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Our story matters!
Most likely (more than likely actually) your life has not been perfect…but it’s your story and how you see it right? But how does God see it? In your opinion has you life been good or bad? All of it? What about how other people in your life see you?
There are stories in the Bible one being the story of Joseph. His dad loved him dearly and spoiled him showing him more love than he did to the kids. They were jealous of Joseph as most siblings would be if one was shown more love than what was given to the rest.
Joseph didn’t do this or ask for the treatment of specialness in his life with his dad. It ended up when the brothers sold Joseph into slavery and told the father that it must have been a wild beast that killed him. They knew what they did and they thought that the story was over…but it had just begun.
You see God can/and does work through people’s hardships to bring about whatever plan He has in store for them. In the case of Joseph great things would finally come to him. He was eventually made second in command in Egypt. Joseph was released from prison where he had been falsely accused, and and given a position of great honor. That position in Egypt was one where he saved people (including his own family who had sold him into slavery prior)…and all those years Joseph was in Egypt he was learning. What Joseph did saved many lives. Now his brothers didn’t recognize Joseph when they went to Egypt because of the famine to buy food. I won’t put the story here as you can read this amazing story of Joseph in the Bible.
The brothers saw Joseph as a child who was treated differently and sold him to get rid of him from their life. They had no clue that one day this brother of theirs was going to be the one to save them. They could not see what God had in store for Joseph or for their own families.
The first part getting sold into slavery was a bad thing (or looked like a bad thing right?) It wasn’t easy on Joseph. He had become a slave and was accused of wrong doing when he was a great moral man. God saw the end where the brothers and even then the slave owners did not. God always sees what we will choose to become in life over what and where we are now.
Joseph’s story had a trimumphand ending and not a tragic ending for his family. He was reunited with his father and the entire family came to live in the land of Egypt where Joseph took care of them.
Well, we all have a story to tell (even when we won’t tell it). Many of us have had lives we didn’t like what was going on, pain, suffering, loss, abuse, and downright wrong choices that most people make in life. Some of us had good stories to tell to a point. Well, we can’t judge a person by what we don’t know. We just go about judging people we don’t agree with, that have hurt us or disappointed us, and so on. We don’t see people as God does God sees the person we will one day become even if we go through crud now. Most of us have things in our life we wish we could take an eraser and just wipe our slate clean…but we can’t.
We can’t judge a story of one’s life by their past and most times even by their present. If only we could, right? But wait a moment…our story, if we are alive, is not finished and God is not finished with us yet. It is the end of our story that determines our outcome and where we will get to spend eternity at.
I can’t judge my story by my past because I am no longer in my past. I’ve had problems and I sure bet you have also. We make mistakes, do things we should not do, and hurt others we never meant to hurt. Yes, they hurt us too, at times, but at some point we must let it go, forgive, and move on.
Life is moving on. We can’t stay where we are today. Our story is not over if we are breathing. As long as we are on earth, we have not completed the end of our own story. God has given each of us a time journey. Some people die young and some live a long time. If we are alive then God is not done with us or our story. He wants us to end our life in Him so we get eternity with Him in heaven…but…He will allow you not to be there if that is your choice.
Know this….if you are a child of God…then you have an ending to your story planned out by God to get you across the finish line victoriously. No matter what you have faced living on this earth you can, if you are truly His, finish your story victoriously.
Seeing life’s ending for those that love the Lord will see an ending quite different than the person who rejected the Lord. As a child of God, we get to go across the finish line and what an awesome thing that will be. We will see life in light of our ending. We will be considered victorious, restored, there will be triumph, blessings, joy, and glory in our ending.
When we look at our ending see the ending in light of what God got you through in life. He didn’t leave you or forsake you. Many times He just had to allow the garbage there to get you eventually to the finish line.
Every problem you had to go through, every hurt, every tear, every failure, every evil….they were things that you went through to get you to the final point of everlasting life in the presence of God. Even if difficult when we went through them…we made it. God never said that in this world you would have your life easy. He said in this world we would have tribulations. That includes trials, tests, and temptations to deal with. Our story will have an ending. We can make it a great ending that ends in heaven with our Lord, or we can go down a path by choice that will never take us into the presence of God.
I personally want Jesus in my life 24/7. I don’t want even one moment without Him. I made my choice to follow the Lord. Yes, I messed up many times over in my life and one part of me wishes I could go back and have a redo…but I can’t. I did learn by my mistakes in life. I was born, I had a story, and at some point I will have an ending. I just pray that my ending has the outcome of heaven. No matter what we might be going through in our life right now…and many are drastically hurting in many ways…we can still change our ending. Give you life fully to the Lord and ask Him to fix you. He wants the end of your story of life to be the story He always had planned for you. Don’t reject the Lord or put off your decision. The second you take your last breath here on earth…will determine where you will be for all eternity. Choose wisely. Many have chosen the Lord…praise God, but many will reject Him and many will never understand what will happen to them. They have believed all the lies of the devil, society, and culture…and if they don’t change they won’t like the outcome of their eternal life.
As for me…I choose to follow Jesus. I pray you do as well. My dash (birth…life (my dash)…death) must mean more than just existence. I want my dash to end well and then when I take that last breath…I want to be in the presence of God. I hope you do as well.
My story matters and so does yours!