A Good Story - What She Said Part 14 - Week 2 Day 2

TODAY'S TREASURE

I am the good shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me.

John 10:14

Transcript

A Good Story

Marlys Roos, Guest Writer

Today’s Treasure

I am the good shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me.

John 10:14

Who doesn’t love a good story? And these days it’s the narrative that matters most, right? After all, inside almost everyone is a deep-seated longing for good to triumph over evil and a happy-ever-after ending. But in the instantaneous world we live in, who has the time to listen or read closely, to know more deeply, to sit and ponder? So, we make assumptions and judgments based on feelings and what we’ve heard.

For instance, we know all about the Bible. The Barna Group’s polls indicate that over 85% of American households own a Bible; on average, each of those households owns four Bibles. So, we know what’s in it and what it’s about, right? If asked (only religious answers here), some quickly say it’s the greatest book of all time, many will say it’s the guidebook for how we are to live, and others may answer it’s the story of a man falling into sin and darkness and God sending Jesus to save us. 

These statements all have some truth to them, but we must remember the Bible is not a story of men and mankind, whether ancient or current. The Bible is God’s Story. Christ is the protagonist, the central figure, the only Hero. Yet, within His own Story, God has taken the care and time to include a vast array of literary genres and complex characters in the library of Scripture. Why?

Because He created mankind to be a vast array of personalities, each one of us a complex character. He created history-lovers who mark timelines and chronicle every rise and fall of God’s people; He created analysts and engineers who get excited about the preciseness of the dimensions given for the ark or the Temple; He created romantics who cinematically envision the love stories of Ruth and Esther and the heroics of Moses and David; and He created troubadours who share the heart of psalmists filled with praise and lament—just to name a few.

Through these multiple genres and characters, God not only reveals His great love and redemption that we may know Him, but He shows that He knows us—our strengths and weaknesses, our needs and desires. He’s listened and asks us to do the same as we read and reread His Story, the one with people just like us and not like us and some combination of the two.

So, in these next few days, let’s look at a few of the complex characters God used in writing His Story—the ones whose lives are on the pages and who reflect, in part, the lives of millions more, maybe even yours.

LIFE-GIVING ENCOURAGEMENT

 “The greatest story ever told” may sound cliché, but it’s true in more ways than we can ever discover in this life, much less in a quick read-through. The Bible is not only the Story of God’s redeeming love for His people, but He’s filled it with the stories of imperfect, complex people He created and loves—sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God but were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence (Rom. 3:23 and Eph. 1:4). The stories in God’s Story include your story too.

PRAYER

Father, thank You for the multi-faceted library contained in Scripture: for the explicit plan of redemption through Jesus, for the poetic praises and laments, for the history chronicled, for the instructions and guidelines, and for the men and women whose lives show us our own in different ways. You know each of us in detail, and in You alone “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Heb. 4:13 Col. 2:3). Amen.