It’s true. Early in my faith walk I had no idea there would be people who needed to hear my story. So I didn’t pay much attention to what God was doing in my life, let alone write it down. Fast-forward a few decades to the clarity of today and I can see that these people were, and are, waiting in my neighborhood. At work. And on the other side of the world. All of them, waiting to meet Jesus.
I’m sharing this story with you today in hopes it is relevant and resonates in a meaningful way.
Perhaps you are afraid of anything related to telling your story. Maybe you don’t even know who you would tell. Or it could be you don’t have a “platform.”
None of that matters! You can still take a HUGE step today:
Write it down!
What happened in my own life may surprise you. As I’ve already shared, the notion of writing a “story” was incomprehensible. It simply could not and would not happen.
But writing things down could. I didn’t even realize it at the time, but that is exactly what I was doing with my habit of daily journaling. By writing down each day what was happening in my life and how God was at work, it turns out I had all the fixin’s to write a story later. You see, my story was “buried” in all of the things I had written down!
That’s why we all need to write things down…so we’ll be ready when God puts someone in front of us. And he will.
Embarrassed? Of course you are–join the club. If that’s the case, weigh your embarrassment against the glorious blessing of being used by God to TRANSFORM someone’s life…someone’s faith…someone’s ministry. And then think of who that person will touch later. And how that would continue out into eternity….person to person.
The more specific your story–the better. Just think about what you have battled in your life or what you are battling right now. Yes, it’s ok to be in the middle of a struggle because our story is not about arrival. They are examples of how we relied on God and were strengthened by our faith and his hand on our life.
I know…it’s easy to delay plans to use our story to help others until the kids are out of college or we retire. Nonsense. Ministry and mission are not something we “get around to later.”
“In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Acts 20:35
We need to ask God for the strength and ability to tell our story at any moment. We need to ask God for his providential will and timing. We need to ask God to boost our confidence so we can boldly tell others about what he has done in our lives.
What about you? What’s your story? Have you written it down?
They’re waiting.
