Your Story ~ ReNEWed Life '12

Recently I’ve been writing about my time at ReNEWed Life Women’s Event where Lisa Whittle spoke. Today I continue writing about what God showed me through Lisa’s messages. This is post 3 of 4. Read the previous posts here and here.
Last time I wrote about facing our truth. And I said: When we face our truth and are honest with others about it, it influences those around us. This goes right into Lisa Whittle’s third message of the day “Your Story Matters”. Lisa said that from our place of wholeness (once we’ve faced our truth and been made whole in Christ) we must move. She said our point is to make God famous. We don’t share for us, we share for them (so others can hear about Him).

She said there are two places where it goes wrong.

1. We think we don’t have a story
2. We emphasize the wrong person

We all have a story. Lisa said, “We have to understand our story is what happens between Jesus and us in the pages of our earthly journey.” Yes, we all have a story…and that story is about Him, not about us. We need to share our truth because “honesty makes others feel brave”, and it can nudge them to receive the Truth.

This message reminded me of something I heard Lysa TerKeurst say before (my paraphrase), “People don’t care to hear about your God until they’ve seen the reality of him played out in your life.” In other words, people don’t care to hear you preach the gospel to them until they’ve seen the gospel of grace and love lived out in you. They want to see Him in you, to know that He’s real and that He works in your real life. Lysa TerKeurst also said this, “People want to know if He works.”

I’d say that’s why your story matters. Your story, the one that’s happened between you and God, shows others that He works…in a real way, in your real life. When we’re honest about where we’ve been and what He’s done in us, it proves He works.

That’s really the point of this blog, all of it not just this post…to share what He’s done and what He’s doing in me. That’s why I shared part of my story in my last post. And why I try to be honest about my struggles, so that you will see you are not alone and that He works…really works in the everyday stuff of life.  It's about Him!

At the end of the day at ReNEWed Life Women’s Event we had time to reflect on the day and what we had heard. A question from Lisa Whittle’s “Your {w}hole Story” Guide was posed, I asked myself, “If I could spend the rest of my life talking about one thing, what would it be?” My answer: I would spend my life telling people that we don’t have to live stuck or broken or in empty religion. That, yes, heaven is coming, but we can also experience freedom and abundant life through Christ, here, right now, in this life.

Honestly, reading friends, He is the answer to every question. I know because I have looked for happiness and satisfaction in all the wrong places. When I surrendered my life to Him I found that He truly is the source of joy, peace and hope. It’s His love and grace that changes everything.

No, life isn’t always easy and carefree. We live in a fallen world. But life is better, much better with Him, than without Him. That’s the truth!

How can you share your story? Do you believe it matters?  It does.

“…Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.”

Ephesians 4:29

Next time, my thought on Lisa’s message “Holes Bring Hope”. I will share about how empty religion limited and defined me…and how that drove me to God.