What’s your favorite story? Outside of the Bible. Take a couple minutes and share that with someone next to you.

All the married guys are supposed to say something like how they got engaged, or their wedding day, right? That’s my favorite.

Some of us have a favorite book, like mine is the Lord of the Rings. I will just never get over having read that.

Some of you might thing of a story told by a family member, something from days in the military, or a story that typifies something about how things used to be.

Stories affect us in such deep ways. A friend of mine is such a great storyteller, and Amanda and I find ourselves in stitches whenever he relates an experience. Stories can make us laugh.

Stories can also make us cry. Gretta was in a short story writing class, and near the end of the term she asked me to review one of her stories that was going into the class anthology. As I read through most of it, I found it enjoyable and well-written, but not particularly impressive or exciting. But when I reached the final few sentences, I suddenly found myself in tears. I told her it was reprehensible to just throw that kind of thing at me with no warning!

We all love stories. Stacey, as a marketing professional, can tell you first hand that the best way to promote your organization or product is to craft a story around it. And she and her team have been doing such a great job of telling the story of Life Action for the people we serve and the donors who partner with us.

God loves stories as well. From the first pages of Scripture, to the very end, the Scriptures are not a compendium of facts and knowledge. They are a collection of stories of God, his people, and often the poetic responses to those stories.

We also know God loves stories because when he came as one of us, his favorite method of teaching seemed to be telling stories that connected with his audience and reshaped their imaginations.

Incidentally, Satan loves stories as well, but we know them by another name - lies. And these lies are so hard to ignore, aren’t they? Stories are powerful.

But God doesn’t only love to tell stories. I’m convinced that he loves to hear our stories, and he’s also a perfect editor or collaborator, helping us reframe our experiences to tell the true story that we sometimes miss.

Remembering Reframing, Restorying

How God Remembers Our Stories

Memory and Stories

Memory is an interesting phenomenon. There are different kinds of memories. Some are in our bodies, like riding a bike or tying our shoes. There’s semantic memory - information, facts and details about the world we live in. There’s also episodic memory, how we recall events that have happened to us.

We also remember things differently, and spouses and parents can all attest to this. Maybe you and your supervisor can identify with this as well. “When did you say that project was due?”

But memory is an important part of our stories. Even the word - re-member - implies a process of piecing something back together into a coherent whole.

In fact, neuroscience is now confirming that stories are immensely important to social and internal connections. When we listen to someone telling a story, our brains are lighting up in the same places as the storyteller, like we are feeling the same kinds of emotions as they are, transmitting ideas more efficiently than just sharing information. It’s as if sharing a story is a fast track to sharing a mindset.

In addition, when we tell a story from our lived experience, we are utilizing the two halves of our brains - the left which processes information and ideas logically, and the right which is where all the experiences of our bodies converge. So those times when we experience things that don’t make sense, that cause dissonance with what we believe or know to be true, the best way to integrate our beliefs and our experiences is to tell our story to someone.

I love that Doug and Marilyn this morning taught us that in our re-membering, we are not called to put a spin on the painful parts of our stories. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t require some reframing in order to begin to see the whole picture.

A great Pixar movie came out several years ago, Inside Out, that imagined emotions personified running around in a young girl Riley’s brain. The main protagonist, Joy, is determined to make sure that Riley is always happy. And she’s devastated when a core memory is logged that is colored by her depressing coworker, Sadness.

I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but ultimately Joy has to learn that our core memories, the stories we tell that help define who we are, are not limited to a single emotion, let alone only happy and joyful. But that the deepest experiences we have are colored by a variety of emotions that set each other in relief.

One of my earliest memories is my grandmother offering me a popsicle. Great memory, right? But what I also remember is that I was deeply upset that day, as the youngest of three boys, because my brothers were going out to do something only big boys could do. And in my infantile grief, my grandmother attempted to comfort me with kindness.

I was upset, but my grandmother loved me. FWIW, I don’t recall how well I responded in that moment.

Prayer as Storytelling

If you read through the prayers of Scripture, in the Psalms and elsewhere, you’ll find prayers that have a story shape to them.

When Mary found herself the mother of the Messiah, she crafted a song of praise that told a story challenging the evil political and religious powers of her world. “The Mighty One has done great things for me.”

When Daniel prayed a prayer of repentance for Israel in Exile, he told the story of Israel’s failure and judgement. And God sent him another story in the form a fantastic visions of the future.

When Paul was writing to the churches in Ephesus or Philippi, he bursts into prayers of praise, not in the form of a theological treatises but in stories - “Before the foundation of the world he chose us in love” “who being the very form of God… humbled himself…”

When Israel was languishing in Exile, questioning the stories of their ancestors and their God, they told God the story of their suffering. “By the rivers of Babylon, we sat down and wept…”

Psalm 23 tells the story of a shepherd guiding, providing, protecting, and celebrating in one of his beloved sheep.

These were such important story-shaped prayers, that they along with many others have been stored for us in the Scriptures, as a model for own prayers.

The approaches in prayer that we’ve been learning and practicing already this week are just the tip of the iceberg in how prayer, and our stories in prayer, reframe the narrative and show the bigger picture. Three points.

Gratitude restories our blessings.

First, gratitude restories our blessings.

Because we are so naturally ungrateful, the first step in this is often simply intentionally noticing our blessings, the wealth of good things that God has flooded our life with. It changes our perspective - sometimes from a viewpoint of dissatisfaction or envy, or a mindset of scarcity, to one of abundance. This also affects how we view our own successes or accomplishments. We are constantly tempted to over-estimate our own contributions or our ability to control. Gratitude reorients us to our basic status as recipients. It brings us back to what Marilyn Robinson has termed the givenness of things. From him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever!

Gratitude restories our blessings.

Repentance restories our failures.

Second, repentance restories our failures.

Steve did such a lovely job yesterday reframing our failures in light of God’s love, grace, and forgiveness. While the lies Satan spins tempt us to hide the worst parts of ourselves, to punish ourselves in penance, or even to punish others for their wrongs we’ve received or perceived, God’s grace in forgiveness retells our failures as a story of God’s constant, unfailing love for us. God displays his love for us in that while we were enemies, Christ died for us.

Repentance restories our failures.

Lament restories our grief.

Third, lament restories our grief.

We just heard about this from Doug and Marilyn, so I don’t feel the need to belabor the point, but just to say this. Lament fills out the story to compassionately include our tears of sorrow and of anger, showing us a God who gently listens to our complaint. He is not bothered by the fact that we are human. That we weep and rage when things aren’t the way they are supposed to be. Instead he weeps with us, and he brings our eyes up to see that he is the same God as before.

Lament restories our grief.

Prayer as Storytelling

What does this mean for us? It means that when we pray, we need to be willing to bore God with the details.

Don’t simply thank him for providing for that need. Tell him again about your fear and doubt during that season of waiting, and thank him for showing up at the right time.

Don’t just confess your failure and ask forgiveness, though that’s also an appropriate response! “God be merciful to me a sinner!” But at times, using Psalm 51 as a template, process through the ways you were tempted, what it felt like to fall into that failure, what it feels like to know you are forgiven, what you envision will be possible through his grace as you continue to repent and change.

And definitely don’t suppress your grief or anger when suffering becomes your companion. Jesus is aquatinted with grief as well. I love Psalm 56:8 where, depending on your translation, God is recording your tears in his book, or capturing them in his bottle. He has the time to hear your pain. He has also suffered so greatly for you.

Response

There is another Psalm that tells the story of Israel in a beautiful way, Psalm 136. Line by line, the psalmist recounts the creation of the world, God’s rescue of Israel from slavery, and his victory in the conquest of Canaan. But after each line comes the refrain, His love endures forever. Generations of God’s people likely recited this Psalm responsively during times of blessing, perhaps during the reigns of David and Solomon, as well as times of trouble, like the Exile and the years under oppressive foreign rule.

As just one practice in restorying our stories, I’d like us to use this format to highlight God’s faithful love in all circumstances. So I’m going to ask you to participate with me. We have a couple of mics available. And I’d like you to briefly tell a story. And then all together we’ll respond His love endures forever. It can be something you’ve witnessed here at Life Action, especially over the last year. Or maybe something personal where you’ve seen God act. Or even a situation where you are waiting for him to act, but perhaps he’s given you renewed hope and confidence.

CUE MIC RUNNERS AND ASHLEY

So I’ll start out with just the beginning of the psalm to help us get started, and then if you have something to voice, just stand up until one of the mics makes it’s way to you.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

His love endures forever.

2 Give thanks to the God of gods.

His love endures forever.

3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords:

His love endures forever.

4 to him who alone does great wonders,

His love endures forever. (Psalm 136:1–4, NIV)

23 He remembered us in our low estate

His love endures forever.

24 and freed us from our enemies.

His love endures forever.

25 He gives food to every creature.

His love endures forever.

26 Give thanks to the God of heaven.

His love endures forever. (Psalm 136:23–26, NIV)

One more thought about how to restory - throughout history, God’s people have used art to reframe their experiences and beliefs. From the poets and prophets of Scripture, to more recent Christian painters, sculptors, architects, writers, photographers, and artisans, countless people have taken the world they found themselves in, and reimagined it more beautifully than they had first been led to believe. I think our own Maggie Paulus is a wonderful example of this.

It may be, that the best way for you to reframe your story literally involves a frame, or a poem, or a song, just for you and God… or maybe part of your calling is help others restory through your creativity.

So I’d like to close by reading one of my favorite poems as an example of what art might do for us. It is a poem by Malcolm Guite, a modern British poet, who himself wrote in response to a medieval poem, Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Through the Gate

Malcolm Guite

Begin the song exactly where you are

For where you are contains where you have been

And holds the vision of your final sphere

And do not fear the memory of sin;

There is a light that heals, and, where it falls,

Transfigures and redeems the darkest stain

Into translucent colour. Loose the veils

And draw the curtains back, unbar the doors,

Of that dread threshold where your spirit fails,

The hopeless gate that holds in all the fears

That haunt your shadowed city, fling it wide

And open to the light that finds and fares

Through the dark pathways where you run and  hide,

through all the alleys of your riddled heart,

As pierced and open as His wounded side.

Open the map to Him and make a start,

And down the dizzy spirals, through the dark

His light will go before you, let Him chart

And name and heal. Expose the hidden ache

To him, the stinging fires and smoke that blind

Your judgement, carry you away, the mirk

And muted gloom in which you cannot find

The love that you once thought worth dying for.

Call Him to all you cannot call to mind

He comes to harrow Hell and now to your

Well guarded fortress let His love descend.

The icy ego at your frozen core

Can hear His call at last. Will you respond?

COME TO THURSDAY NIGHT AT THE TAB

WORSHIP WITH THE BOARD AND SLT