When we look at the gospel, we see a story. In fact most of scripture is
stories, people’s stories, God’s stories. Something that the Lord has
been showing me lately is the power in our own stories. Evangelism can
be a scary word for many of us, I foremost of all. But what it really
is, is sharing a story, our own story.
One of the most amazing parts of the job that I get to do is that I get
to hear people’s stories. Whether it is sitting down in front of a
hut in Africa, doing an interview for a trip applicant on the phone, or at training
camp listening to a future World Racer, I have heard stories so various
and yet so similar and I have learned an incredible amount from hearing
them.
A few days ago, I was talking with a World Racer that I
trained who is about to launch on her trip in January. She was telling
me about how many people she has been able to talk to about what she is
doing with the World Race through her job waiting tables at a restaurant
and how many people have responded. It absolutely blew me away that
even before going out on the field as a “missionary” she has been having
hundreds of people encounter God right here at home simply through
sharing with them her story about it.
What I have been realizing is that our stories as believers is the
gospel. I was lost and bound on a road for a death that I could do
nothing to escape, and the Lord met me on that road, and pulled me up from it. I can not even really speak with complete authority on
the events of the scriptures as I was not an eye witness. They are
historical accounts and things that truly happened, powerful things in
and of themselves, but not the most powerful thing available to me.
The one thing that I can speak with complete and undeniable
authority on is MY story, where I have been, what I’ve done, what the
Lord has said to me, done for me, and asked me to do. Because the events
of scripture don’t really have any meaning until they intersect with
our own stories as people. It is in sharing my story that I have seen
the most fruit come in my own evangelism with people. My story is not a
fairy tale. There have been many dark moments and hard, painful things.
But it is the way that the Lord has stayed with me through all of it, even in the times I didn’t ask Him to, that makes me who I am now. And even though it can be hard to share
those things with people sometimes, it is in the way that God has loved,
provided for, and guided me safely through them that shows who He really
is.
The greatest story that we can tell is our own so I urge you that as His story is being told this holiday season, share YOURS, because it is in yours, that His is completed!
