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May 2 - May 17, 2018
In each and every epic that moves us, there is an element of surprise, some unexpected turn that sends the hero on a journey. Storytelling experts call this the “inciting incident.” It’s the event that calls a character, often unwillingly, into a larger story.
The word “incite” means to stir into action,
conflict isn’t what ruins a story—far from it! Conflict is what makes a story great.
Miller said that while we sometimes advertise Jesus as a product that will fix all our problems and spare us from conflict, the Bible declares the opposite to be true. He also said that while we sometimes encounter conflict, shrug our shoulders, and say, “Oh well, I guess God closed that door,” some things are worth pursuing no matter what. Even if you have to kick down a few doors.
To the extent we can find and articulate what it means to follow and serve God in between His grand tent poles of human history, what we’re doing is sketching out a theology for the middle.
This book is my attempt to convince you that seeing everything through the lens of story will help you make some sense of life and faith and yourself.
Story is who we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going. Story is a call to action. Story is an invitation into something bigger than ourselves. Story is the belief that the darkest hour is just before dawn. Story is the conviction that conflict does not mean chaos.
Story is the structure through which God gives us His gospel and sends us out into the world. Story is a lens through which we might see the world and better understand its meaning and movements.
Identify yourself as a storyteller, an artist committed to narrative, and you’ll experience God and your life more deeply than you did before.”
THE IDEA OF THIS BOOK is that story is a great tool for helping us understand life and faith.
Jesus didn’t call us to a Principle Driven Life, but rather to His gospel, the Good News, a story that ushers in a kingdom.
“A story is simply one huge master event,” he writes. “When you look at the value-charged situation in the life of the character at the beginning of the story, then compare it to the value-charge at the end of the story, you should see the arc of the film, the great sweep of change that takes life from one condition at the opening to a changed condition at the end. This final condition, the end change, must be absolute and irreversible.”
“A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.”5
When we become people who want something that’s worth overcoming resistance, we no longer settle for the default Path of Least Resistance mode. That’s the beginning of the power of story—to propel us toward something—but it gets better. Story is so much bigger than just what we want. Story helps us see beyond ourselves to the forward momentum of our Father’s world, His kingdom, and our place in it.
What I’m presenting in this book is the idea that story is a mechanism, a process for discovery, a compass of sorts, and a framework for understanding.
not everything in this world that looks like a ladder is capable of supporting my weight.
Without the bridge of story—a reconciled sense of self—many find themselves trapped on one side of a chasm created by their experiences, unable to cross safely to the other side.
In cases involving trauma, story is a key component in helping a person recover a sense of self.
To the extent that we’ve got a grip on our stories, we’ve got a grip on our sense of self.
If we’re willing to piece together our stories and see the relationships between what happened then and what’s happening now, we get to make choices about what happens next.
“The gospel is not advice to be lived up to, it’s a story to be lived into.”3
The true nature of our calling to new life in Christ must be a narrative in which a character who wants something overcomes conflict in order to get it, rather than a self-help sales pitch or a progression of logical proofs.
Without the big story, the Christian life is merely an obligation to morality now in exchange for heaven later.
Jesus is not as fixated on perpetrating shame as we are. Shame doesn’t seem to serve His purposes the way we believe it will serve ours.
“The saint is just a small character in a story that’s always fundamentally about God.”
Repent is an invitation to a story exchange.
“People fulfill their individual and collective destiny in the art, music, literature, commerce, law, and scholarship they cultivate, the relationships they build, and in the institutions they develop—the families, churches, associations, and communities they live in and sustain—as they reflect the good of God and his designs for flourishing.”
“A ship in a harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”
I heard Ian Cron tell a story about being in the mountains with some friends. He shared with his friend Gail about conflict he was experiencing—a strained relationship with a family member. Looking thoughtfully at the mountains, Gail acknowledged the difficult situation. And then she asked a question Cron admits floored him: “What does this make possible?” “I carry that question with me all the time now,” Cron continued, as well we all should.
in most conflict/resolution dynamics—we can’t be mere recipients of resolution; we have to be participants in it.
The fact that we’re always churning with needs and desires means that one objective or another—however epic or insignificant—is always before us and we’re always in pursuit.
“After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight” (v. 9). With this sequence of events, Jesus set the gold standard for the word “delegate.”
To the prideful and powerful, the gospel story will always be threatening.
truth claims and moral demands] are embedded within narratives that often have overlapping themes and within various myths that often reinforce common ideals.”
people’s beliefs about the future shape the choices they make in the present. In other words, the stories we tell ourselves about where our lives are headed directly influence how we live.
Our beliefs about the future shape the choices we make in the present.
Hope is the belief, however tenuous, that the story gets better.
The Good Samaritan was not a doctor and wasn’t responsible for healing the man in the ditch, and neither was he responsible for ending the world’s violence or filling in the world’s ditches. The Samaritan only had to dignify the man in the ditch as a human being made in the image of God and love him well—to Jesus, this was the story of a man who’d born witness to the eternal life in him by loving his neighbor.
“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”12 Jesus looked at water and saw wine. He looked at the lame and saw dancers. Jesus looked at the cross and saw victory. He looked at the tomb and saw it empty. Jesus looked at a disparate collection of rugged Jewish men and saw His first witnesses. He looked at a world ravaged by rebellion and saw it made new.
Many of the stories that speak to me pit a community against what appears to be insurmountable conflict, from The Lord of the Rings trilogy to The Mission to Lost to Firefly. It’s in these stories, in which people and circumstances construct a redemptive community using their individual gifts and histories, that I’m reminded of the truth God spoke shortly after the dawn of humanity: “It is not good for the man to be alone.”
Despite our relational wiring, every human relationship has the potential to splinter and cite “irreconcilable differences” because wherever humans are involved, divergent interests follow. But in order to turn our focus from ourselves and come together, we need a bigger story than the kind of collaboration a child might propose: “On the count of three, you give me what I want.”
