Good Questions - Day 7

Day Seven

What are you discussing together as you walk along? 

Read: Luke 24.13-35

Story has always been a big deal for us. Over the years, we’ve moved from seeing God’s Word as a book of facts and figures, right and wrong, to seeing it as a love story, God’s Great Love Story. All of our stories fit in this larger context of God’s story. 

Eugene Peterson talks about Scripture and story interchangeably. He recognizes the significant place story has in our world since the beginning of time. He says we are a narrative people with a “narrative hunger.” Story helps us make sense of the world. Peterson writes:

The story that is Holy Scripture invites us into a world of God’s creation and salvation and blessing, God in human form in action on the very ground on which we also live, an incarnational story, that is, a flesh-and-blood story; a story worked out in actual lives and places (not in abstract ideas or programs or inspirational, uplifting anecdotes), but a Jesus story in which we recognize the action of God in the everydayness of a local history in our stories, a sacramental story.

When we read Scripture around our kitchen table, talk about it in the car, or text about it, we read it incarnationally. We say to one another, “Find yourself in the story. Where do you most resonate with what is being said or heard? Where do you see yourself, or where do you not see yourself?

Jesus shows up on the road to Emmaus and asks these guys, “What are you talking about?” They begin to question Jesus. Cleopas says, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

“What things?” He says.

Ironically, they tell Jesus His story. Jesus finally breaks in and tells them the story. As He does, He demonstrates how the entire arc of Scripture is one with Him at the center. He is their long-awaited Messiah, who comes to redeem the world. As He opens the Scriptures, He gives these disciples one of the greatest gifts; He honors their story, confusion, and inability to find an anchor and gives them the larger redemptive story to place their own. These two disciples are given a super important point of integration. Now they can see their story, named, set, and relevated in the pages of Scripture.

Adele writes, 

I think we all have parts of our story that we don’t like to remember—the places where we have been most hurt, most exposed, or most confused. Sometimes, it’s hard to understand where Jesus was in that part of our story because the wound is so great. Maybe you walked a season of unanswered prayers for a long time, or you carry questions that may not be answered until glory. 

What would it look like for you to go back to that place? To go back to your most painful place and ask, “Where were you, Jesus, in this part of my story?” 

The two guys thought all hope was lost. They weren’t sure where to turn or what to believe because their supposed hero was seemingly dead. But as we have said, Jesus was and is faithful to show up.

Our God does not turn His face from His beloved—even in the darkest parts of our stories and world, He remains present and always at work. As we see at the end of this passage, Jesus is patient enough to sit at our table and remind us of His redemptive love. 

Tish Harrison Warren shares her own need to live in her story in the context of community.

Unkind and condemning thoughts tell me that God’s love is distant, cold or irrelevant, that I must prove myself to God and other people, that I am orphaned and unlovable, that God is tapping his toe, impatient with me, ready to walk out on me. These thoughts are loud enough that I need a human voice telling me, week in and week out, that they’re lies. I need to hear from someone who knows me that there is grace enough for me, that Christ’s work is on my behalf, even as I’m on my knees confessing that I’ve blown it again this week.

The same is true for me, too. Those around me have been persistent in reminding me of God’s faithfulness — to show me where & how God is working, how He has protected me, or how He has provided when I have been unable to see it for myself. 

I don’t know if this is only me, so this might sound a bit crazy, but I genuinely don’t think I am able to fight these lies on my own…to believe that His grace is enough for me…I can’t believe it on my own. I’ve tried. And it’s been in those seasons where I have carried these lies on my own, without confessing my weakness and doubts to those around me, that I’ve become most ashamed of my story — of who I am.

Without those around me speaking truth out loud to my most vulnerable places, the lies will take root, and I will fall into despair. 

Alongside those around us, we can be reminded of our position in God’s story through His Word. 

We all have a story. Our story begins long before we enter the world and continues long after we leave it. We have a say in our story, as do those around us and those far off. As in most love stories, there is an antagonist. Ours is the evil one. And there’s a triumphant protagonist, the God of Love, also known as the “Author and Perfecter” of our story. In the end, our story is perfected and complete. But in the here and now, it is a daily story to be lived and loved, one sentence at a time.

Questions to Consider 

What story in Scripture do you find yourself most personally and intimately? Where do you resonate most deeply?

Who are you sharing your story with today? Who’s sharing their story with you? How does sharing stories help stay anchored to God’s Great Love Story?

What’s the story you are currently telling yourself? What’s the story God desires for you to believe?

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