Who is the real author of your story?

Last week we touched on the importance of avoiding preachiness in our memoirs, of avoiding coming across as holier-than-thou. People won’t respond well if we have a know-it-all manner, as if we’ve “arrived.”

Instead of preaching at our readers, let’s just humbly tell our stories.

Rather than drawing attention to how awesome we are, let’s show readers how awesome God is!

It’s not all about what you and I did, but what God did.

Henri Nouwen offers us this wisdom:

“I need to learn to speak well of the work God is doing in my life…, not with self-congratulation but with humble awareness of divine activity.” (Henri Nouwen, Discernment)

Think about two prominent men in the Bible, David and Paul. We tend to think of them as set-apart saints, but they were regular people like you and me—they really messed up sometimes.

Their lives were a mixture of faith and disobedience, spiritual success and failures, yet God used them in mighty ways and continues to use them to this day. It’s not so much what David or Paul did, it’s what God did.

“Abraham is . . . one of the most important men in the history of the world,” writes Richard Peace. “What makes Abraham so important . . . is not his sterling character (which he did not have), his outstanding intellect (which may have existed but it is not mentioned), his charming personality (he could be pretty annoying), or substantial personal accomplishments (he has few, apart from his pilgrimage to the promised land).

“What Abraham is remembered for,” continues Peace, “is his faithfulness in obeying God’s call to undertake a long and demanding journey. It was not so much what Abraham did, but what God did. . . . In Abraham we see not so much a saint in action; rather, the faithfulness and graciousness of God. . . . In Abraham we see an ordinary man who is used by God, not because of who Abraham was, but because of who God is. . . .” (Richard Peace, Spiritual Storytelling)

Bottom line: Write your stories, not because of who you are, but because of who God is.

Praise the Lord . . .

Tell everyone what he has done. . . .

Remember all his miracles

and all his wonders

and his fair decisions. . . .”

Psalm 105:1-5 selected CEV

 . . . Our adequacy is from God. . . .

Therefore, having such a hope,

we use great boldness in our speech [or writing]. . . .

2 Corinthians 3:5, 12, NAS

Write your stories!

Depend on God to make you adequate for this awesome ministry.

Humbly use heavenly boldness in your writing.

God can use your story

to help others become all He intends for them to be.