STORIES.

This last week, I got the newest issue of Relevant in the mail. As I was perusing it, I came across an interview with Eugene Peterson, author of The Message paraphrase of the bible and many other sweet books. One of his comments on the power of literature stood out to me:

Throughout civilization we have lived by stories. Stories draw us into worlds bigger than ourselves. They help us live... Every time someone tells a story well, the Gospel is served. Stories invite us to participate, to identify the characters, to get caught up in the emotion of them. The Bible is essentially a big narrative that invites us to participate in its ongoing story.

For the past few weeks, I've been reflecting on the power of story. I've been studying the Gospel of Mark with my College Life bible study, and I see over and over again that when people came to Jesus with tough, incredibly significant questions, he didn't respond with lengthy and technical philosophical discourses - he told stories. Stories about a father and a son, some soil and some seeds, or a man building a house. I think that we all recognize the genius of Jesus when we see the power to convey the most powerful and compelling of truths in the simplest of stories.

This last weekend, I watched Stranger Than Fiction with Will Farrell. Monica and I passed this movie up in lieu of Babel a few months ago when it was in the theaters, but as I finally got to see it this weekend I enjoyed throughly seeing a different side of Will Farrell and a very compelling story. The plot follows the life of a IRS agent whose life is extremely dull and monotonous until he begins to hear a female voice narrating his life as his lives it. As the movie progresses, he finds himself caught up in an extraordinary life dictated by a storyteller that he has never seen, guiding and directing his life to a beautiful, bittersweet ending.

I think this is what the Christian life is like - we read the stories of scripture, and then we soon find them coming alive and bearing fruit in our own lives, sweeping us up into the grand narrative of GOD's redemptive plan to bring his Kingdom here and now. Now that's a story. See you soon.