years spent battling a blood disorder and she is healed in an instant!  The paralyzed man who could only move by being carried on a mat. Through the persistence of his friends, he is lowered down through a roof right in front of Jesus.  That man WALKED away from his encounter with Jesus, receiving healing and forgiveness!

We read these stories from those who were observers on the sidelines. Can you imagine what it would be like to hear them retold by the actual person who had their moment with Jesus? 

The madman set free

One story in the gospels reminds me of the power of storytelling.  In Mark 5, Jesus has just crossed the Sea of Galilee with His disciples when He has a run-in with a man who is living in torment. This man is living in complete isolation and wanders the graveyard. Instead of interacting with the living, he spends his days roaming among the dead. Spirits have overtaken him and given him unnatural physical strength. Mark states that with every attempt the people made to bind him, “he wrenched the chains apart and he broke the shackles to pieces.” 

Night and day, he screams and cuts himself with stones to free himself from the torment he is experiencing. The attempts to bind him weren’t only to protect the people but likely to keep him from self-harm. When the tormented man sees Jesus, he runs towards Him and falls at His feet. He kneels before the One rumored to save as the spirits protest that they want nothing to do with the Son of the Most High God.

I wish I could see the tenderness in Jesus’ eyes at this moment. Jesus seeing the man bearing self-inflicted wounds. His bruised and torn appearance resembling only a fragment of his true self. And Jesus, being moved with compassion, responds. In an instant, He sends the spirits out of the man into a herd of pigs nearby. The pig farmers witness that same herd rushing into the sea and drowning. They rush to town to tell everyone what they have seen. And the people in the city flocked to the graveyard to witness it for themselves. They observe the man calmly sitting with Jesus, fully clothed and engaged in a normal conversation. No longer is he screaming out and tearing at his skin with stones. They find the man at peace, set free from what tormented him because of this encounter with Jesus.

Go and Tell

As Jesus climbs into the boat to leave, the man begs to go with Him. His desire is to be with the One who has gifted him with freedom. In this city, he’s been known as a madman. He had lived in torment long enough that he developed a reputation. He was a crazy person!  Who wouldn’t want to leave a place where the reputation that defined you was no longer true? Instead of leaving, Jesus presents a different idea. Jesus requests this: 

Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.  And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.  Mar 5:19-20   

Jesus knew the man would have an impact for the kingdom of God if he would go and tell his story. His face to face moment with Jesus had transformed him into a different person and that was a story worth telling. His story stirred up the hearts of the people. Everyone marveled.

Stories the world can’t contain

Your stories of how God has transformed, redeemed, healed, or restored you matters. You have expressed gratitude to God for what He has done in your life. But is that enough? What if telling your stories stirs up questions and wonderings about Jesus in the people around you? We’ve been misled to believe that our stories only matter if they gain us likes and shares on our social media sites. Or they increase our number of followers. Or if they get enough traction to go viral. But truthfully, your story matters when you tell it to your circle of friends who listen to you.

Don’t negate the impact that your story can have on a few. We place value when a story impacts many versus a few. But, impact shouldn’t be measured by numbers. A person becomes an object when we count them as a number. Kingdom impact is measured by a person who has moved towards Jesus in some way.  Friends who have ears to hear will listen to your story and take a step closer to Jesus. 

I’ve always loved how the gospel of John ends with this perspective on stories:

Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I supposed that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. John 21:25 

The world itself couldn’t contain all the books telling what Jesus did. That’s an abundance of stories!   Those books include your stories and mine.  We are still experiencing, speaking, and writing all the things that Jesus is doing.  You have a story of what God has done in you and it’s worth sharing.  Jesus echoes to you the same instruction He gave to the previously tormented man: “Go to your friends and tell them what God has done in you.”  What story comes to mind that you can courageously begin sharing? Our world needs you to tell that story.