The Story of Your Life

“…We spend our years as a tale that is told.” Psalms 90:9

Every story is important to God. He gave you life and a free will; it’s up to you to write the story. As long as you are breathing, your story is being written. I am not sure if we will all get to read each other’s story in heaven, but the last chapter of your story is not complete. It may be that today is the day you write a new chapter, a winning chapter, a chapter with a turning point in your life.

I just finished reading “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens. It had been on my bucket list. The first one hundred pages were difficult and I read them slowly, but when I got into the story line of the main characters, it got my attention and I could hardly put it down. A man by the name of Sydney Carton was a man with bad character through the first three quarters of the book and yet he became the unlikely hero.

He switched places with a man (Charles Darnay) who was sentenced to death during the French revolution. Charles Darnay had a wife and baby and was innocent. I thought he was going to die but then Sydney Carton was reminded of a scripture, “I am the Resurrection and the Life…” This scripture kept coming back to his mind. He knew he could help Charles and was willing to take his place. Sounded a lot like what Christ did for me. I think Mr. Dickens knew his Bible.

The fact is, Sydney Carton, for most of the book was a shady character but his last chapter is what he will be remembered for. May God help us to constantly be growing for Christ. No matter how often you have failed, no matter what you think about yourself, God has not given up on you.

“For a just man falleth seven times and riseth up again.” Proverbs 24:16

I love the final chapter of Job. He has experienced such great heartache and physical pain, yet through it all, God had not forsaken him. After all his grief, he seems to start over and the scripture says,

“After this Job lived… “(Job 42:16) I know it is in reference to the years he lived after his great trial but there is something about a man who chooses to LIVE even when he must start over!

It reminds me of a line in Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”.    

“If you can bare to hear the truth you’ve spoken,

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

If you can watch the things you gave your life to broken

And stoop and build them up with worn out tools”

Don’t give up! Make your life worth reading for Jesus! Ask his Holy Spirit to live through you, the life He wants to live and you will not regret it!

Everyone likes a good story!