StoryPeople.com by Brian Andreas
“What did the monkey say when the lawn-mower cut his tail off?”
“It won’t be long now.”
That is a favorite ‘joke’ my Dad always used to tell us when we were little and asked, “How much longer,” on a car trip to Grandmom’s house. I’m thinking of it today because we are in the final stages of preparing the Bible study, Learning God’s Story of Grace, for publication. (It’s due in May!!!) The idea that we are “living story” is not new with me; I really think it is written all through the Bible. Today I discovered some earlier writings about what it means to be a Story People. This is the concept the Bible study is based on:
God and Jesus use story as a vehicle to open eyes and ears and hearts to unseen and unheard things, but God also created us to be a story people. Scripture speaks the story of God’s pursuing love for us; God also authored us as stories who testify to his creative power and transforming love. Dan Allender writes about our story natures:
You are a story. You are not merely the possessor and teller of a number of stories; you are a well-written, intentional story that is authored by the greatest Writer of all time, and even before time and after time. The weight of those words, if you believe them even for brief snippets of time, can change the trajectory of your life….
God always intended for his children to join him in completing creation. We are not inanimate entities that merely reveal glory but living stories that are meant to create glory.[1]
God authored us as living stories to tell His story. The written Word, Scripture; the Incarnated Word, Jesus; and the created word, God’s people, are all story shaped by our Creator. Clearly, stories bear great significance, because they point us beyond the surface realities that we see to the greater realities of God’s glory and design for the world.
[1] Dan Allender, To Be Told (Colorado Springs, Co: Waterbrook, 2005), 11.
