HAVE YOU WRITTEN YOUR STORY?

I Didn't Want to Write My Story

Having lunch with a friend several months ago, he shared he had just written his story of life events. He is an accomplished college professor and has had many successes. Writing his story, he told me, enabled him to see what God had done for him throughout his lifetime. He encouraged me to write mine.

This was not the first time someone had encouraged me to write my story. As with the other times, I didn't act on the advice. Reading one of David Brooks books recently, he discussed "connecting the dots" of our lives to see how God has been with us. Again, I didn't follow the suggestion. The truth is I felt the thought of recalling the failures, mistakes and pain of my past was not worth whatever benefit  there might be. I was wrong!

Successes and Failures 

A few years ago, I received a call from a partner in a CPA firm in another state. He called to schedule me for two week-long training seminars in his firm. He called because some 25 years before he and two of his partners had attended and liked a seminar I taught when they were entry-level accountants! I was stunned because I couldn't even remember teaching the seminar! A success? On the other hand, I can quickly tell you about several seminars I taught for other CPA firms that were failures, also 25 years ago! Why am I, and perhaps you, like this?

For some of us, we have learned to operate in a negative mentality. We were raised performance oriented, and in my case, I was a "bad boy" whenever I did something wrong. Who I was as a person was dependent on my behavior. I was only a good boy when I did something good, or sometimes not even then. The result of this mentality is that we almost always see the bad first in other people. We are constantly judging ourselves, as well as everyone else. For me, I tried to break out of this mentality for years under my own strength. Guess how much progress I made. Very little! Only by faith and patience can we expect God to make these changes in our lives.

The process of changing to a positive mentality, i.e., a lifestyle of seeing good in people first, may take a lifetime for some of us, and then only if we recognize the need to change. Despite my striving to have a positive mentality, my default in a crisis was negative. So, we have to begin somewhere to allow God to make changes. This doesn't mean we are going to see an immediate paradigm shift! It means we may be successful some of the time, over a long period of time!

Writing the Story

When I shared some of this with a friend, she said she wouldn't even know how to begin. The secret is to start at the beginning by asking God to bring to your remembrance important life events, both positive and negative. In my case, I just started thinking about my early childhood and chronologically went forward from there. It took two days and 24 typewritten pages to do this and, when I finished, I actually felt worse about my life than when I began! 

Interestingly, I wrote my story over two months ago but yesterday, as I began to share my experience with some friends, a different picture emerged. Some fleeting thoughts I had in the past weeks began to take shape. I realized I was not looking at a series of individual events, but God's orchestrating His plan for me. He didn't cause the negative events; that was my contribution! My sin, my unwillingness to recognize Him and my self-centeredness brought bad results. But the good news was that He was always there when I was ready for His help! Even in the midst of my dirty diapers he opened doors for successful experiences! Was this every day, month or year? Of course not! It was happening throughout all of my 82 years!

Your Story Can Reveal God's Plan for You

Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the thoughts (plans) I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." (NKJV) I'm still seeking God to help me finish well on earth, and if I'm honest, viewing myself positively is still difficult! But that is the purpose of our journey, isn't it? 

In the first remake of the original movie Gladiator, as General Maximus was motivating his troops for battle, he said, "What you do here today will echo into eternity." Likewise, achieving a positive mentality from our story here on earth, and for eternity, will only result from what we do with what He has done for us!

We can go two ways, I think. We can trust Him to do what He has said, or we can live a life that ends in despair.  If we know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and we trust Him with our lives, our story will echo into eternity! When Jesus died on the Cross, He set in place everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3)! Contrary to some religious paradigms, however, receiving what He has given us will not happen automatically! It depends on our believing and receiving in our hearts what He has already done in Jesus!