In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. (Genesis 1:1, ESV).
Throughout the ages, great storytellers have rarely lacked an audience. What was true then remains true now. Walk into many locker rooms, and invariably you will hear someone with the gift of gab holding forth on some topic of interest. If they are truly gifted, it can be spellbinding.
Imagine, if you will, being invited to a dinner party to listen to Bobby Jones reminisce about winning what was equivalent to The Grand Slam for his generation. Jones’ feat of winning the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur Championship, British Open, and British Amateur Championship, all in a single year, is one of the sport’s greatest accomplishments. The year was 1930. Hearing him give a first-person account would have been nothing short of magical.
When we sit in front of talented storytellers, we are whisked away from time and space into another dimension—seeing the unseeable, we can find meaning and purpose for our individual and collective lives through stories.
Christine Hennebury gets it right when she writes, “Storytelling is not just entertainment. It’s a fundamental part of being human.” But what does that mean? Are stories something we concoct to hide the meaninglessness of our lives? Or can stories tell us something true about ourselves and the world we inhabit?
When God chose to reveal himself and his purposes for mankind, he chose to tell a story. As it turns out, God’s story is the true story of the world. Of course, this grand narrative of mankind’s beginning, purpose, failure, and destiny took thousands of years to write.
With multiple authors across many epochs, each one was inspired by the Holy Spirit. They tell their part of the story—all of which come together in a majestic tapestry of one overarching metanarrative (the biggest picture). Where is this story found? Scripture!
This fact is why, among other considerations, Scripture is constantly under attack. It alone is the “authorized biography” of God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Furthermore, in the pages of sacred writ, humanity discovers its raison d’être (reason for existence). That is, we find our place in History
At a minimum, for any story to accurately account for the riddle of our existence, it must answer the following questions: How did the universe begin? What is man? What is ethically right? What is wrong with the world? Where does humanity find redemption? Where is the world headed? And, what happens after death?
Even those academics who deny the reality of one true story of the world eventually admit they cannot avoid creating another story to replace the one they work so hard to deny. In other words, mankind cannot avoid its need for a story. It is no wonder, then, that the enemy of our souls never tires of trying to discredit the authenticity of the story found in Scripture.
Every truly great story has a beginning and an end, with the end organically connected to the beginning. Meaningful stories are not fragmented bits, disconnected ideas, or unrelated events randomly strewn together.
What is true of great stories is true of the greatest story, the story in which we find ourselves. Life has meaning precisely because it is authored by the Creator and Redeemer of the world. In this story, the hero is Jesus! Attempting to re-write the story of the world to make oneself the hero is futile.
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s brilliant story, The Lord of the Rings, Samwise Gamgee asks Frodo, “I wonder what sort of tale we are in?” Indeed, we must also ask similar questions—What, or better, whose story are we in? And what role do I play in His story?
Prayer- Holy Spirit, we ask you to open our eyes to the “greatest story ever told.”