Everybody has a story.
I’d even suggest that everybody has a defining story. We’ve all said it (or heard someone else say it) at some time – “Well, that’s just the story of my life.”
Have you noticed that no one ever says that after something really great happens?
“I just won the lottery! Well, that’s just the story of my life.”
“I had no delays today and everything went smoothly at work. Well, that’s just the story of my life.”
What if I were to tell you that the story of your life is not something that happens to you, but something that you choose?
There are at least four ways of looking at your defining life story and they all hinge on two things: self-awareness and God-awareness. (I’m so incredibly grateful to Will Mancini & Dave Rhodes for their inspiration for this concept through the Younique life planning journey.)
Some people are neither self-aware nor God-aware. They just exist. For them, there really is no story. Life is random and meaningless. You’re born, you live, you die. There is no ultimate purpose.
Some people are highly self-aware but not God-aware. They live for themselves. They see the story as their own. They may occasionally write God into their story, but only if it serves their purposes for self-fulfillment.
Some people may have grown up in a highly God-aware atmosphere that de-emphasized any self-awareness. In fact, some of us have often gotten the message that self equals sin. Self-awareness means self-centeredness or selfishness and that is something we want to avoid at all costs. The story is God’s story. He has only written us in as a footnote to serve His purposes.
I hope you noticed that I changed from “them” to “us” with that last one. Much of my heritage took on that kind of flavor. God first, others second, self last.
But something has happened in my journey with God over the past few years that has helped me understand that there is a fourth way. And that way is what I wish for every person.
The person who lives in this fourth way is both highly self-aware and highly God-aware. We are learning to identify the lies that individuals and circumstances have spoken into our lives and we have begun to erase those lies and replace them with God’s truth. We now see that God has invited us into His story as major characters with co-creative license.
God has invited us into His story as major characters with co-creative license. Click To Tweet
In other words, we are—in cooperation with God—choosing and writing our defining stories.
We are no longer simply asking, “What would Jesus do,” but “what would Jesus do if He were me?” (Thanks to Dallas Willard for that concept)
I have chosen as my life verse Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
That verse has led me to describe the life I seek to live as the Christ-life. And that Christ-life is Christ living through me, as me. I am learning to embrace who I am in Him and how He uniquely fashioned me and to live fully into that identity.
The Christ-life is Christ living THROUGH me, AS me. Click To Tweet
Well, that’s just the story of my life!
What about you?
Be amazing, my friends.
