Everyone Has a Story

Over the past couple of weeks several events have happened that caused me to think that “Everyone Has A Story”. Mrs. Burns at Carestone told me one Sunday morning a few weeks ago that she didn’t know why she was still here. At the Men’s retreat in Tim Partlow’s session about “Men After God’s Own Heart”, Tim talked about men in the Bible that was referred to as being after God’s own heart. Of course you think of David, Moses, Abraham, Paul and so on. A couple of Sundays ago at the 10:30 service Mark Steele told part of his story from his dark days during the pit of his addiction.

Yesterday at Carestone I spoke about Everybody’s story. God didn’t pick men (or Women) that were without problems. Let’s look at Paul (Saul). In Acts chapter 9 Saul got orders from the High Priest to go search Damascus and find Christians and arrest them and bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment, even putting them to death. He was a murder. And, David was a man after God’s own heart put his mistress’s husband at the front of the battle to be sure he would be killed. So, David was an adulterer and murder.

The point I was trying to make is that God takes people in whatever state they were in and they changed because of God. Mike Root use to say that the gospel can be summed up in one word, Love. I think that is true and that God intended us to love each other and know each other’s story and be thankful that He sent the gift of Jesus to save us from the blackness of sin.

Just like our own families that we know the good and the not good stuff and we love them because of it and in spite of it. We need those circles of people that we know them just like we know our own families, the circles of people that we can lean on in the rough times, we can celebrate with in the good times and that we can praise God with all the time. I was sitting here and just saw a T-Mobil cell phone commercial that implied this same idea, asking who was in your “fav–5”. Well, we all need those Fav-5’s we can call anytime for any reason!

Sometimes we have to tell our stories to encourage people that they can make it through their rough times. To let them know that God will take you in whatever state you’re in and can change you. Sometimes we need to tell our stories to develop that circle of people that we can trust with anything and who know us just like our own family! So, tell your story!