Processing Life

 How accurate are you at processing life as it happens?   I’m sure you’re a pro.

    My daughter brought a graphic novel home from her school’s library this week, and she gave me a weird look when I asked her, “What is it teaching you?” 

“Nothing.  It’s not a teaching kind of a book, dad.”

   Whether we know it or not, and whether we intend it or not, the stories we tell do in fact teach a message.  As we looked at it together, it was making rather strong statements about good and evil, right and wrong, sin and righteousness.

   Many of the people who read my writings have read at least some of The Bible.  If you are among such people and if you look at The Bible for what it is, it isn’t a book of doctrine or systematic theology.  It is a book composed largely of stories.  Stories were even one of Christ’s greatest methods of teaching.

   Other than the parables of Christ, the stories we read about in Scripture are true stories.  So I often feel that our ability to grow as believers depends largely on our ability to process life itself.   We learn and we teach each other, whether intentionally or not, by the very lives we live, and the light in which we view life’s narrative.  The brush that paints the picture, often proves to be more significant than the events of the story itself.

   When we read life stories told from God’s perspective, it looks different than when the same events are told elsewhere.   Evil is called as evil, and righteousness as righteousness.  Dark is called dark, and light is called light.

  As we looked closer at my daughter’s graphic novel, in a very noticeable fashion, dark was portrayed as being light, and light was presented as if it were the darkness.  Similarly, sin was presented as if it were the right thing to do.  For a piece that wasn’t supposed to teach anything, it made some very strong statements.

     I have no idea whether or not the author had crafted his story with the intent of making sin look right.  I find it more likely, that in his heart, he really saw nothing wrong with sin, and wasn’t intentionally trying to convince someone of his way of thinking.  It just happens on its own.

  Similarly, our lives teach whether we know it or not; whether we intend it or not.  For all of the teaching I do, I get more feedback where people have been challenged, just from watching how I make decisions, love my children and live out my faith in Christ.  Likewise, more often than not, I find myself being convicted of sin, not by the preacher’s words, but from the conviction of a close friend. 

  Depending on the company we keep, it works the other way as well.  It’s easy to find comfort in our depravity when it’s affirmed in the lives of those who walk with us. 

  Considering that scripture is made up of real stories, written by God’s real people, I often find it odd when I hear of people who say that life’s experiences tell a different tale.  If your life’s story doesn’t sound like God’s story, why is that?      

  If you’re drawing different conclusions about life than God does, who’s wrong?