Join the Show
Ever notice how we are all storytellers? From the old man exaggerating the size of the fish he caught last weekend to the teenager recounting their favorite movie, scene-for-scene, we all love to tell stories.
Go through a day and count how many stories people tell you. Look at Facebook and see how many stories and shared stories pop up in your news feed. Stories are all around us. Some are funny, others tragic, or, perhaps even boring, but they're there nonetheless.
My kids are definitely storytellers. When I get home from work, they don't just run up and ask me to play with them, they run up and ask me to join a story. They have a role, they assign me a part, and suddenly, we're pirates locked in a swordfight or searching for hidden treasure. We're superheroes saving the day, or a royal family attending a ball at the castle.
They've been playing these games for hours before I get home, but once I walk through the door, I'm invited to join the story. Like an actor receiving his cue, I walk on stage and become a part of the show.
Every family has stories that we are a part of everyday.
Most of the time, we sort of stumble into various roles of unintended stories. But what if we were able to choose our family's story? What if we were able to offer our home the role of a lifetime...a Big Story...a story bigger than ourselves...a story that stretches us beyond our normal roles and reaches further than we could reach on our own.
What if we allowed a God-sized story to captivate our family, inviting us into the script the Lord has written?
What if we submitted our plot, our dialogue, our setting, and our character development to the Author of Life?
I believe that's when our stories would become something we could have never imagined before...stories of hope, transformation, missions, joy, worship, and life.
By the end of the day, we will all hear dozens of stories and share a dozen more. Our families will do the same. Our families, the lives we lead, the plot we pursue, will tell its own story. And we have the chance to join the Greatest Story ever told, still being told, for when Jesus gave us the Great Commission, that was our cue to walk on stage, and join the show.
Jonathan Williams is the founder of Gospel Family Ministries and the Senior Pastor of Wilcrest Baptist Church, a multi-ethnic church of 44 nations located in Houston, TX. He and his wife are blessed with three wonderful children.
