CHAPTER 1
Week 1: Introduction
O God, thank you for writing me into your story. I find purpose in knowing that I am a part of the greatest story of all. Even if I am faced with uncertainty today help me to see how I am connected to you. I believe you are a God who still speaks, help me to hear your voice today. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Genesis 1:1-2, 26–2:4
When God began to create the heavens and the earth—the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God's wind swept over the waters....
Then God said, "Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth."
God created humanity in God's own image,
in the divine image God created them,
male and female God created them.
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and master it. Take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and everything crawling on the ground." Then God said, "I now give to you all the plants on the earth that yield seeds and all the trees whose fruit produces its seeds within it. These will be your food. To all wildlife, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything crawling on the ground—to everything that breathes—I give all the green grasses for food." And that's what happened. God saw everything he had made: it was supremely good.
There was evening and there was morning: the sixth day.
The heavens and the earth and all who live in them were completed. On the sixth day God completed all the work that he had done, and on the seventh day God rested from all the work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all the work of creation. This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
Day 1
We all have a story. You know the chapters and the characters in your story. You know the moments of heartbreak and the moments of glory.
How often do you think that your life is not just a haphazard collection of events but that your story is a part of God's story, which means your life has purpose and meaning?
It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and not think about the greater purpose for our story.
G.K. Chesterton said, "I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller."
David said of God:
You are the one who created my innermost parts; you knit me together while I was still in my mother's womb. Psalm 139:13
David was recognizing that it was God who created all things in the beginning and who created him in the beginning. If we recognize God as author of our story, how should we live differently?
As we began this study of the God Story, first consider what has already come in your life.
If you had to divide your life into chapters up to this point, what would you title them?
Chapter 1:___________________________
Chapter 2:___________________________
Chapter 3:___________________________
Chapter 4:___________________________
What's next?
Chapter 5:___________________________
As you look back on your story and the possibilities of the future, what do you feel led to give thanks for today?
O God, thank you for writing me into your story. I find purpose in knowing that I am a part of the greatest story of all. Even if I am faced with uncertainty today help me to see how I am connected to you. I believe you are a God who still speaks, help me to hear your voice today. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Day 2
I often wish I had been given a blueprint at the beginning of my life—a map of sorts that told me where I was supposed to go and when.
Life, though, does not follow a simple formula. Instead we experience life like a story. We turn the next page and see what is there. Sometimes it is what we expected. Usually it is something we didn't.
Life is a drama, an adventure, sometimes a comedy, sometimes a tragedy, but always a story.
It unfolds whether we want it to or not, sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow.
As a child, I often pretended I was in a suspenseful adventure. In make believe times, I was the hero who encountered love, heartbreak, and the unknown. As an adult, I no longer have to pretend these things. Life is an adventure with love, heartbreak, and the unknown.
Part of living in the middle of a story means that you can't skip ahead and see the last chapter to see how this thing ends.
This can lead to wondering what in the world God is up to.
I don't get it. How does it all fit together?
David often asked this of God in the Psalms. Here is his heart in Psalm 13:
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? Psalm 13:1 (NRSV)
Clearly David was having some trouble seeing where he fit into God's story, if he fit at all.
We have a God who can handle our questions. We don't always get immediate clarity, but there is power in the questioning. Is there anything you would like to ask God today?
O God, thank you for writing me into your story. I find purpose in knowing that I am a part of the greatest story of all. Even if I am faced with uncertainty today help me to see how I am connected to you. I believe you are a God who still speaks, help me to hear your voice today. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Day 3
The Bible is a big book. In fact it is a collection of sixty-six smaller books. They were written by different people in different times in different circumstances.
If you are like me, you can look at the Bible, this big book, and hear the names Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Joseph, David, Mary, Jesus and wonder how they all fit together. Is this one story or a hundred stories? Does the God of Adam have anything to do with the God of Abraham, and what do they have to do with Jesus?
And then of course ... what does it have to do with me?
Amazingly, the Bible has threads that run throughout it connecting the characters with each other and with God. Over the next several weeks we will uncover these threads to see how the God Story is connected.
We will see that the Bible is not a haphazard collection of cute bedtime stories, but the Word of God speaking to us a connected story of hope for our lives. The longings that are expressed in the imaginations of eight-year-olds and the empty longings of fifty-year-olds find their resolution in this great story.
If you lack clarity about the story or where you fit in, know today that is a good starting place for you. If you feel empty as it relates to your purpose in life, know that is a good starting place.
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep ... Genesis 1:2a (NIV)
God began the story "in the beginning" with nothingness and void. Things were cloudy and dark. But God didn't leave it that way.
... and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Genesis 1:2b (NIV)
God was present above and with the emptiness and darkness.
Where are you experiencing emptiness and darkness?
God is present with you.
O God, thank you for writing me into your story. I find purpose in knowing that I am a part of the greatest story of all. Even if I am faced with uncertainty today help me to see how I am connected to you. I believe you are a God who still speaks, help me to hear your voice today. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Day 4
Where does any good story start?
"Once upon a time ..."
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ..."
"In the beginning."
That's where our story starts, right where any good story starts: at the beginning.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 (NIV)
And right there in the beginning God gets the whole thing started by speaking. God speaks things into existence.
Light, sky, land, trees, plants, stars, sun, moon, creatures in the water, creatures on the land, and then us.
Many people look at Genesis to learn about Creation, the age of the world, science, etc. The best thing that Genesis has to tell us, though, is about God. One purpose of the Introduction of a good story is to introduce the main character. In the God Story, the main character is, well, God.
Over the next three days we will look at three things that the Introduction to the God Story in Genesis tells us about God. The first is this: God is extremely powerful. God is the only being that can create out of nothing. As we journey through the God Story we will be amazed at how God relates to God's creation. Yet, don't miss this first. God is God. And God is full of power.
God has power to create and power for your life.
Where do you need God's power in your life? Where do you need something that only God can do?
O God, thank you for writing me into your story. I find purpose in knowing that I am a part of the greatest story of all. Even if I am faced with uncertainty today help me to see how I am connected to you. I believe you are a God who still speaks, help me to hear your voice today. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Day 5
Sometimes I catch a glimpse of my oldest daughter and for a moment I feel I am looking at myself about 25 years ago. She looks like me. I look like her. I'm sure there will be times she wishes that she looked more like her mother. I hope there are many other times that her resemblance to me causes her joy to know that she is my child.
God created humanity in God's own image, in the divine image God created them. Genesis 1:27a
We were created like God. We resemble God. Even on our worst days we carry the image of God.
So often we focus on the frailty that comes with our humanity. We so easily see our weakness and fragility. We seem to get daily reminders of our propensity to mess up. In Creation God created us in the image of God so that we would not forget that of the eternal that is in us.
God, the great Storyteller, is powerful, creative, and imaginative. God the great Storyteller made us like God, so we get to join the powerful, creative, imaginative things God is doing.
So we are not just a part of a great story; we get to be storytellers ourselves. We create things and dream dreams.
What does it mean to you today to know that you were created in the image of God?
What story is God calling you to write? What does God want you to create?
How can you resemble God today?
O God, thank you for writing me into your story. I find purpose in knowing that I am a part of the greatest story of all. Even if I am faced with uncertainty today help me to see how I am connected to you. I believe you are a God who still speaks, help me to hear your voice today. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Day 6
After God creates humanity, God does something peculiar. God speaks.
God speaks to that which God created. God does not desire to be a far-off God. God does not create, set this world in motion, and then step away. God speaks.
Why?
God speaks because God desires relationship with us. This will be Thread #1 in the God Story. We will see it over and over in the God Story. Our God is not like other gods. Our God speaks, initiates conversation with us, and the conversation leads to continued relationship.
Is your heart open today to hear the voice of God whispering, maybe speaking, perhaps even shouting to you of your connection to the story?
I have an old friend who, every time I think he has forgotten about me, will, at the right time, send a text, make a call, or show up at my house. Why does he do it? He desires our relationship to continue.
There are times in the God Story when we think God has gone silent for good. This is not the case. We must hang in there.
We must continue to speak and continue to listen.
God has something to say to you today.
Be still and listen for a moment.
What do you think God wants to say to you?
What do you need to say to God?
O God, thank you for writing me into your story. I find purpose in knowing that I am a part of the greatest story of all. Even if I am faced with uncertainty today help me to see how I am connected to you. I believe you are a God who still speaks, help me to hear your voice today. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Day 7
There is a longing in all of us to be a part of the God Story. I think it begins in the imagination and fairy tales of childhood. As children, we dream of greatness, we see ourselves as heroes and heroines in a bigger story.
The longings of your child-like heart for adventure and relationship for adventure and love are not to be dismissed. They are the echo of the greatest story that has ever been told bouncing off of your heart. It is the thread of God's desire for you pulling you back into the story.
Frederick Buechner wrote that God is "indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, his word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling."
Over time our hearts can become hardened.
Our hearts get broken.
If your heart is hard or broken today or if it has been a long while since you heard God calling to your heart, know that God's word to you is recoverable and worth recovering.
God still has a dream for you, a dream for greatness where you get a role in the great story. Don't give up on that. Don't give up on what God has for you.
Remember God speaks to you because God desires relationship with you.
What does it mean to you today to know that God desires you to be a part of the God Story? That God desires to be in relationship with you?
O God, thank you for writing me into your story. I find purpose in knowing that I am a part of the greatest story of all. Even if I am faced with uncertainty today help me to see how I am connected to you. I believe you are a God who still speaks, help me to hear your voice today. In Jesus' name. Amen.
CHAPTER 2
Week 2: Suspension of Disbelief
God, I want to fully live into the story you have for my life. Give me faith today to trust in you in the places in my life where I still can't see what you are up to. I believe; help my unbelief. Amen.
Genesis 18:1-15
The Lord appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre while he sat at the entrance of his tent in the day's heat. He looked up and suddenly saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from his tent entrance to greet them and bowed deeply. He said, "Sirs, if you would be so kind, don't just pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought so you may wash your feet and refresh yourselves under the tree. Let me offer you a little bread so you will feel stronger, and after that you may leave your servant and go on your way—since you have visited your servant."
They responded, "Fine. Do just as you have said."
So Abraham hurried to Sarah at his tent and said, "Hurry! Knead three seahs of the finest flour and make some baked goods!" Abraham ran to the cattle, took a healthy young calf, and gave it to a young servant, who prepared it quickly. Then Abraham took butter, milk, and the calf that had been prepared, put the food in front of them, and stood under the tree near them as they ate.
They said to him, "Where's your wife Sarah?
And he said, "Right here in the tent."
Then one of the men said, "I will definitely return to you about this time next year. Then your wife Sarah will have a son!"
Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were both very old. Sarah was no longer menstruating. So Sarah laughed to herself, thinking, I'm no longer able to have children and my husband's old.
The Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Me give birth? At my age?' Is anything too difficult for the Lord? When I return to you about this time next year, Sarah will have a son."
Sarah lied and said, "I didn't laugh," because she was frightened.
But he said, "No, you laughed."
Day 1
God asks us to believe the unbelievable.
In literature, this is called suspending disbelief. The concept of the "willing suspension of disbelief" was first introduced by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817. He said that when reading fantastic or non-realistic elements of literature there is a Suspension of Disbelief that is required. In other words, you have to be willing to suspend your tendency not to believe the impossible to have any hope of enjoying the story.
If you think of many of your favorite stories you will realize that a Suspension of Disbelief is necessary. We put reason and logic aside to enter into the story.
If you are going to enjoy the Superman story, then you have to believe that when Superman dons the dorky glasses and opens his eyes wide that no one can tell Clark Kent is Superman. If you are not willing to do that, you might as well move on. But we do it because the story is so good. We Suspend our Disbelief and enjoy the story.
Faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don't see. Hebrews 11:1
God asks us to believe some things that at first glance seem unbelievable. God calls upon us to have faith which is the proof of what we don't see.
If we base our lives only on what our eyes can see, we will miss out on some of the best parts of the story.
God is inviting you to play a role in the God Story. It will require you to suspend your disbelief and simply believe.
What are you hoping for in your story?
God, I want to fully live into the story you have for my life. Give me faith today to trust in you in the places in my life where I still can't see what you are up to. I believe; help my unbelief. Amen.
Day 2
The improbable story of Rudy Ruettiger has captivated people now for decades. Rudy was the third of fourteen children of a lower class family. He had undiagnosed dyslexia. He was 5 feet 6 inches tall. He walked on to the Notre Dame football team.
In the final game of his final season, on the final play his coach sent him into the game and he sacked the quarterback. His teammates put him on their shoulders and marched him around the field. It is an amazing story that requires the Suspension of Disbelief. Who would believe this improbable story?
But there's one important thing to note about Rudy's story: it's true.1
Keep in mind, as we talk about the fantastic story of God and God's people, that it is true. It will require great faith and certainly the Suspension of Disbelief, but please understand, fantasy does not necessarily mean fiction.
The God Story is amazingly improbable and amazingly true.
There will be times in your true story when you will be forced to have great faith in a God who is calling you to the seemingly impossible. These will be some of the most important moments of your story. You will need to suspend your disbelief so you can be caught up in the amazing, surprising next chapter that God holds for you.
Once there was a man who brought his son to Jesus for healing (Mark 9:14-29). The son was plagued by a spirit that caused him great anguish and distress. The man asked Jesus, "If you can do anything, please help us!"
Jesus responded, "If I can do anything? All things are possible for the one who has faith." The father responds, "I believe, help my unbelief."
You may feel that way. There are parts of me that believe, parts of me that want to believe. But, if I am honest there are parts of me that don't. Our finite minds don't grasp the depth of God's power and majesty. We just don't understand fully.
The father's honest response lead him to suspending his disbelief and opening himself up to the unbelievable things that only God can do.
What are you having trouble believing? Where do you need help with your unbelief?
God, I want to fully live into the story you have for my life. Give me faith today to trust in you in the places in my life where I still can't see what you are up to. I believe; help my unbelief. Amen.
