That story is too small for you.

How can you tell if the story you're living in, the script that you're following, is too small for you?

1. Life becomes about managing risk, more than audacious faith.


2. You'll borrow others' stories -- through pop-culture magazines, novels and reality t.v. shows -- because yours feels uneventful and boring.


3. You won't think of entering into the stories of friends and family -- getting to know their hearts, their wounds and desires -- because you're not even aware of how your own story has developed.


4. The nature of your prayers hasn't changed for years, perhaps:  stalled and sputtering, rather than asking the Father the sorts of things Jesus did.


5. You'll feel that the stories of the Bible are distant and disconnected from your own experience -- that your own story bears little resemblance to the distinctly supernatural interplay those of ages past enjoyed with God.


6. You'll feel disengaged from your own heart's desires -- perhaps even dismissing the life you most deeply want.  Or, your desires may be so deeply buried or denied that you're not even aware of them.


7. Perhaps the story you've adopted is too small for you.  Perhaps it isn't God's story for you.

God's heart is strongly for you:  listen to his tailor-made invitation for your life.

Comments

[Richard]

Jim,

How I love this glorious Father who has called me (us) to be his very own. We have been designed to behold this glorious Christ in us as us, and in so doing as the scriptures point out, in beholding Him with an open (unveiled) face we are changed (transformed) into the same "image" from glory to glory. In other words, that image that is coming back to us in the glass-mirror, is not our image but is the living breathing image of the one we are and yet are becoming!

His story (history) that we've been called into is addressing the world we each encounter on a daily moment by moment basis...does it get any better than that~ha!

[Jim Robbins]

Hey Richard -- You're right -- what an image we bear and are growing deeper into. He's simultaneously healing us, and using us in the Great Battle -- unthinkable, yet astounding.

[Meredith]

Hi Jim,

This is cool....I like the checklist...:0) I think too that it is a checklist of not living fully and not embracing our glory...which is the same thing as being in a small story :0)

Meredith

[Jim Robbins]

Hey Meredith -- so true -- we'll live in a small story if we're not aware of and embracing our unique glory. We are the only ones who underestimate ourselves -- not God, and not the Enemy -- they both know the glorious life we are capable of.

[John Moorhead]

Jim, This is one of those articulate, succinct writings which I wish I had had access to years ago. If only those who sense they are missing the kind of life Jesus spoke of would sit before him with these questions and allow him...dare to allow him...to lead. It is scarey, but oh, so worth it!

I have become aware of another group of people, even attending church on Sunday mornings and going through the rituals: those who believe God exists, but because of life's painful experiences, do not, cannot, trust him. They cannot see any story at all. They are lost, and people who are truly lost cannot use a map even if it is given to them. My heart breaks for these people. May God in his goodness and power come for them!

[Jim Robbins]

Hey John! I was struck by the phrase you used here: people who are truly lost cannot use a map even if it is given to them
I think you're onto something. So often, the Church tries to hand broken and lost people the map, first, expecting them to get on with being like Christ. We've forgotten that they first need the restoring work of Jesus, at least in some substantial measure, in order to take up the 'easy yoke.'