My girls love big stories.
Like me, they love to read and watch epic adventures.
Their first taste of big stories came from Veggie Tales, which was then followed by Pixar’s Cars. As we emerged from the Cars phase (and let me tell you, this was a significant phase at our house), we discovered The Chronicles of Narnia, then Star Wars, then Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and more recently, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
A Beautiful Reminder
But earlier this week God gave me a beautiful reminder that the biggest, most epic drama is the one God himself has written and is carrying out in this world through the lives of his children.
I preached at a Wednesday night service and afterwards had a chance to talk with a couple outside. As we talked, they shared their life story with me.
And they have definitely seen a lot of life in their story.
A veteran who served in Iraq, drug addictions that resulted in losing custody of their kids, the loss of several loved ones in close succession, homelessness, and more.
Yet, God’s grace triumphed over it all. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4-5)
God led them out of darkness and into new life in Christ by bringing them to local ministries where they heard the gospel, were loved and cared for in Jesus’ name, and where they experienced the life-transforming grace of God.
They’ve now found Christ-centered community and profound hope. I was moved to tears by the incredible thankfulness that fills their hearts because of God’s grace.
The story of God’s work in their lives is but two threads in a grand, beautifully intricate tapestry that God is weaving in the story of the world and revealed to us in the Bible.
No one writes a story like God writes a story.
The Greatest Story
Tim Keller says of the Bible “The best and most compelling stories have high stakes and astonishing, unexpected resolutions. If that is the case, there has never been a greater story than this.”
Keller goes on, saying “[the Bible] is both true history and a unified story about how God came to find us in the person of Jesus Christ, who lived and died in our place so we could be saved by grace through faith and live with him forever in a remade world, the Garden-City of God (Rev. 21–22).”
My Most Frequent Prayer For My Daughters
I hope my daughters never lose their love for big, epic, fictional stories.
But my most frequent prayer for them is that God would use their love for great, fictional stories to captivate their hearts with the greatest true story of all – his rescuing, redeeming, grace-filled story of making all things new through Jesus Christ (Revelation 21:5).
This isn’t a story where we sit on the outside and read or watch as a detached audience. We are a part of his story. In his story, through Jesus we find redemption, and life, and love, and purpose, and hope unlike any other.
And I pray my girls will grow to be captivated by it.
A Thrill of Hope 