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.

Let's leave a spiritual legacy without getting preachy

I lost track of how many times my former pastor, Sid, urged us to leave a spiritual legacy for our children and grandchildren.

His messages made me want to holler from my back-row seat, “Amen! Everybody needs to write a memoir!”

One Sunday he reminded us of Deuteronomy 6:4-9:

. . . Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and your gates.”

In other words, God gives parents a responsibility:

to teach children,

to encourage them,

to inspire them—

constantly,

thoroughly,

conscientiously,

night and day—

to love Him with all their heart, soul, and strength.

God gives grandparents such roles, too—see Deuteronomy 4:9, Deuteronomy 6:1-2, and Proverbs 13:22.

In Psalm 127:4, Solomon said children are like arrows in the hands of a warrior.

That might be confusing, but Pastor Sid challenged us: “Put feathers on those arrows!”

That takes time, he said, and skill.

It takes time to sharpen arrows, and it takes skill to aim them so they hit the target.

When built well and aimed correctly, arrows fly straight.

You and I have a responsibility to invest in “arrow-making”—to equip and nurture the children in our lives so they fly straight and arrive at the right place.

One way to do that is by talking with kids and grandkids—telling them your God-and-you stories, “wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night” (Deuteronomy 6:7, The Message). In telling your stories, you’ll leave a spiritual legacy for your children and grandchildren.

But let’s be realistic:

Of the stories your parents and grandparents told you,

how many do you remember?

I have forgotten 95% of the stories my family told me.

You know where I’m going with this:

Another way to “make arrows” is by writing what you’ve seen God do in and for your family—writing it and placing it in the hands of your kids and grandkids.

Preserving your God-and-you stories in writing means even generations not yet born can read your book long after you’re gone.

In doing so, you’ll leave a spiritual legacy—for who knows how many generations!

One caution: Don’t preach! Refuse the holier-than-thou attitude.

No lectures.

No self-righteousness.

Let’s not be offensive.

Instead, let’s remember what Madeleine L’Engle said:

“We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

This is a big deal: “The world’s greatest wisdom passes through stories”

Do you worry about influences on your kids, grandkids, and great-grands?—influences that lure them away from your best hopes and dreams and prayers for them?

Less-than-stellar influencers bombard today’s young people, enticing them to live and believe in ways that could diminish them morally, spiritually, personally, mentally, and relationally.

Today’s kids are listening to the stories of movie stars, singers, comedians, the press, educators, athletes, politicians, authors, friends, and paranormal characters in books and movies.

If you worry about the stories your kids, grandkids, and great-grands listen to, how about telling them your stories?

There’s a good reason the Bible is full of stories. There’s a good reason Jesus told parables.

Never doubt the power of stories! Kathy Edens writes, “Research proves that stories and anecdotes help people retain information better. Forbes reported most people only remember about 5-10% of statistics you cite. But when you accompany your stats with a story, the retention rate bounces up to 65-70%.”

Wow! Did you know that? That’s impressive.

If you want to teach your grandkids the importance of telling the truth, for example, you can say to them, “It’s important to always tell the truth, and you can get yourself into tons of trouble if you lie,” but your words will probably go in one ear and out the other.

OR, you can tell them a story—a story of how you, or someone you know, learned the importance of honesty, and the consequences of dishonesty.

Your stories can teach your kids, grandkids, and great-grands so many important things—about keeping a commitment, being faithful, working hard, being kind.

Your stories can teach them to handle tragedies with tenacity and faith.

Your stories can help them choose courage over fear, generosity over stinginess, compassion over meanness, thankfulness over ingratitude, and so much more.   

 “The world’s greatest wisdom passes through stories,” writes Kathy Edens.

Think about this:

The world’s greatest wisdom

can flow through your stories!

If you’re still not convinced of your stories’ importance, here’s something else for you. It’s staggering, really.

In fact, this is a big deal.

In his New York Times article, “The Stories that Bind Us,” Bruce Feiler explores, from a secular perspective, what makes families healthy, resilient, happy, and functional.

He writes that Dr. Sara Duke, a psychologist working with children, discovered that while all families have struggles, “The [kids] who know a lot about their families tend to do better when they face challenges,” she says.

Fascinated with Dr. Sara’s findings, her husband, Marshall, also a psychologist, and his colleague, Robyn Fuvish, did their own research on how much individual kids knew stories of their family’s history and its members—parents and grandparents, for example—and how much they knew of their family’s struggles as well as its triumphs.

They came to what Feiler calls “an overwhelming conclusion: The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their own lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned.”

Shortly after that research, the United States experienced the attack on September 11, 2001, and Dr. Duke and his team checked again on the children they’d studied. None was directly impacted by the terrorist attack yet each one, like the rest of us, still suffered trauma. Nevertheless, “Once again…,” Dr. Duke found, “the ones who knew more about their families proved to be more resilient, meaning they could moderate the effects of stress.”

Don’t miss the rest of Feiler’s article, “The Stories that Bind Us.” You’ll find that youngsters who felt the most connected to their families—through stories of both ups and downs, and of their determination to survive and thrive—were the kids who could handle challenges and overcome obstacles in healthy ways.

There’s a good reason Jesus said,

“Go tell your family everything God has done for you”

(Luke 8:39).

That means you need to tell your stories!

And this is important: Avoid writing stories that are dry. Or dreary. Or preachy—avoid a “holier-than-thou” attitude.

DO write stories that include humor, adventure, mystery, romance, pets, childhood escapades, teenage pranks, athletic competitions—the list could go on and on.

“We are storytellers,” writes Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros. “With the help of God, it is up to us to steward our calling and steward it well.”

Think about this:

What stories have been entrusted to you? 

And perhaps even more important: Who has God entrusted to you?

And are you stewarding them—caring for them—to the very best of your ability?

“…Everyone needs writers—

every child, every woman, every man—

to bring out these hidden truths

that lie dormant in us and help them

live what truly matters in life.

Writers have all got to work hard

at this occupation—

for the glory of people

and our most cherished beliefs and ideas.

To fight to ignore all the distractions

and take the time to share our stories

and unpack their meaning and messages….

It’s the most important job in the world.”

Mick Silva

Be good stewards of your experiences and stories.

Do what Jesus said: Go tell your family all God has done for you.

Your stories could be life-changing for those who read them.